The highly-anticipated 89th Academy Awards are less than a fortnight away and online piracy websites are being flooded with high quality copies of the latest movie releases. 

Suppliers of the copyrighted material take advantage of the fact that movie studios send advance copies of films - known as 'screeners' - to members of The Academy for their consideration in order to help them decide how to cast their Oscars vote.

Read more: Could you be in trouble with the law for using Kodi?

These DVD screeners are often sent out before the film's cinematic release, especially in the UK where movies often come out a month or two after the USA premiere. 

Glasgow Times:

Every Oscar Best Picture contender is now available on a popular torrent-based website using peer-to-peer distribution, where files are shared between computers worldwide.

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been buzzing with news of the latest screener releases and where to download them.

Email warnings will be sent to anyone using torrent sites like the Pirate Bay, Demonoid, TorrentDay, Extra Torrent and EZTV as part of the Get It Right campaign which launched in January. 

Read more: Five arrested for selling £250, 000 of pre-loaded TV boxes

The campaign was started by the Government after it emerged that an estimated 6.7 million people consumed at least one item of illegal content in 2016.

Sky, Virgin Media and BT are all sending out warnings on behalf of the campaign.

But it doesn't stop there. 

To curb the increasing searches for torrents and to decrease the visibility of such websites, the Government is going to crack down on search engines from June 1.

Glasgow Times:

Google, Yahoo and Bing have all pledged to reduce the piracy that is accessible to billions around the world using their search engines. 

These companies are on the brink of making a voluntary agreement with entertainment companies to tackle the appearance of infringing content links in search results, reports TorrentFreak.

Read more: The best Kodi add-ons you CAN use without breaking copyright laws

One thing is for sure - if you search for a pirated copy of a movie on the internet, even in incognito mode, you'll soon find it harder to get a legit link.