The newly-elected body of Tamil Film Producers’ Council, which met recently, mulled over resurrecting two ideas, one old, and another radically new — to regulate overcrowding of movie releases at the box-office and fight piracy.
“If we deprive the pirates of content by stopping the release of movies, say for the next three months, they will eventually go out of business,” said Kalaipuli S. Thanu, president of Tamil Film Producers’ Council.
They also discussed the possibility of confining the release of big-budget films to festival weekends (Christmas, Deepavali, Pongal and others). Industry trackers said these proposals were difficult to implement, if not outright impractical.
“Piracy can be stopped with effective policing by the government. Piracy has been reduced to a large extent in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. The industry must also look at redrawing contracts while selling the overseas rights of films, paving the way for DVDs hitting the stands in the first week itself,” said Cable Sankar, filmmaker and popular blogger.
Stopping the release of films for three months would result in other problems, he said. “Already, this weekend, 10 films are waiting for release. Imagine what would happen if movies don’t release for three months,” he said. The proposal to regulate the release of big-budget films had been on the anvil for a long time.
“There needs to be some kind of regulation, parameters have to be set and release of movies streamlined. However, the council must leave the release date to the producer of the film. There needs to be a balance between these two approaches,” said S. Sashikanth, producer, Y NOT Studios.
Sashikanth said piracy existed only because of demand. “We also need to sensitise audiences. Would people use a stolen car or bike?” he said.
Digital cinema could provide an answer to the problem of piracy, said Senthil Kumar, co-founder of Qube Cinemas.
“We would most certainly like to help producers in this regard. We can isolate the theatre from where the print has come through in-built security measures such as forensic photo-marking. We built these systems keeping in mind piracy,” said Senthil.
