Attendees at Cinema Expo in Amsterdam heard how real progress is being made in getting themessage to consumers about copyright theft.

Jan Oesterlin,managing director of Zukunft KinoMarketing,explained that the problem in Germany was that previous education-oriented campaigns didnot show results, so a decision was made in September 2003 to become more aggressive.

Faced with the problem of"How to sell a product no one wants to buy, selling an idea that somethingis forbidden" his company decided to create bold but humorous commercialsfor theatre, TV and internet distribution aimed at catching public and mediaattention with the clear message that "copyright theft is a crime". Recently,they launched a viral commercial was launched with a football theme to tie-into the World Cup, which saw more than a million downloads in its first threeweeks.

Oesterlin explained that between 2003 and April 2006 thecampaign had reached 663.2m media contacts in the TV and print media,equivalent to more than $16.4m (Euros 13m) in advertising value.

The campaign also included a"prison on tour" giving people the chance to sit in a cell for fiveminutes and a campaign of naked actors on streets with the message that "movie thievescan't hide."

Results show 31% of Germansare aware of the campaign, with 64% awareness among the key 20-29 demographic thatmakes up the largest proportion of copyright thieves.

In a separate address atCine Expo, Dan Glickman of the MPAA noted that the US studios lose $6.1bn annually to movie theft and theworldwide industry loses $18.2bn.

John Fithian of the National Association of Theatre Owners (Nato) also provided the results of a 20,000-personinternational survey asking consumers "If you could get a movie throughmovie theft would you still go to the cinema'" The results were then usedto calculate approximate theatrical losses in different territories. Theseincluded: $246m in the UK, $321m in Germany, $558m in France, $276m in Spain, $134m in Italy and $57m in the Netherlands.