Tackling online pirates!

Many film-makers have pressed the panic button after instances of films getting leaked on the Internet (YouTube and a few social networking sites). Apart from having numerous meetings and lodging police complaints, producers are desperately trying to tighten the noose around the ‘leaks’ on their own.

Actor Amitabh Bachchan faced a lot of problems before the release of his home production Paa. “I heard that Paa too was on the Internet. It was a lot of trouble,” Bachchan had said when the ‘leak’ was discovered.

Producers have also increased the security on their sets manifold to ensure that stuff is not leaked online. Actor Salman Khan says, “I tell security guards to not allow people at a range from where they can use high-end cameras or even mobile phones to capture images.”

S Shankar, whose Endhiran releases at the end of this year, says, “More often than not it is not an inside job because every member working on a film puts in his or her blood and sweat. We did protect our film more with more security guards on the sets and took measures so that these people cannot film us in any way.”

Ratan Jain, president of AMPTPP (Association of Motion Pictures and Television Programmes Producers of India), says, “Films are the bread and butter of producers. We have been hearing about this a lot lately and we have advised all producers to be more careful about their material. If this thing happens, then as a body we are helpless.”

Internet expert Vijay Mukhi, who had trained officers from the Mumbai Cyber Crime Cell, says the best way out is to write to the websites concerned. “If you send the websites (where the leaked content is hosted) a properly drafted legal notice then the content is immediately taken off,” he says.

Studios like Yashraj have charted out their own security measures to prevent these ‘attacks’. “We make sure to do our pre and post-production work inside our premises. Apart from an accountable and responsible staff, the film materials are not handled by anybody else. That is the reason we didn’t have a leak till date,” says Rafiq Gangjee, vice president, Yashraj films.

The costliest leaks...
Parts of Kites starring Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori
Sudhir Mishra’s movie titled Tera Kya Hoga Johnny
What’s Your Rashee
Photos of the Peru schedule of Endhiran starring Rajnikanth and Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan
Last December, Anurag Kashyap’s unreleased film Paanch was allegedly made available for a free download
Parts of the film Paa