Wizard idea to check Potter piracy

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script><br /><img align="left" src="/photo/713933.cms" alt="/photo/713933.cms" border="0" />LONDON: Forty-eight hours before India and the world waits to be spellbound by Harry Potter’s third outing on the big screen, and the distributors have magicked up a wizard idea to prevent piracy.<br /><br />With privileged UK audiences pipping the world by four whole days- to first sight of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban</span>, night-vision goggles have been issued to staff at every British cinema hall screening the film.<br /><br />From the very first frame and the moment teenaged Potters trademark scar, tousled black hair and suburban Muggle relations appear on screen the staff scan audiences through the goggles.For the whole two-hour-22-minute run, they continue to check for pirates secretly using video cameras to record the grainy, poor-quality copies that had such rich pickings in Potter''s two previous cine <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">avataars.</span> <br /><br />Till late on Tuesday, industry experts said no unauthorised sightings had been reported on the Internet. As of now, Potter appears to be left undisturbed to continue his gripping third round of adventures with his chums Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, as they face the Dementors and escaped prisoner Sirius Black.<br /><br />Some analysts said Warner Brothers may have hit upon a superb, if labour-intensive magic charm to ward off the evil spell of piracy. Its thought the very whisper of night-vision goggles could send a shiver down the spine of 21st-century filmdoms biggest menace film pirates.<br /><br />The goggles have been distributed along with the heavily-protected, security-number-embossed copies of the film to all outlets of the cinema chain once known as Warner Village. One cinema manager, Jamie Graham, believes the extraordinary protection is testimony to Potter-mania, with the film and its characters becoming victims of their own success.<br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br />"I have been working in the cinema industry for 10 years and I have never heard of anything like this before," he said.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Harry Potter himself, aka 14-year-old actor Daniel Radcliffe, has paid tribute to the unique hold of Potter mania and the many gifts it has bestowed on him and the world.<br /><br />At a special meeting with the world''s media, including this paper, Radcliffe wryly admitted there would be a time for him to move and do other things.<br /><br />Asked if he minded being identified forever as a motherless, magical, half-Muggle wizard, he grimaced: That’s a cheerful thought isn’t it.<br /><br />But then, with his trademark inflappability, Radcliffe paid fulsome tribute to the boy wonder who has so thoroughly charmed the world: It would be silly to be angry that many will think of me forever as Harry Potter, because he’s given me so many things.<br /><br />Not least, a secure ranking among Europe’s teenaged millionaires. And that bit of witchcraft looks set to continue.</div> </div>