At any given point, a large selection of recent movies show up on torrent sites, many of which haven’t even been released yet. For anyone who downloaded, streamed, or torrented these yet-to-be-seen-in-theaters selections, you might have noticed one common theme among all of them: they were stuck at DVD quality.

This is no mistake, of course. But it’s the result of a problem that has plagued Hollywood since the days of Napster: how is it possible that movies make it onto illegal networks before they’re showing at the local movie theater, and why is it still happening in 2016?

The Formats

When pirates upload movies to the Internet, they’ll mark them in one of a few different formats. First, there’s the obvious pick: “CAM”. Short for “camera”, this tag implies that the movie had been recorded by a camera, snuck into the theater and set up during either a very late-night or early-morning showing where the perpetrator is unlikely to be caught.

RELATED:How Does BitTorrent Work?

These are generally the worst quality of the different options as the sound is poor, people can make noise in the theater that interrupts viewing, and getting a perfect 1:1 framing on a shot is basically impossible when you’re trying to take a video on the down-low.

Next there’s telesync, which for all intents and purposes is just another cam rip with slightly better audio (usually piped in from theaters that feature auxiliary jacks in the seats for the hearing impaired).

Some movies, however, carry the tag of “DVDSCR”. As you might guess from the acronym, this stands for a “DVD screener”, which is from a DVD copy of the movie sent to film critics, journalists, producers, and other film industry insiders ahead of the Academy’s annual show. Take, for example, this year’s holiday movies, which include the David O’ Russel biopic Joy and Quentin Tarantino’s latest The Hateful Eight. Both were found being distributed on the major torrent sites well before their official release date.

If a studio is pressing the release of a movie right up against the deadline of when the Oscar votes need to come in, often they’ll release their screeners weeks, sometimes even months ahead of the release in order to give judges enough time to deliberate over the quality of any given film.

How Screeners Leak

This is the underlying problem with the screener system. Despite all their noise about employing some of the “latest developments in anti-piracy technology”, the MPAA continues to mail out physical DVD screeners as soon as it comes time for the Oscar/Golden Globe judges to decide a movie’s worth for themselves.

Office 365 activation key free 2016. RELATED:Why HDCP Causes Errors on Your HDTV, and How to Fix It

On average, a film will be distributed to anywhere from a dozen to thousands of individual people and media outlets through physical snail mail on a watermarked DVD. But even with all the DRM capabilities in the world, the MPAA maintains that simply watermarking a DVD screener is enough to keep it from being pirated. These are either unseen bits of code in the DVD file itself that can trace where it’s been since being ripped, or even a visual watermark that appears periodically throughout the film indicating whose office the screener originally came from.

A good example of this is back in 2013 when a copy of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty leaked online with the watermark “Property of Ellen Degeneres” splashed across the screen, suggesting that the copy must have come from someone in her show’s production staff. Upon investigation, the MPAA learned that this watermark had actually been added by the hackers themselves in an effort to throw authorities off their scent, a tactic which looks to have worked just as intended.

Until the MPAA and the studios can get their own system straight of who’s leaking what and where, it’s unlikely that these wave of Oscar-voter destined DVDs will be staying off the web anytime soon.

The Problem With Piracy

It’s no secret that even though Hollywood posted its biggest take on record this year (a whopping $11.1 billion thanks to the release of Star Wars), these booming numbers are only propped up by the rapidly inflated cost of an individual ticket.

RELATED:How Can Studios Release High-Definition Versions of Decades-Old Movies and TV Shows?

In fact, the actual number of tickets sold globally (despite rising attendance in emerging markets like China) has plummeted continuously since 1996, and every day theater owners and movie makers alike are being forced to come up with increasingly inventive ways to convince consumers to leave their living rooms and make the trek to their sticky, soda-soaked seats.

And although this drop can be partly attributed to the increase in quality we’ve seen in our home theater setups, it’s also because since 1996, the availability of movies uploaded illegally online has exploded, making it easier than ever for anyone with an Internet connection to not only forego buying a ticket, but actually skirt around having to pay anything at all.

When a screener leaks online while a movie is out (or worse yet, before it’s even legally available), this makes it all too tempting for people who wouldn’t normally torrent to seek out different avenues of seeing a film.

Andy Baio from Waxy.org has been keeping a detailed spreadsheet of all the major Oscar winners in the past twelve years to track this trend, complete with the date the movie premiered paired with when its screener was leaked online. As you can see, some movies will leak online months ahead of their premiere date, all because the studios and Oscar voters (a large percentage of whom are over the age of 60) can’t be bothered to adapt to any sort of technology that was released past 2005.

If movie studios or the MPAA want to cut down on their losses due to piracy, they’re going to need to rethink the DVD screener system from the ground up. Some industry analysts have proposed that instead of sending these DVDs out into the wild with the hope that everyone keeps their scouts honor, simply hold private screenings for the movies over a personalized stream, possibly in a way that allows the studio to monitor the video output for any signs of ripping or DRM violations.

