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The big bleed

V S Srinivasan

Closed studios during the industry strike against piracy. Click for bigger pic!

Ram Punjabi of In Cablenet, which is part of the In Mumbai network, was killed recently. And while there are doubts it could be just a new breakout of hostilities between operators, some suspect it could be a fall-out of the new tussle between the cable and film industries.

If the latter, it could be because the cable operators hadn't taken the matter seriously enough. Take the case of the stay order producer-director Vidhu Vinod Chopra obtained from a court prohibiting the broadcast of his film Kareeb on any cable network.

Chopra also hired the services of Top Capre, a security agency, to monitor every move of the cable operators, to catch them red-handed, if possible. He challenged that even camera prints would not find their way out. Kareeb, he promised with finality, would not find its way to homes via cable. And so, he said, people would be forced to pay for tickets and fill the theatres.

It was a forlorn hope indeed. Kareeb did find its way into homes, as did Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha, also managed by Top Capre.

If Vidhu Vinod Chopra was just shown up, the rash of Satya hit Ram Gopal Varma's earnings considerably.

Madhuri Dixit and Aamir Khan at the Maharashtra chief minister's office. Click for bigger pic!

"Satya was shown thrice on cable on the same day in Delhi," he said. "They had a proper set of three shows," he laughs. Naturally, the film did not do well there. Hadn't there been such rampant piracy in Delhi, says Shyam Shroff of Shringar Films, he could have made about three times as much as he actually did.

Of course, the volatile Vidhu Vinod Chopra is livid.

"The man who is showing my film on his cable network is a thief. He is a dacoit of the first order because, in the first place, he has not paid for the rights. Without investing even a single rupee on my film, how can he show my film on his cable network and get away with it?"

Chopra managed to get couple of operators nabbed when they were about to receive their consignment of illegal cassettes through a courier company. Video cassettes of both Kareeb and Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha were seized. But still copies of these films still leaked through and were shown in some parts of the city.

Yash Chopra, who had taken cudgels against pirates to stop them screening his film Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge had even got a cassette that had come in from Dubai confiscated. A camera print from Karnataka was also nabbed. But despite stray efforts like this, piracy has only increased.

"The problem is that there is a lack of law enforcement," says Sheorey. "There are laws formulated 14 years ago. Cable operators have being nabbed, but then let off. No one is being punished. There has not been a single conviction all these years," he rues.

Sivaji Ganesan

Despite laws being in place stating that any person found in possession of illegal could get between six months and three years of rigorous imprisonment, there have been no convictions, the trouble being piracy is still not considered a serious crime, even the upholders of the law.

Till recently film-makers didn't like it but, despite the occasional protest, didn't do much. But things changed recently as a shortage of funds hit the industry, forcing them to take cognisance of the problem. And so the industry struck work for one day and placed petitions before the authorities. The correct complaints made and the proper promises taken, the barons of the industry returned home.

For despite the presence of stars like Madhuri Dixit, Aamir Khan and Sunil Shetty, many other actors did not participate.

"There has to be a sense of unity among us all," says KD Shorey, secretary of the Film Federation of India and the convenor of the Forum against Cable Piracy.

"Piracy is affecting the lives of five million people who are directly or indirectly employed by the film industry. There are one million people employed directly by the industry, including technicians, fighters and artistes.

Click for bigger pic!

"The artistes, however, form just 10 per cent of the entire strength of the industry. The remaining four million are those who work at theatres, canteen boys, watchmen.... Their livelihood is at stake here," he says. But are cable operators willing to step down on piracy? Apparently not.

A cable operator who is a major player in the central suburbs said. "See, the price of tickets have risen considerably. If a man wants to go with his entire family and see a film, he could spend a thousand rupees...

"The easier way, of course, is to watch the film without paying anything at all. He is definitely going to ask me to put it up. I can't refuse, because then he will go to another operator.

"If we have to retain our viewers, we have to provide them with the latest releases. We try to show films for which we have the legal rights, but if a producer has not sold his rights for fear of piracy, what can we do? We have no other option but to show the camera print. We have to survive...."

Down south, in Madras, the stars, including Rajnikant and Sivaji Ganesan, united in a morcha to the secretariat, to impress upon the Tamil Nadu government that it needed to take corrective measures to stop cable piracy. Films there are already in trouble, with satellite channels like Sun, Vijay, Raj etc showing almost two films every day on their networks.

Jagjit Singh Kohli of cable provider In Mumbai, said in a statement, "We are also losing out a lot because of the cable piracy. We aren't showing new films on our network. In fact, we are taking steps to curb piracy. We have a channel called CVO where we telecast films for which we have rights. It will certainly affect our business, if the films are shown by cable operators."

Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Click for bigger pic!

The same applied with the Siticable network. A spokesperson claimed its operators too weren't showing new films. "We are taking proper steps to ensure that," he said.

The gratuitous use of new films has had its affect on a cash-strapped industry. Already, there have been just 21 muhurats this year compared to 96 in the last.

Says fight master-turned-producer Yajnesh Shetty, "The cablewallahs are fools. They don't realise that once the industry is affected, they too will be hit. If there are no new films being made, what will they show the audience. As such the industry is doing badly because of the fact that the scripts are not fine and moreover there is a threat of the underworld too. And then there is the piracy."

"Proper steps should be taken to curb piracy. The police have a very important part to play in it," says Chopra.

While the industry has not won the war, a small battle was won recently, when a small film called Tirchi Topiwale starring Chunkey Pandey and Inder Kumar was released, without a single pirated copy turning up anywhere. And praise is being heaped on the efforts of additional commissioner, crime S D Pardhi for having men monitor piracy.

But cable operators aren't upset. They say these security agencies and the cops take money from them and allow them to screen films with impunity

"No one can stop us showing these films. Even if someone complains and we get arrested, we will certainly come out soon. There are so many loopholes..."