PIRATES OF ENTERTAINMENT

We have seen Rajnikant at his invincible best in more movies than we can remember. he dodges knives, bites bullets in his mouth, walks out of blasts unscathed, is pushed from mountain tops and he just dusts his trousers and is back again. Try as they might, they just can't get the better of him.
It seems the Indian piracy industry has taken a few lessons from Rajnikant. Bollywood has met its' nemesis in the Rs 50 pirated DVDs, available freely at bakdas (wooden stalls) at railway stations, market corners and pavement stalls across the country. As if that was not bad enough, the pirates have gone beyond borders with their wares getting stacked up in the Indian – run grocery stores overseas.
According to a trade source, "Every Thursday one can get an un released Bollywood film title along with the last four big releases on a pirated video DVD at Mumbai's Crawford Market, Chennai Burma Bazaar, New Delhi's Palika Bazar and many other grey markets across the country.''
No wonder brands like Moser Baer (who sell official DVDs and VCDs of Bollywood titles for as little as Rs 99 and Rs 49) still suffer losses. It is estimated that 25-30% of theatre and home video Bollywood revenues are lost to piracy each year, thanks to the video pirate whose network is so well-oiled.
Sporadic raids, are conducted in Mumbai on and off - where pirated videos worth Rs 1 crore (approx) are recovered, are relatively few and far in between. The industry would ideally like volcano eruption of such raids to make the piracy model unworkable.
While pegging a figure on the actual amount of money lost to piracy maybe be impossible, according to veteran industry sources, Bollywood loses almost Rs 1500 crore to piracy every year.''
And if you thought the target segment for the piracy was limited to those who find the theatre tickets un affordable, think again. Nor is it that the pirated products have a urban penetration alone.
Bollywood can bring down the percentage of flops by at least 50% if piracy, be it in the form of VDC's, DVD's or internet downloads, is controlled.''
Maybe we can call our own Rajni to fight this battle for us!!