Sucking up and pirated movies
The film industry has gotten into the habit of openly sucking up to the chief ministers of the state. First they organized a kalai vizha to facilitate J Jayalalitha when she was the CM, and in return she included the pirated vcds, under the Goondas Act. Now when the government changes, DMK is in power, the CM, MK, gives concession to Tamil movies with Tamil names. The film fraternity the goes sucking up to him again, organized a kalai vizha, it’s a pseudonym for women dancing to film songs, in minimal clothing, in front of the person who is fighting to uphold Tamil culture. I don’t have a problem with the vizhas, its good entertainment, but it’s ironic that MK enjoys the show, and then preaches about Tamil culture.
Now, for the great sucking up the film fraternity did, CM has to act, so he orders pirated copies of movies to be seized. The police raided and seized 1000 pirated film cds, and arrested 10 persons.
The city crime branch police, following up on a complaint from Tamil Nadu Film Producers Association president Ramanarayanan, arrested 10 people and seized over 1000 pirated film CDs here on Wednesday.
The raids were conducted in Ritchie Street, Burma Bazaar, Virugambakkam, Vadapalani, Mambalam, Velacheri and Taramani. It was found that a gang was clandestinely taking prints in secret with the help of CD writers. The new movies seized included “Thimiru”, “Vettaiyadu Villaiyadu”, “Sillunu Oru Kadal”.via
That’s a huge haul!! The size of the haul is bullshit, its miniscule. If the police laid their hands on 1000 cds, it means there are 10 or even 20 times that number waiting to flood the market. And the very next day, the very same movies seized would have been displayed for sale. So why bother seizing the cds? Well CM need to act for the sucking up the film industry did.
This raid is probably against the shop owners who didn’t pay their dues. No raid is a surprise. The cops usually inform the shopkeepers about an impending raid, even the time in some cases. This gives them ample time to hide their stock, and have minimal stocks, which the cops can seize. The cops don’t want to rub the dealers the wrong way, the dealers are an important revenue source for the cops. So this haul, as the Hindu reports isn’t a big deal, its just a small raid to show the cops are acting, in all probability, the cops seized 1% of the total stock in hand, all over Chennai.
The film industry might as well learn to live with the reality of pirated cds, rather than sucking up to CMs so that they act, it’s a futile endeavor. Pirated cds, are great examples of the brilliant market forces at work, if going to a theatre actually added value to consumers, they would visit the theatre and not opt for pirated cds. The film industry should focus on drawing consumers to theatres rather than trying to wipe out the pirated cd business. Wiping out the pirated cd business in India is an impossibility.
I’m glad blogs exist! :D That’s a great post, Vatsan. If the producers make movies that’s worth the price you have to pay in the multiplexes, then I am sure to go there. Some of the movies are not even worth the prices we pay for the VCD!
Yester day (means on 8th Sunday) sun TV retelecast the felicication given by the film industry to the present CM KAlaignar and at the SAme time JAYA TV also retelecast the fecilitation offerred by the Film Industry to the then CM AMMA in Nov 8th 2004..It was very enjoying, by showing the capacity of all the Film Industry People to play JALRA to the people in power; whaT THE MAXIMUM SOUND THEY CAN GIVE IN is very much proved.
The priorities of the beacons of Tamil Film Industry skewed. Anti-Piracy would not be such a big issue if the big film production houses came out with a Legal Video Rights policy(much like the Chopra-Johar-Barjatyas) where they release the Video from the Production Houses themselves on the very next week of theatrical releases and cash in on the Video Rights big time. How else can you expect absolute junk to make money otherwise?
It is a terrible fantasy to imagine people will pay to go to a theater to watch Vijaikanth-Sarathkumar-Ajith Kumar-Karan Rukh Khan-Barjatya MarriageVideo kind of crap.
Time our Puratchi-Seidha/Seyyadha-Kalaignars thought about this and made a puratchi in making more money than preaching about our mis-culture.
kadhala,
great post.. The film industry and its sucking up has reached atrocious heights!! Even the shivaji statue thing was over rated..
