Digital piracy back into business-Thalaivii leaked on sites

Reena Poonacha

Kangana Ranaut’s Thalaivii full movie is for free download in Tamilrockers, Movierulz, and others; Digital Piracy is in play
Within few hours after the Thalaivii hit the theatres, the movie was reportedly leaked on torrent sites and other piracy networks. According to Bollywoodlife reports, the film is available for free streaming on various piracy websites.

Given to the lock down situation and with no much of theater release of movies people are dividing their time between television, video streaming platforms and pirated content, In India film piracy rose 62% in India in March 2021 and still on rise .
With is no box office to judge the value of the film, filmmakers and VoD services are likely to operate on revenue sharing basis in some cases, and divide profits based on how the film performs on the platform. Pirating from these services will take away significant portion of their revenue.
Film lovers often support piracy as they get to watch the latest movies online at free of cost. However, this has led to a decrease in the number of audiences that go to movie theatres to watch newly released films.

It is said, Indians are the largest group of visitors to Indian content-focused torrent sites and also constitute the largest or second-largest group of people who visit major international bit-torrent sites like Mininova, Torrentz and The Pirate Bay.These sites do illicit business that moves huge sums of money.
Madras Rockers is one of the websites that allow users to downloaded pirated films for free. The portal is mainly responsible for leaking Tamil and Tamil-dubbed films before their release or as soon as they hit theatres.
If a person knowingly supports piracy or downloads copyrighted movie from these piracy websites, it could be considered a criminal act. Under the piracy law, the person can be convicted for a jail term and also given a fine between Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakhs, depending upon the seriousness of the offence.
Offense constitutes “viewing, downloading, exhibiting, or duplicating an illicit copy of the contents […] and it is punishable as an offence under the laws of India, including but not limited to under Sections 63, 63-A, 65, and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957.”
An organized hosting and distribution process, comprised of a network of agents that monetize their illegal activity in various ways, enters action from the moment a pirated copy is first posted online and shared, making piracy a lucrative business.
The illegal copy is done through various methods such as Recording at the theater , termed as “In-Theater Recordings’, DVD or Blu-ray Originals. Coping of the content using digital recording software and/or hardware, Leaks of Original Copies and Streaming Recordings. Using Subscription Video-on-Demand services (SVoD), such as Netflix or WuakiTV, and so on. Any user can record streamed content using a PC software plugin with hardly any advanced computer knowledge.
Policymakers should continue to protect creators of the content and restrict consumers of piracy viewing by enforcing stricter rules which would enormously deter piracy going forward