Well I am glad some action is being taken, necessary for a film industry which is loosing 400 Cr INR appx annually in film piracy.A recent study estimates that India's entertainment industry loses $4 billion, and 800,000 jobs, each year, because of piracy. So what makes the piracy industry thrive? Simple answer - where there is demand there is supply. In this case the supply could be over the internet or at your local video store.Enticing the consumer with how "with-in" the reach is the supply (nominal fee or even free). How many of us have said they will
watch the movie in the theater and then gave into the temptation of watching it online or on DVD? We see "Say no to piracy" ad campaign telling us how Pirated movies sacrifice on content and quality. Wake up guys! In this digital age - Pirated movies available online are in DVD format or PDVD format
released on Friday or maximum before the weekend is over, which play seamlessly for the entire length of the film aka not all pirated
movies online have to be in parts. So Price is right, Time is Right, and in recent cases even the Quality is decent. This is the piracy product (NO I AM NOT ADVOCATING PIRACY)
Now lets look at the consumer-Lets see why people give into the "watched pirated movie" temptation.
1. One can't go to the theater every single week and possibly watch all the movies releasing -people have busy lives.
2. One can't go alone to the theater(true there is no rule like that, but seriously how many of us do?) - which means gathering up your friends/relatives/bf/gf and making a plan
3. If its a big banner movie - buy tickets in advance -if you are in India -weeks in advance, if you are abroad, say in USA then yes buy a day in advance and pay a premium price. (we'll save that one for later)
4. Fear being "separated" while watching the movie. So you made the plan, you have the tickets..guess what you're not sitting together. Again- in India -perhaps because the ticket counter dint give you adjacent seats - yeah watch out. or USA- cause you dint get their 1 hr in advance to stand in line to get a good seat)
5. Price. In USA all theater's except AMC's which run Indian movies charge a premium price (10/11 $ as apposed to 8$ ). (In India i heard the price was 200-700Rs).
6. If you are not in India - not all movies play near you (recent case in point - AMC was not playing Dil Bole Hadippa) and it would be couple of months before the Official DVD comes out.
7. Your parents or elders of the house would like to see the movie but you cant really subject them the rush at the theater due to health reasons.
Ah, so many reasons- so how does Hollywood Handle it? Yeah they have string rules against Piracy but wait they also have leakage thanks to the thriving Chinese Piracy market. Apart from the FBI warnings and there is one thing which they are doing for some movies which seems to be catching on.
The Solution? Same Day as Theater on Pay-Per-View! All of us have cable tv or dish tv (even in India with TataSky), all of us have On Demand/Pay per-view. I really think if we could watch our Indian movies same day or hec even 2 days later on Pay-Per-view as they released in theater,most reasons for watching them on pirated dvd go away. The consumer can watch right from the comfort of their homes, in great print WITHOUT piracy and in effect while making the producers some money. Recently DirectTV, USA is also contemplating a feature that it will delete any Pay-per-View recordings within a given time frame.Sure those who love watching it on 70mm will still go to theater and not all movies may be provided for pay-per-view immediately but its a start.
Rajshree Films has taken a step by providing some of their movies online free of charge.We know as big an industry Piracy is, it cannot be eliminated by just one solution. However just as arrests are being made, the distributors and producers should thinking of exploring alternate ways of film distribution. And FAST!
Now lets look at the consumer-Lets see why people give into the "watched pirated movie" temptation.
1. One can't go to the theater every single week and possibly watch all the movies releasing -people have busy lives.
2. One can't go alone to the theater(true there is no rule like that, but seriously how many of us do?) - which means gathering up your friends/relatives/bf/gf and making a plan
3. If its a big banner movie - buy tickets in advance -if you are in India -weeks in advance, if you are abroad, say in USA then yes buy a day in advance and pay a premium price. (we'll save that one for later)
4. Fear being "separated" while watching the movie. So you made the plan, you have the tickets..guess what you're not sitting together. Again- in India -perhaps because the ticket counter dint give you adjacent seats - yeah watch out. or USA- cause you dint get their 1 hr in advance to stand in line to get a good seat)
5. Price. In USA all theater's except AMC's which run Indian movies charge a premium price (10/11 $ as apposed to 8$ ). (In India i heard the price was 200-700Rs).
6. If you are not in India - not all movies play near you (recent case in point - AMC was not playing Dil Bole Hadippa) and it would be couple of months before the Official DVD comes out.
7. Your parents or elders of the house would like to see the movie but you cant really subject them the rush at the theater due to health reasons.
Ah, so many reasons- so how does Hollywood Handle it? Yeah they have string rules against Piracy but wait they also have leakage thanks to the thriving Chinese Piracy market. Apart from the FBI warnings and there is one thing which they are doing for some movies which seems to be catching on.
The Solution? Same Day as Theater on Pay-Per-View! All of us have cable tv or dish tv (even in India with TataSky), all of us have On Demand/Pay per-view. I really think if we could watch our Indian movies same day or hec even 2 days later on Pay-Per-view as they released in theater,most reasons for watching them on pirated dvd go away. The consumer can watch right from the comfort of their homes, in great print WITHOUT piracy and in effect while making the producers some money. Recently DirectTV, USA is also contemplating a feature that it will delete any Pay-per-View recordings within a given time frame.Sure those who love watching it on 70mm will still go to theater and not all movies may be provided for pay-per-view immediately but its a start.
Rajshree Films has taken a step by providing some of their movies online free of charge.We know as big an industry Piracy is, it cannot be eliminated by just one solution. However just as arrests are being made, the distributors and producers should thinking of exploring alternate ways of film distribution. And FAST!
No comments:
Post a Comment