It is a damning report. The New York-based Rand Corporation’s 182-page report, ‘Film piracy, organized crime and terrorism’ essentially says film piracy is increasingly becoming a way to finance terrorism. It draws examples from North America, China, Spain, Italy, Hong Kong, and India, among other countries, to show that from being a side business for organised crime syndicates, piracy has moved to being a revenue stream for terrorist outfits. They use the same network that smuggles arms, et al, to smuggle stolen films and entertainment products. It is safer than drugs and offers better margins.

The Rand Corporation is a US-based non-profit research agency that tackles challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. It says Brazil, China, Malaysia, Pakistan and Russia are among the countries where film piracy is most active. That means these countries are hubs for the actual counterfeiting operations. Almost every country is a big consumer of pirated films. China is the largest market in the world for pirated films by volume. “Piracy operations in China also extend to the Chinese diaspora operating in other countries,” it says.

The report, whose research was financed by a grant from the Motion Picture Association (MPA) was released last year but doesn’t seem to have shaken the Indian film industry out of its stupor. While it has been quoted by the odd film company CEO, says Harish Dayani of Moser Baer, it has found no mention at most of the big industry events.

Nor is it used as a lobbying lever with the government or as an argument to convince consumers, most of whom have no qualms about seeing a pirated film, that piracy is wrong.

“We are quoting it, but there is no concerted effort,” agrees Hiren Gada, director, Shemaroo Entertainment. The problem, he says, is that there are too many people with different interests. Multiplex owners think piracy bothers home video guys. Production firms think that once they have sold the rights, why bother, it is the hassle of the distribution company and so on. There are, points out Gada, some half a dozen different associations, each with different leaders and agendas. “This industry consists of individuals,” says Dayani, who’s tried very hard to rally film folk around these issues.

He reckons the industry has already lost Rs 400 crore this year to piracy. He points to the fact that very few films are doing well. “It is not that we did not make bad films earlier. We did, but even those did 35-40 per cent business. Why, then, are we now opening with eight and 10 per cent?” he asks. The point – that piracy on the net and on DVD is eating away at what little a film could have made. Moser Baer had to change direction last year, when its low-cost DVD and VCDs launched in 2007 to fight pirates on their price did not do as well.

Finally, Moser Baer, along with three other bodies, formed an anti-piracy coalition in March this year. These are UTV Motion Pictures, Moser Baer, the MPA and Reliance Entertainment. The four companies/bodies have contributed a corpus of Rs 50 lakh each, taking the total to Rs 2 crore. This money would be used to fight piracy through consumer education campaigns and raids. Many in the industry believe strongly that the two must go together. They point to Hong Kong, a major hub of piracy till the authorities decided to crack down.

It is telling that no other company in the industry’s value chain – multiplex chains (PVR, INOX, Cinemax, etc) or single-screen chains (UFO Moviez) has yet joined this fight. This stupor is silly, considering that the industry leaders, Yash Chopra, for instance, have at every public forum asked for government support to combat piracy. Why are the major film companies not starting the fight themselves? Maybe piracy is not yet pinching them hard enough.

source: Business Standard

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