It was extremely funny to see the cine stars make absolute fools of themselves simulatneously in both jaya and sun
if half the energy spent on all this suckin up was spent on motivating, people to get to cinema theares and watching the movie !!!
adhu veraikum anybody who thinks that the piracy battle is won or can be won just because of a few laws and a few raids are being downright stupid
Time our Puratchi-Seidha/Seyyadha-Kalaignars thought about this and made a puratchi in making more money
They are already doing that big time!
Vatsan,
I don’t think I agree.
Much as I feel personally that it’s completely futile in this scenario to eradicate piracy, but coupling this and the quality of films – as if to say, if they make good films, people will flock in – doesn’t make sense.
Piracy is obviously illegal and the film industry definitely would like to get rid of it completely in their own welfare (and only that, of course) regardless of the quality of their films.
I also feel that even if the “qualities” do improve to a considerable degree (in whatever scale), piracy will still ruin their profits.
Navneeth,
I agree that they have been “making money” big time. What I meant was that they target making some money for the production houses and for the technicians and other lesser mortals of the industry.
This is not what these Kalai(sic)-gnars have been doing. All the song and dance show-alls are about keeping the cash flowing to the top-dons of the film-political frat.
On a different note, Its time MK removed his yellow towel or shed his atheistic image. I get very irritated every time I see the old monkey cavorting with a yellow towel on his shoulder because an astrologer told him so. Someone should ask him this question in public.
ஸ்பைடர்மான்,
I was just in sarcastic mode when I typed that comment.
:D :D :D
I know what will follow when that happens. ;)The best thing is the camera people from “the other channel” would somehow get a footage of the proceedings.
Now, back to topic.
Zero touched upon something I wanted to say.
Are we kidding ourselves when we say that we’ll go and watch movies in theatres if all of them were of good quality? Really??? While the increase in quality might increase the number visiting theatres, it won’t eradicate piracy for sure. Firstly, we people should shun piracy; secondly, the industry insiders shouldn’t get involved in piracy.
For the lighter side, check out a related post on prabhukrish.net.
Doesnt piracy equal theft.
if someone were to steal my possessions and i knew who that was I wouldnt mind greasing the cop to get the right things done.
Yeah the end justify the means.
be proud of our police. tell me havent any of you used a pirated software ?
People who watch pirated stuff are people who don’t care about Dolby/DTS and digital projection systems,all they want to do is watch the latest movies at dirt cheap prices or for free.So no matter what value added services theatres add,consumers would continue to buy/rent these pirated vcd/dvds as long as they get these pirated stuff for dirt cheap prices.
Producers really don’t care about piracy as long as their movies do well in theatres.When their movies start to flop then they start protest marches and go on to meet the CM.Which would be followed by raids on some shops who were not smart enough to pay off they cops,while the smart ones would have downed their shutters after getting a tip off from the cops about the raids.
Everyone is to be blamed for piracy – the producers,the government,police and the consumers.But I think the producers can stop piracy if they really want to,but as I said they really don’t care much about piracy as long as the cash registers keep ringing at the theatres.
why do people here[comments] like re-iterating the said point 10000 times?
and idealists, vazhga ungal iyakkam. you’ll are just too funny.
Did u realize that the show also made quite a lot of money? It was a publicity show for MK n Maaran. Why wudn’t MK sit when they deify him like that #-o?
As a newcomer, what do I know about TN politics? Little or nothing! But I rather thought that TN was ruled by members of the film industry…
There’s one more reason why people watch pirated movies on CD/DVD. People who cannot go to a movie hall even if they want to. Think of all the people who are physically disabled or old(a very large population of those above 60 or so exists in India). Even if they wouldn’t want to watch a movie illegally, they dont have a choice. In the USA, movies are released on DVD/Video Tape(ya, those ancient relics still exist out there!) in 3-4 months of the movie getting released(sometimes sooner). These are original, good quality DVDs and are available for rent/sale LEGALLY in most video stores. However, very few of our movies make it to the DVD/VCD list in 3-4 months of their release. Most of them take 1-2 years to reach the stores and by most people would have lost interest in watching them, or rather, most would have already watched it atleast once by then(via pirated VCD/DVD)!! If our production houses can ensure that all movies will be available for rent on DVD/VCD in a short duration after the movie’s release, I’m sure piracy can be reduced drastically. My two paise! :-)