Picture this. Ghajini released on Thursday, the 25th of December, 2008. On 27th December, Saturday morning, the DVD hawker outside my apartment was selling copies of Ghajini along with Rab Ne Bana De Jodi that had released a fortnight ago for 50 bucks. For a family to see the latest blockbuster in a multiplex in a city like Bangalore would cost no less than Rs. 1,000. Lack of affordable entertainment to the middle-class and proper infrastructure in tier-II cities is one of the main reasons for piracy being a booming business in India.
Business Standard reports:
Like many Indians, author and socialite Shobhaa De confesses she has watched Slumdog Millionaire on a pirated CD, much before its release in India.
The pirated copy of the movie is available for free on a number of peer-to-peer websites. Some of the accessed sites for downloading the movie are desibbrg.com, rapidshare.com, bhejafry.net and isohunt.com among others.
However, this is not restricted to Slumdog Millionaire (Slumdog Crorepati in Hindi) alone, as pirated versions of most of the recent big-budget movies are available for free downloading on the web. The copies of the recent big-budget movies such as Ghajini, Chandni Chowk to China and Rab Ne Bane Di Jodi were also available much before their release.
Piracy had cost Indian film and entertainment business a whopping $4 billion last year, with the film industry alone taking a hit of over $1 billion, according to an Ernst & Young and US-India Business Council study. Another independent study, puts the global entertainment industry losses over $18.2 billion as of 2008.
Yes, that's a staggering loss of over $18.2 billion in a year. In tier-II cities such as Trichy in Tamil Nadu, the same set of three latest movies in a DVD is available at one-third of the cost for Rs. 20. If one buys in a bulk, then it still lesser as compared to the standard Rs.50 in Bangalore. A few years ago, the piracy racket was busted and it was hard to get a DVD for atleast three weeks after the movie's release. That's now history. What intrigues me is the openness of the trade in metros. It's a common sight to see traffic police pick up these DVDs from the road-side vendors who are by the dozen at every major avenue/traffic intersection, doing brisk business. The only cost they incur is the cost of DVD which more often than not is reused.
The latest story doing the rounds is how Slumdog Millionaire tanked at the Indian box-office because of piracy.
The story is the same with paperback books sold on footpaths.
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