This way, instead of wantonly distributing the film on DVDs that can be easily stripped of their protections in a matter of minutes, the streams are opened and closed on a controlled channel between the studio and the viewing participant alone. All a voter would need to do is let the studio know when they intend on watching a copy, and a representative (this is what interns were made for, right?) stays with the movie from the opening credits until the last bell is rung. This removes the possibility that a DVD could be stolen from someone’s office and ensures that only a select audience gains access to a film before it’s released in theaters.

No matter what the studio system eventually adopts, it’s obvious that if they want to keep their movies where they belong (in theaters until the Blu-Ray release), they’re going to have to start getting a bit more inventive with the ways they try and woo the Academy to whip up another Oscar in their favor.

Image Credits: HGTV, Waxy.org

Scammers and dishonest P2P individuals use false torrents to phish people's identities, trick them out of their money, or vandalize their computers through malware infections.

Fortunately, you don't have to be one of those people. There are some obvious signs that a torrent file you're looking at is fake, or should at very least be dealt with carefully.

Below are 10 tips to help you spot a fake torrent movie or music file. Be sure to also check out our continually updated list of the top torrent sites!

Beware Lots of Seeds but No or Few Comments

Abusive uploaders will often falsify the number of seeds and peers. Using software tools like BTSeedInflator, these abusers will make their torrents look like 10,000 or more users are sharing it.

If you see these kinds of massive seed/peer numbers, but there are no user comments on the file, you would be wise to avoid that file!

Any true torrent that has more than a few thousand seeds should also have positive user comments. If not, you're probably looking at a fake/bad torrent.

Check for 'Verified' Status on the Torrent

Some torrent sites actually employ a committee of core users to confirm and 'verify' torrents.

Resident evil 4 game online free. While these verified files are small in number, they are very likely true torrents that can be trusted. Keep your anti-malware software updated and active, and 'verified' files should be safe to download.

Confirm the Movie Release Date with a Third Party

For brand new movie torrents, take a minute to visit IMDB and verify the release date.

If the torrent has been released before the actual movie date, then don't trust it.

Sure, there's a possibility that it could be the real thing, but much more often it's not, so beware.

You Can Usually Trust AVI and MKV Files (but Avoid WMA and WMV Files)

For the most part, true movie files are in either the AVI or MKV format.

Conversely, the great majority of WMA and WMV files are fake. Is uncharted for pc. While there are some authentic examples, files that end in the .wma and .wmv extensions will link to other sites to get paid codecs or malware downloads.

It's better to avoid those types of files completely.

Be Careful With RAR, TAR, & ACE Files

Yes, there are legit uploaders who use RAR archives to share files, but for movies and music, the majority of RAR and other archive type files are fake.

Torrent site abusers use the RAR format to conceal Trojan style malware and codec scam files. The video you're downloading is already compressed, so there's no need to compress it further in one of these formats.

If you see an attractive torrent movie file that is in the RAR, TAR, or ACE format, be very careful with it and examine its listed file contents before you download.

If there is no list of the contents, do not trust it. If the file list is disclosed, but it includes an EXE or other text-based instructions (more on those below), then move on.

Always Read the Comments

Some torrent sites like will capture user comments on individual files. Like eBay feedback on other eBay users, these comments can give you a sense of how legitimate the file is.

If you see no comments on a file, be suspicious. If you see any negative comments on the file, then move on and find a better torrent.

Beware if Password Instructions, Special Instructions, or EXE Files Are Included

If you see a file in the movie/music torrent that says 'password', 'special instructions', 'codec instructions', 'unrar instructions, 'important read me first', 'download instructions here', then the risk that this torrent is a scam or fake goes way up.

The instigator here is likely looking to redirect you to a shady website to download a dubious movie player as a precondition to opening the movie file.

Additionally, if there is an EXE or other executable file included, then most certainly avoid that torrent download. Executable files for movies and music should be a giant red flag!

EXE files and any passwords or special download instructions are likely a sign that you should find a better torrent download elsewhere.

Avoid Using the Following Software

Some torrent software clients have earned a bad reputation for seeding malware, fraudulent codec downloaders, keyloggers, and Trojans.

Our readers have repeatedly advised us to warn against using BitLord, BitThief, Get-Torrent, TorrentQ, Torrent101, and Bitroll.

Let us know if you disagree or have others for the list!

Beware Trackers that Can't Be Found on Google

Open the published torrent details, and copy-paste the tracker names into Google. If a tracker is legitimate, you'll see a number of Google hits where many torrent sites point to the copy-pasted tracker.

If the tracker is false, you will find many unrelated hits at Google, often with the words 'fake' as P2P users post warnings on that fake tracker.

Only Use These Media Players

These are plenty of trusted movie and music players for Windows, Mac, Linux, and your smartphone.

A few include WinAmp, Windows Media Player (WMP), VLC Media Player, GMPLayer, and KMPlayer.. among others, of course.

Do a quick Google search for any media player you're not familiar with. With so many reputable options, don't risk downloading and installing something you've never heard of. It might end up being nothing but malware!