Pre-Release and Screener Protection

The most expensive leak is the early one

Every pirated copy costs something. A copy that leaks before release costs the most. It reaches audiences before your title is available anywhere legitimate, it sets the conversation before your marketing does, and it gives buyers in territories you have not sold yet a reason to renegotiate. Early leaks bring broken deals, shrinking windows and territory pull-backs.

Pre-release protection is about catching that copy where it first appears and removing it before it spreads. We have been finding and removing unauthorized copies for rights owners since 2013, and the window before release is where speed matters most.

Where pre-release copies come from

Before release, a title exists in more places than it seems:

• Festival and awards screeners, sent to programmers, juries and voters.
• Press and review copies, shared with critics ahead of embargo.
• Buyer and sales screeners, sent to distributors in territories you are still selling.
• Early cuts and work-in-progress copies, shared with partners during post-production.

Each of these is a point where a copy can escape the circle it was sent to. Once it does, it moves through the same routes as any other pirated copy: piracy streaming and download sites, cyberlockers, Telegram channels, social platforms and search results.

How we protect a title before release

We start watching early. Monitoring begins before your title is out, across the surfaces where leaked copies appear, in every language and territory the title is heading to. The first leaked copy is caught where it surfaces, not after it has been mirrored a dozen times.

We detect with precision. Every match is verified by our own technology and analysts before anything moves. Your trailers, teasers and promotional clips sit on a whitelist that we set with you before enforcement begins.

We take it down at the source. Confirmed copies go into takedown notices, delisting requests and platform escalation, carried through until the copy is gone. We act on the source as well as the link, so the file itself is removed and the sites trying to embed it find nothing there.

We keep it down. A leaked copy is re-uploaded quickly once it is out. Mirrors and re-uploads are tracked and handled as they appear.

Monitoring and watermarking

Watermarking helps you trace who leaked a copy. Monitoring and takedown find where the leaked copy is and get it removed. They answer different questions, and many rights owners use both.

Into release and beyond

When the title comes out, protection does not change hands. The same team keeps watching through the release spike, when piracy peaks, and into the long tail, where re-uploads and mirror domains keep appearing months later. See movie piracy protection for how that works after release.

What you see

Every copy found, where it was found and what happened to it, through a live dashboard and periodic reports. For a pre-release leak, that record is also what your team needs when it talks to partners about where a copy surfaced. Our customer success team stays reachable throughout.

Getting started

Tell us what you are releasing and when screeners go out, and we show you where your titles are surfacing today. First report free, 14-day trial, no obligation. Get your first report or talk to our team.