‘Lured into making quick bucks, youngsters attracted to film piracy’

HYDERABAD: In order to make quick bucks, people involved in film piracy are luring minors and youngsters in city. Earlier, film piracy was an organised crime, but now it is decentralised, where piracy makers are mostly targeting the student community. “The offer to youngsters is that they would get 10 US dollars into their bank accounts, if they videographed and sent it on the first day of release of the film,” Raj Kumar, Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce representative and Anti-Video Piracy Committee chairman said.

The minors and youngsters are getting attracted to the money, not knowing that piracy is a crime,” he said, adding that from past 16 months, piracy in Telugu film industry is on rise. According to him, estimated loss Telugu film industry faced due to piracy is `1,007 crore. Around 215 films were released in last 16 months. A meeting was convened at the Secretariat on Monday to take measures against film piracy. IT, Cyber Crime police, film personalities including Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce president P Kiran, representatives from Motion Pictures and Ministry of Industrial Policy officials were present.

“We have been working from 2014 to curb film piracy under Telangana Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Earlier, the pirated film version was made available online on the first day of the release of the movie. Now, the pirated version is available three weeks after the release of the film. The first two weeks after the release of the film is very important for any  film producer film producer,” IT principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan said.