Entertainment group Village Roadshow has just bought a strategic stake in Linius Technologies Limited, an ASX-listed video streaming company developing anti-piracy technology.

The $1 million private placement of ordinary shares to Village Roadshow Ltd is on top of a $500,000 invested by the Kirby family. Robert Kirby is co-executive chairman of Village Roadshow.

The deal, for 30 million ordinary shares at $0.05 a share, gives Kirby and Village about 9% of Linius.

A short time ago, Linius shares were up 7.4% to $0.05.

“We have followed the Linius story closely and are delighted to back the business with direct investment,” Kirby. “We can see many applications for the technology across the video industry.”

Village Roadshow, a leading voice in fighting the online piracy of movie content, is particularly interested in the anti-piracy solutions that Linius is developing.

Chris Richardson, CEO of Linius, says he’s pleased to be working with Village in the global fight against video piracy.

“Village Roadshow sees the value in Linius’ virtualisation technology and the potential to stem piracy and create new revenue streams for studios and distributors,” he says.

Linius expects to use the cash from the equity injection to help commercialise its patented product, the Linius Video Virtualisation Engine.

The engine transforms static video files into agile, dynamic files that can be easily manipulated on the fly to deliver an enhanced, custom experience.

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