In an attempt to counter online piracy, Kabali producer Kalaipuli S. Thanu has approached the High Court a week before the release of the superstar film, to direct internet service providers to block access to websites that indulge in piracy.
Internet service providers (ISPs) had drastically improved the technology in this particular field mainly to facilitate online piracy, charged the petitioner. This enabled a user to download a film like Kabali — which had cost Rs. 100 crore to make and employed over 3,500 people — within just eight minutes and by spending Rs. 20 from illegal websites.
Justifying his contention, counsel for the producer Vijay Narayan said, “There are 160 ISPs licensed in India and approximately 70 per cent of their revenue comes from such illegal downloads that are done in complete violation of the terms and conditions of their licence.”
For obvious reasons, the government is turning a blind eye to this, since it is earning huge amounts of money in terms of spectrum fees and licences, he added.
On Thursday, when the plea came up for hearing before Justice N. Kirubakaran, senior counsel Vijay Narayan said, “Even if a website is blocked, it is easy to provide access to the blocked content through another website, by just changing a single character in its Uniform Resource Locator (URL).”
