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Pirates of the campus
College hostels in Delhi are the worst offenders of film piracy.
That India is the fourth highest ‘downloader’ of content from Internet sounds flattering. But pause before you up your collars. A study by Motion Picture Distributors Association reveals that the lion share of these downloads is pirated films and music, and India ranks among world’s top ten offenders when it comes to movie piracy through illegal software. What’s worse, the study shows that Delhi, and especially hostels in college campuses, are the biggest perpetrators of this piracy.
Young pirates
HT City tried to trace the steps — and the extent of this rather shameful trend. All it takes is one illegal download of a recent blockbuster using free sites such as Limewire, BitTorrent or Rapidshare for a student to turn ‘pirate’. “Copy the film on a pen drive or upload it on the hostel’s LAN. Bingo, you have the entire hostel’s residents watching it in their rooms,” says Alika Khanna, a DU hosteller.
“Markets like Palika Bazaar and Daryaganj have always been known for selling pirated CDs. But these days with campuses going wireless and laptops becoming a part of every youngsters backpack, the student community has emerged as the biggest culprit in the piracy chain,” says ‘hacking guru’ Ankit Fadia.
When you are getting movies for free, who wants to spend?— seems to be the mantra for students. “I download movies using any Torrent site and watch pirated stuff because it’s so cheap,” says DU student Stuti Kohli.
“A movie outing for two at a multiplex comes for nothing less than Rs 300,” says engineering student Rohit Bahl, adding, “Here, it’s practically free.”
Heavy price
“Youngsters don’t understand what devastating implications their small mistake has on the country,” says Prakash Nathan, vice president, UTV Motion Pictures. “Usually, it’s through an employee of the production house that the first print gets leaked in the market,” says Fadia. “And then it’s a matter of time before it spreads.”
The Shahid Kapur-blockbuster Kaminey is estimated to have been downloaded 3,50,000 times on Bit Torrent. A big reason why movies are now coming with SD (secure digital) cards instead of CDs — the latest being Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots. Download of English movies is also high as some, like Twilight, have a delayed release here, or are never released. “Nearly 30 per cent — or $4 billion approx — of entire Indian film market is plagued by this every year,” estimates Nathan. Before you download your next, remember that’s Rs 187,809,509,716.80 worth of damage each year!
