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T-town to brainstorm on piracy menace
Along with just a handful of hits, T-town is reeling under severe piracy in the last 100-odd days and industry bigwigs claim that more than Rs 40 crore has been lost in 35-odd releases during January 1 to April 9. Apart from big budget flicks from ‘Goplala Gopala’ to ‘Pataas’ and ‘Temper’ to ‘Surya Vs Surya’ to ‘Yevade Subramanyam’ to ‘Jenda Pai Kapiraju’ and even more recent ones like ‘Jill’ and ‘S/o Satyamurthy’
Hyderabad: Along with just a handful of hits, T-town is reeling under severe piracy in the last 100-odd days and industry bigwigs claim that more than Rs 40 crore has been lost in 35-odd releases during January 1 to April 9. Apart from big budget flicks from ‘Goplala Gopala’ to ‘Pataas’ and ‘Temper’ to ‘Surya Vs Surya’ to ‘Yevade Subramanyam’ to ‘Jenda Pai Kapiraju’ and even more recent ones like ‘Jill’ and ‘S/o Satyamurthy’ have lost nearly 20 per cent to 30 per cent of their revenues allegedly due to inefficiency on the party of Anti-Video Piracy Cell under the Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce.
With piracy going out of hands, the Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce is holding a special meeting on Monday to address producers’ growing concerns. “The present anti-piracy cell is inefficient and need to be revamped since producers of more than 35 -odd films have lost more than Rs 40 crore in this year alone due to online as well as physical piracy,” says Prassana Kumar, general secretary of the Telugu Film Producers’ Council.
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He claims that rampant piracy has affected even the openings of big and small films. “Earlier, pirated versions used to be uploaded after two or three days of the release but now, it is out on the same day, just 8 hours after the release of a film and collections of “Gopala Gopala” and the latest “S/o Satyamurthy” have lost huge sums since more than 100 rogue sites are active these days. There is an urgent need to curb these with iron hand,” he says. “Even on physical piracy, producers of “Pataas” have to seek the help of TDP MLA Maganti Gopinath. He alerted cops to nab culprits who were selling the pirated CDs in Ameerpet and Erragadda (while the film was running in theatres nearby).
“The plight of hapless producers who do not get such political help is unimaginable,” he adds. No such worries for ‘Power Star’ Pawan Kalyan since his die-hard fans protect his films. For instance, a fan who happened to travel in a private bus was shocked to watch the pirated version of “Gopala Gopala” being screened for the passengers, when it was running in theatres. The die-hard fan immediately altered his fan club members and in no time more than 70-odd fans turned up in the next bus stop and stopped the screening and booked complaint against bus owners.
Even though the Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce has a separate Anti-Video Piracy Cell to help producers in distress and act against rogue sites who upload new films, unfortunately they are unable to manage the piracy menace. “We heard that the persons at the cell are paid Rs 1.20 lakh per month but its complete waste of money as they are either unavailable most of the time or lack in monitoring skills. If we get in touch, they would give us another number to call up and it goes on.
Added to this, they would first ask us to get the web-links of rogue sites and then they would act upon it but it would take 24-hours time. It’s like, we have to run behind the robber and nab him and then handcuff him and drag him to police station. Only then they would put them behind bars. That’s their attitude,” says businessman-turned-producer Srininvas, who lost more than Rs 2 crore due to online piracy of his film “Karthikeya”.
“When we call them for help, they instruct us to first remit Rs 1 lakh in council and then only they would act on our complaint. They share some number with us to contact, while we are worried about 100-odd rogue sites screening our film on day 1 of the release and the print available is almost of DVD quality. Unwilling to trust anti-piracy cell, we engaged a private company “Ernesto Peck” who tracked down the rouge sites and reduced the uploaded number to 40 sites in no time,” he points out.
When contacted, N V Prasad, president of the Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce, admits that piracy has become a serious issue to be addressed. “We have received some complaints from producers and we have taken a serious note of it. In fact, we have organised a special meeting on Monday to discuss the menace of piracy and discuss the ways and means to curb it,” he said.
By:BVS Prakash
