‘Tough laws,awareness can curb movie piracy’

“With more and more people using broadband Internet,online piracy is on the rise at an alarming rate. Local police are taking steps to catch people involved in piracy within their jurisdiction but this is not enough. In order to curb piracy effectively,we need more coordination with international organisations so that whenever the source for a pirated movie is located in another country,we can ask the local police there to follow up on the lead and take the required legal course,” he said.

Besides the lack of strict legislation,public unawareness also makes it difficult to crack down on piracy. Rajiv Dalal,managing director of MPDA (Motion Pictures Distribution Association),which has brought together Hollywood and Bollywood studios to crack down on piracy claims that the common perception of video piracy being a victimless crime has to be changed. “The most significant challenge that the authorities face is to raise public awareness about the harms of piracy. The common man views piracy as a victimless crime,but that is not the case. A recent study by the RAND Corporation,an international think tank,has indicated that film piracy funds terrorism and organized crime in India. If the common man knew that his purchase of pirated goods was funding organized crime and terrorism,he would think twice about his purchase and no longer view piracy as a victimless crime,” he says.

In order to spread public awareness,the MPDA has recently inaugurated a comic book revolving around the theme of Internet movie piracy which illustrates the dangers of downloading movies. The comic book,a story about two boys trapped in a virtual city after downloading a movie from a site,is to be distributed amongst the youth. Around 10,000 copies are planned for distribution in an initial release phase. “The comic has been endorsed by the Department of Information Technology,Mumbai Police,Data Security Council of India (DSCI) and the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM). We will also be working with the Ministry of Human Resource Development to try and get the comic book in primary school curriculum,” said Dalal.

This year alone,the police seized pirated CDs and DVDs worth Rs 1.42 crore in various raids in the city. “The menace of piracy in India is serious. According to the US India Business Council report in 2008,the Indian film industry lost US $959 million and 571,896 jobs due to piracy. That is a significant revenue loss to the private sector as well as to the government. India is among the top 10 countries in the world with the largest number of illegal downloading activities. Similarly,90% of all piracy begins with an unauthorized recording by camcorders in theatres on opening weekend of a film’s release. We also plan to work with exhibitors to curb these issues,” Dalal added.