Some brakes at last on cable piracy?

By Prashant Pandey

NEW DELHI, NOV. 16. Armed with the advantage of drawing room privacy and easy availability of pirated prints, cable piracy has been holding the film industry to ransom. Now, after the distressed industry approached the Government, some help seems to be coming its way.

To begin with, the Government has decided to set up an information base -- containing the names of film producers, films and the rights owners -- to enable mega-system operators and cable networks to approach them for movie rights. To ensure continuous discussion between the two, a committee has been set up.

At another level, a toll-free helpline -- 1600-11-22-77 -- has been instituted by the Motion Pictures Association (MPA) to tip them off if a new film is beamed anywhere so that authorised investigators can conduct raids and stop the telecast. ``This alone is not enough. The entire industry has to come together,'' says Mr. Chander M. Lall, an advocate working with MPA.

Sources say cable piracy accounts for up to 50 per cent of the total losses inflicted on film-makers by various forms of piracy. ``Cable operators run new films on their channels affecting their performance in theatre. After some time, the producer demands a lump sum from the operator to salvage part of his huge loss.''

Many operators leave a couple of channels free for beaming the latest movies. This earns them huge revenues from advertisers. For their part, operators blame it on market demand.

``If piracy is not stopped completely, survival will become difficult,'' says Mr. Atul Wason of Ten to Ten Cable Network. A common refrain among operators is that if the latest movie is beamed by a network in the neighbourhood, it becomes necessary for them to follow suit to stop subscribers from switching loyalty.

At a recent meeting, cable operators proposed that they would refrain from showing new films for a certain stipulated period, but after that the producers should give them the telecast rights. But no such luck. ``Films can earn good revenue from selling cable rights, but it should be based on market price and not on fear that if the rights are not given, the film would be beamed anyway,'' argues Mr. Lall.

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