Indian film, TV industry threatened by online piracy: report

Shahid Kapur and Priyanka Chopra, the two lead actors of Kaminey. A report reveals that Kaminey was downloaded at least 3,50,000 times through Bittorrent. File Photo: PTI

India is among the top ten countries in the world with the highest number of online piracy cases which pose a big threat to the country’s film and television industry, according to a research commissioned by the Motion Picture Distributors Association (MPDA).

The first report by Internet company DtecNet, based on tracking of downloading IP addresses on P2P networks, showed that from April to September 2009, India was among the top ten countries in the world with the largest number of illegal P2P activities.

Similar results were found by Envisional, another Internet company which stated that online piracy of film and television content in India is mainly through the file sharing networks and cyberlockers, or web based file hosts such.

“Video streaming sites are also popular, though their usage is lower,” said Michael Ellis, President and Managing Director Motion Picture Distributors Association.

According to the study, the major international BitTorrent portals were heavily used by Indians. India was the fourth largest downloader behind U.S., Britain and Canada.

A hindi film ’Kaminey’ is estimated to have been downloaded over 350,000 times on BitTorrent with around two-thirds of those download locations originating from India.

The study also stated that about 80 per cent of Tamil films and 88 per cent for Telugu films were downloaded by Indians.