Indian film industry is on its knees and piracy is the reason

[Len]

The Indian film industry is the largest globally with around 1,000 movies being produced each year. Understandably, the revenue from this entertainment behemoth averages around $2 billion from film screenings, home videos and satellite rights.

Sounds all okay till now? But what if we told you that the piracy industry earns almost $2.7 billion, eating into legitimate revenue and jobs on a daily basis?

What was an oddity earlier has now become almost a daily affair these days with pirated copies of any film, big or small, making their way to computers and mobiles along with or immediately after the public release, in some cases, even before!

KABALI
When another Rajnikanth-starrer ‘Kabali’ was leaked online before its release, fans were devastated. Within a few days, the site which uploaded the pirated versions, Kickass Torrents, one of the most used websites for downloading films in India, was locked down. The founder was arrested in Poland. Coincidence? We think not!

KAALA
The Rajnikanth-starrer, already facing its fair share of troubles, was the latest to be hit by the piracy menace. Notorious piracy site Tamilrockers released the pirated version of the movie early Thursday morning, even as the first shows of the film were screened across Tamil Nadu. This came hours after it was reported that a man was arrested from Cathay in Singapore, after he streamed the movie from the cinema theatre via Facebook Live.

PREMAM
The Malayalam blockbuster’s dream run came to a halt when pirated watermarked censor copies surfaced online. A string of arrests, including those of school and college students, followed the resulting uproar. Censor board officials, studio directors and owners and even technicians who worked on the film came under the scanner.

SAIRAT
The critically and commercially successful Marathi movie was leaked when a 23-year-old mobile shop owner was arrested for selling the pirated copy of the film by transferring the file in pen drives and mobile phones of customers.

DUBIOUS DISTINCTION
Shah Rukh Khan-starrer ‘Raees’ and Hrithik Roshan’s ‘Kaabil’ were the most pirated Hindi movies of 2017, according to a report compiled by Germany-based company TECXIPIO GmbH. This doesn’t say much for the artistic tastes of the viewers — both the movies fared miserably at the box office. In India, the highest density of people watching illegally-downloaded movies was in major cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Bengaluru. Apart from them, neighbouring Pakistan showed high level of interest in downloading Bollywood films for free.

GREAT GRAND MASTI
The makers of the adult comedy confessed that release of pirated versions caused them huge losses. The copies were made available almost weeks before the official release of the movie, due to which the release date was preponed.

VEERE DI WEDDING
Starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania, the movie has been doing exceptionally well at the box office. However, it has been
made available on some torrent sites — both in average and HD quality print.

DILWALE
Produced by Red Chillies Entertainment, a production house promoted by actor Shah Rukh Khan, ‘Dilwale’ received a tepid response at the box office. Ironically, the film’s pirated version grossed a much higher amount than the original movie.

UDTA PUNJAB
The film won an epic battle with the Central Board of Film Certification, but couldn’t fight against the shadow industry. The entire print of the movie, complete with the censor’ watermark which marked it as the copy that had been sent to the CBFC for
certification.

AIYAARY
The embattled producers of this film were dealt a fresh blow when a pirated version of the movie was played on a Maharashtra state-run bus, that runs between Mumbai and Pune. Some passengers on board raised objections to the film being played and took to
social media to share the incident.

MANJHI – THE MOUNTAIN MAN
The Nawazuddin Siddiqui-starrer opened to a slow response due to a leaked preview copy that went online before the release of the movie. The movie, even though hailed for brilliant acting and a great storyline, failed to make an impact in terms of revenue.

JESSIE
Director Pavan Wadeyar had a narrow escape when he found out about the leak of his Kannada movie in Chennai, hours after he left the city after finishing work on the blueray version of his film. Timely measures helped in retrieving the film and controlling the extent of the leak.

PADMAAVAT
On the same day that Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s controversial project was released, admins of a Facebook page telecast the movie on a Facebook live from inside a theatre.
There were over 15,000 shares of the post.