As the Hollywood studiosstep up their war on piracy and the causes of piracy, Dolby Laboratories hasjoined the fray with the acquisition of Cinea, a Virginia-basedcontent-protection and anti-piracy technology company.

Cinea will operate as awholly owned subsidiary of Dolby while its staff and offices will remain inVirginia.

Cinea chief executiveofficer and founder Robert Schumann becomes head of the new Dolby subsidiaryand will report to Tim Partridge, vice president of Dolby Laboratories'professional division.

Since its inception in 1999to create and market content protection solutions for the entertainmentindustry, Cinea has developed expertise in a range of fields including hardwareand software security, watermarking and camcorder anti-piracy.

"Content is increasinglybeing delivered digitally, and unauthorised use of digital content can haveserious consequences for the content owner," Partridge said in a statement.

"Content protection has thusbecome an ever more important element in enabling the delivery of high-qualityentertainment.

"Cinea has proven expertisein this important area and is an ideal complement to Dolby's audio and imageexpertise."