Bollywood and Hollywood are losing Rs.20.5 billion (approximately $460 million) annually due to film piracy and the Indian industry should close ranks to prevent this, a lawyer fighting the malaise said Tuesday.
While the loss to Bollywood is Rs.17 billion, Hollywood is poorer by Rs.3.5 billion, said Chander M. Lall, a New Delhi-based advocate who is battling against film piracy on behalf of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
"In India, there are four industry associations and they can't seem to see eye-to-eye on this issue," Lall lamented at a press conference here.
"Fighting piracy is a big issue," he said, lamenting that filmmakers were not giving it the support they should.
Since Hollywood was also affected by piracy, the US industry was keen to fight Bollywood's battle in India and was increasing funding for this. Lall, however, declined to state the figure.
The anti-piracy campaign had been extended to Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra and involved training the police on how to tackle piracy, which Lall described as the "ugly side of filmmaking".
He said that in India, films were transported by ordinary courier services without adequate security and this aided in the piracy process.
lall cited the case of Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding", where tight security had managed to thwart illegal copying for weeks together, stepping up box office earnings.
He felt steep prices of cinema tickets - costing as much as Rs.200 in a Mumbai multiplex - also contributed to the piracy problem.
Lall said if audiences were willing to wait a few weeks after a film's release, they could borrow a pirated copy from a lending library for Rs 100 per day or even watch it "free on cable, provided you're willing to put up with the advertisements".
He said the Internet wasn't much of a problem in fuelling piracy in India, "but in the next two years, when broadband becomes a reality, you will see it becoming a challenge," Lall asserted.
At the same time, China, Malaysia and Thailand seemed to have a more serious problem than India.
"These countries are the biggest exporters of pirated films. India is not a significant exporter, but a user of pirated products," Lall maintained.
--Indo-Asian News Service