Today it is easy for one to decide whether he wants to watch a movie at the multiplex or download it from internet without any cost. But while doing so, many fail to realise that illegal downloads add up to the huge losses that filmmakers incur in every movie that they produce.
Today in addition to the woes of physical piracy; digital piracy is something that is giving filmmakers nightmares and India ranks fourth in the list of illegal movie downloads! India is ranked fourth in the world when it comes to Illegal downloads, behind US, UK and Canada. This is the finding of the survey conducted by Motion Picture Distributors Association (MPDA) in conjunction with Envisional and DtecNet, two global firms engaged in providing software solutions to track and prevent piracy of digital content and online business.
It is not surprising that several film producers are approaching courts to protect their content. For instance, even before the release of the Tamil movie ‘3’ featuring the sensational Kolaveri Di, Harish Ram from Copyright Labs obtained something known as a John Doe Order from the Madras High Court. John Doe order is taken against unknown people to protect your content.
Just to give you an perspective of illegal downloads – Hindi Movie “Kaminey” was downloaded over 350,000 times on BitTorrent with around two-third of downloaders located in India alone ! Imagine the kind of revenue producers have lost.
Last year many Bollywood producers also obtained this court order. Sensing the seriousness of the issue and wanting to preempt any legal hassle, many ISPs recently pulled down various video sharing websites in the country. Downloaders across the country were greeted with ‘access blocked’ message.
However, some experts are of the opinion that blocking access to such websites cannot curb piracy as it is very easy for one to go around it and continue downloading movies. “There isn’t only one way to reach Delhi from Mumbai. You can go via Udaipur or Indore. So if one road is closed, people can access these websites in other ways,” Anurag Sharma, Director, Piracy Track told the channel.
Producers have many ways to track their content and act on the copyright infringer, like piracy track. This is one such software which provides an exact minute by minute data about digital piracy of your content. For example, this software revealed that the recently released movie Ishaqzaade was in the top 25 pirated movie list and so far has been downloaded 1, 46, 386 times worldwide, of which 72,884 was from India. One can only imagine what kind of money YRF must have lost only on the back of to digital piracy.
Now, this is just online – what about offline piracy, the street vendors who sell pirated CDs and DVDs – I am sure there count must be running in hundreds of thousands as well !
Here is a Fact to think about – According to an Ernst and Young 2008 report on “The Effects of Counterfeiting and Piracy on India’s Entertainment Industry”, the Indian film industry lost $959 million and 571,896 jobs due to piracy.
Today in addition to the woes of physical piracy; digital piracy is something that is giving filmmakers nightmares and India ranks fourth in the list of illegal movie downloads! India is ranked fourth in the world when it comes to Illegal downloads, behind US, UK and Canada. This is the finding of the survey conducted by Motion Picture Distributors Association (MPDA) in conjunction with Envisional and DtecNet, two global firms engaged in providing software solutions to track and prevent piracy of digital content and online business.It is not surprising that several film producers are approaching courts to protect their content. For instance, even before the release of the Tamil movie ‘3’ featuring the sensational Kolaveri Di, Harish Ram from Copyright Labs obtained something known as a John Doe Order from the Madras High Court. John Doe order is taken against unknown people to protect your content.
Just to give you an perspective of illegal downloads – Hindi Movie “Kaminey” was downloaded over 350,000 times on BitTorrent with around two-third of downloaders located in India alone ! Imagine the kind of revenue producers have lost.
Last year many Bollywood producers also obtained this court order. Sensing the seriousness of the issue and wanting to preempt any legal hassle, many ISPs recently pulled down various video sharing websites in the country. Downloaders across the country were greeted with ‘access blocked’ message.
However, some experts are of the opinion that blocking access to such websites cannot curb piracy as it is very easy for one to go around it and continue downloading movies. “There isn’t only one way to reach Delhi from Mumbai. You can go via Udaipur or Indore. So if one road is closed, people can access these websites in other ways,” Anurag Sharma, Director, Piracy Track told the channel.
Producers have many ways to track their content and act on the copyright infringer, like piracy track. This is one such software which provides an exact minute by minute data about digital piracy of your content. For example, this software revealed that the recently released movie Ishaqzaade was in the top 25 pirated movie list and so far has been downloaded 1, 46, 386 times worldwide, of which 72,884 was from India. One can only imagine what kind of money YRF must have lost only on the back of to digital piracy.
Now, this is just online – what about offline piracy, the street vendors who sell pirated CDs and DVDs – I am sure there count must be running in hundreds of thousands as well !
Here is a Fact to think about – According to an Ernst and Young 2008 report on “The Effects of Counterfeiting and Piracy on India’s Entertainment Industry”, the Indian film industry lost $959 million and 571,896 jobs due to piracy.