'Film industry loses up to Rs 4,000 cr to piracy'

The Indian film industry incurred a loss of Rs 3,000-4,000 crore last fiscal due to rampant piracy, a top production house official said.

Currently, the Indian film industry is pegged at Rs 14,000-crore but with piracy eating into its vitals, it loses a significant percentage of its earnings to video and music piracy, the official said.

"The film industry incurred a revenue loss of Rs 4,000- crore last year due to video piracy," Shemaroo Entertainment's Director, Hiren Gada said here.

Gada said that the video and music piracy market presently is estimated at around Rs 1,000-crore and was growing at an alarmingly rapid rate.

"The entire industry should unite to combat and overcome this menace," he said.

On the arrest of one of his employees by the Mumbai Crime Branch here recently in this regard, Gada said that though an employee, Kalapi Nagda, was arrested by the police in connection with alleged piracy of the film 'What's Your Rashee', the company had nothing to do with the incident.

"We strongly condemn such illegal activities and have our own anti-piracy team in place. We have strong ethics and the person's service has been terminated," he added.

Nagda was basically responsible for the overseas distribution activity of Shemaroo, Gada said, adding that the company was fully co-operating with the authorities in their investigations.

When asked about the number of pirated videos being sold in the global market, Gada said that about 90 per cent of the videos (volume-wise) sold were pirated.

Citing an example, he said "the Brussels Airport authority had intercepted 15,000 fake DVDs of our film 'Mere Baap Pehle Aaap' prior to its release in 2008."

On the measures needed to be taken to curb the menace, Gada said that the entire film and music industry should form a common forum and raise some funds to conduct an anti-piracy awareness campaign and sensitise people in this regard.

He further said the government should create a dedicated enforcement machinery to check violation of copyright and take stringent action against the culprits.