BLACK-MARKETEERS PLUNDERING `TITANIC' VIA BOOTLEGGED VIDEOS.

Byline: Eric Wahlgren Daily News Staff Writer

Modern-day pirates selling bootlegged tapes of the world's top-grossing film, ``Titanic,'' are commandeering a boatload of the movie's revenues - before it's video release is even scheduled.

About 140 of 200 video pirates arrested in a recent crackdown in New York were hawking copies of the movie, said Ken Jacobson, director of the Motion Picture Association of America's anti-piracy office in the United States.

And Los Angeles police recently cited a bootlegger for selling illegal copies of the movie in the city's garment district, said Sgt. Suzanna Bower of the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Division.

Since the beginning of the year, the motion picture association has seized 37,000 bootlegged tapes of all movies in New York, Jacobson said. He didn't know how many have been grabbed in Los Angeles and he wouldn't estimate how many were of ``Titanic.'' But he said the black market for this year's winner of the Best Picture Oscar is huge.

`` `Titanic' is clearly being illegally copied on a substantial basis,'' Jacobson said.

``It is the most successful motion picture that has ever been produced. Obviously, it has created enormous public interest out there and at the same time has created an enormous pirate market for illegal copies.''

The tapes, often packaged in a sleeve containing artwork from promotional campaigns for the movie, go for about $10 dollars on the street, Jacobson said.

``They run from very poor quality to viewable, but they are not the kind of quality you would see from a regular, nonpirated video,'' he said.

Paramount, the movie studio handling the domestic release of the blockbuster starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, has not set a date for when the movie will be available on video. So far the film has raked in $1.56 billion worldwide, blowing away the previous $913 million record set by ``Jurassic Park.''

Jacobson said shutting down bootleggers selling ``Titanic'' tapes is merely part of the MPAA's overall campaign to apprehend video pirates, but that the movie's popularity has raised the profile of anti-piracy efforts.

Anyone caught selling more than 100 illegal copies of any movie in California could face up to five years in prison and as high a fine as $250,000, Jacobson said.

Video piracy means local governments lose out on sales tax and studios and their employees lose out on revenue from the films they make, he said.

``You have to remember that pictures are made by hundreds of people from the top studio execs to people who do construction on the sets,'' Jacobson said. ``Everybody has an interest in the movie and in the studio getting a fair share of the revenue back.''

According to the association, authorities seized 575,000 illegal video cassettes last year. The illicit industry costs studios more than $250 million in United States markets and $2.5 billion worldwide in lost revenue, the organization estimates.

Dorrit Ragosine, a Paramount spokeswoman, said the studio believes some of the illegal copies were made from screening tapes that were sent to the more than 5,300 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The tapes are mailed with warnings against illegal copying, but Ragosine said pirates succeeded in obtaining some.

For its part, the academy, which awarded ``Titanic'' a record-tying 11 Oscars, looks down on the studio practice of sending screening copies to its members, said John Pavlik, an academy spokesman.