The Hindu Business Line : Motion picture body maps piracy hotspots

Hyderabad, July 29Worried over the increasing menace of piracy, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has mapped the hotspots of piracy in India and across the borders.

“We have mapped the spots and nexus. But what we need to do is a sustained and coordinated effort to break this forever,” Mr Anil Nayer, Director of Operation (MPA-India), told Business Line.

The pirates have started using all sorts of methods — getting a camcorder version in a CD and exporting it across the border and churning out a master copy from it. It, then, would go to the ‘factories’ that multiply in thousands in no time.

The other method is using telecine machines (converting a motion picture into an electronic version) to get the first copy and then multiplying it. “You can check out the flight timings (after a movie is released) to know how exactly the first copy goes out of the country,” he said.

“We do have our own ‘manufacturing’ lines in India. The number could be up to 27,” Mr Chander M. Lall, Managing Partner of Lall and Sethi Advocates and an expert in piracy-related legal issues.

For MPA members alone, the losses in India are put at 29 per cent (of a total pie of $250 million). Of the total loss of $6.1 billion in 2005 due to piracy globally, MPA members lost some $1.2 billion in Asia alone, throwing up a major challenge.

“But MPA developed a mechanism to pin point the leakage and fixing it,” he said.

Citing the example of ‘Monsoon Wedding’, he said they could see to it that there was no pirated version for the first seven weeks.

They, however, regretted the inertia of the Indian film industry in tackling the problem. “They are not looking at a wide variety of windows like satellite rights and overseas rights that can generate revenues. Their view is short-sighted,” Mr Lall said.

Asked whether releasing the movie in hundreds of cinemas could solve the problem, they said it was no answer as the pirates still could make money.

The RoI (return on investments) was an astonishing 800 per cent in piracy. “Piecemeal efforts like booking cases against local shops and cable operators are no solution. Conviction would take a long time. Unless and until you pin down the guy doing the multiplication, you can’t solve the problem,” they said.

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