Piracy: Maakki Kirkiri
Such a strong title doesn’t necessarily mean the post will have a strong reaction, or will it? Don’t know, how and where this will go. So, read on
It was 3PM, the usual coffee break from mundane support that the useless me provides to my client. There are three other useless characters who always accompany me for some useful talks we do sipping hot coffee from Jamaica. Some of the usual topics range from a hot chick’s behind to why India is behind in so many things. From beautiful breasts to why we should be abreast with the latest happenings in the world. Then some useless talk about Cinema. Shah Rukh Khan cannot be separated from Cinema by any means. SRK also, cannot be separated from Swades. So, yeah this post is about Swades.
One of the useless characters thought Swades was super-duper hit. I had to remind him, I write on PFC and I know more and Swades was actually a flop. Useless character that he is, flips out. Tries to argue with me saying, “ how can it be possible, everyone I know who saw the movie loved it”. Now, that is some argument. Then followed a discussion on porn. Porn and Swades. Yep, this post is about Porn in Swades. Ouch..Porn and Swades. If you are wondering, how on earth are they related to each other? Read-on
So, this useless bugger who loved Swades also watches Porn. Now, almost everyone watches porn for free, there are plenty of sites like www.gmail.com, www.passionforcinema.com, etc etc, so obviously he didn’t pay for. He also watched Swades for free, that is online streaming or download or whatever. A useless bugger will have useless friends, who also happened to see Swades online for free and rant about why the movie was a flop. Someone please tell him, watching movie online wont help in it getting moolah. Hence good movies are flops..
Am I against Piracy? Let me try to analysize it. Chalo lets do a point by point deconstruction pro’s and cons. Cons first.
1. Piracy = Bad. Off course, you don’t get the quality of what you would get while watching it in a theatre or on a dvd.
2. You are not paying shit to watch a movie, meaning, the money that should be generated isn’t getting generated and maybe…maybe you wont see movies in future cause, boss..nothing in this world comes for free.
3. You could get raped. Yes..by that ugly tall guy who is eating tambakhoo and wants to tadang tadang you, that is if you get caught and put in jail
4. Imagine you have a house and want to rent it. But, one fine day you realize that the house that you wanted to rent is already being used by someone and the person aint paying any rent. Ha! Ditto with movies.
Now on to pros
1. It is Free
2. Don’t have to travel to get the dvd or to go to the theatre
3. Whole family can watch it for free
Why would I watch a Pirated movie? This is my personal opinion and not generalizing. For about three and half year I used to live in a small town called Mobile in Alabama, USA. The town is so small that we didn’t have a desi store, forget movies releasing. But, movies tho movies hain aur dekhna zaroori hain. What are my opitions other than get a high speed internet and watch the movies online?
Hate it when all the big budget movies get released in bigger cities like LA, but the smaller ones don’t even bother to get a release and then you have to wait for months to rent the dvd. This is a slap in the face to the distributors. Ha! Don’t release the movies, I will watch pirated. YOU DESERVE IT.
Having said that I absolutely hate those who though have the option of going to the halls and watch a movie, but, still will watch it pirated and have the audacity to criticize it. First thing first, beggars are not choosers, so when you are watching it for free, don’t bloody say how pakao the movie is.
Take it or leave it, Piracy has arrived and arrived big. What is the way to deal with it? Give moral lectures? blaah..ahahah… hunt down the offenders? Blaaah…ahaha..or embrace it and try to work with it? Lekin How?
Tags: LA, Piracy, Shah Rukh Khan, Theatre
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
So what do u wanna convey?
now see OLLO is not releasing here…..obviously the dvd wont be out in some time ….what option do i have other than using rapidshare to download it…….
@ Sammy..i want to convey that i dont wanna give bhaashan..only horses for the courses..whats your say?
@ Anand…I feel you
@OM
Agree with you. How many times have I tried to call up these distributors and tried to explain to them how profitable it is to release movies in the theaters. I give them examples of how local film festival get one ‘Bollywood’ movie so that they can make up for the loss that the rest of the movies from the world make. No response, no help, no interest, no professionalism, no……….
Kya kiya jaaye. Every year film festival ke liye wait karo aur koi pakau, karan johar movie dekho nahin to woh dekho jo the film festival patron chaahegi.. (A post from me on this is coming soon)…
In the end… people see from cheap dvd’s that are brought from some polynesian country with a lot of desis or someone who diligently downloaded from rapid share and merged the files and wrote the DVD and rents it too….
Anyway, nice post and forgive me for the rant…
Sarang
If you feel that there is potential to release Indian films in your area why don’t you offer to be an exhibitor ? In most cases if you can guarantee them the print cost and shipping expenses they would be happy to play the film in an untapped territory.
Email me at mithun.gang@gmail.com and I will hook you up.
Thanks! Shall email you soon!
even in india the problem is same.i am living in south delhi,but there is no good theatre nearby the that is a big multiplex charging no less than 200 bucks,which as a college student living in hostel is too much.the one where prices r less is far in noida.now i end up watchingvery few movies in theatre only those which i can’t help.the worse is some the good films are screened at stupid timings and r removed in a week.
i miss my hometown where i used to watch movies every week in theatres where prices were reasonable and u dont tire urself while reaching to the theatre so that u end up sleeping inside .
i think there should be sm resolution of this problem if filmakers want to continue making films.i mean they are left to only high class and job goers . and what filmmakers dont realise is that they have lost a huge audience of common people who cant afford or hve nochoice to go to theatre .they end up watching pirated movies.
Another important reason is unavailibility of movies…in theatres as well as DVD.
Like, last year ….I live in Kolkata…while the world was raving about No Country For Old Men, There will be blood…these movies did not release here…not only during their US/worldwide runs…but also during the period when such movies usually get released in India…post Oscar….by then the DVDs are out in foreign markets…even that is not available here…and it was just a month or two back that these movies arrived on DVD shelves in music stores…exactly a year after its original release….do you think one has the patience to wait for a year when the entire world is raving about a movie….what is the option other than to watch a pirated copy.
Also another main problem….Indian Censor boards make damaging cuts begore releasing foreign films both on screen and DVD…especially if there is nudity involved….even with the works of established directors like Spielberg, Ridley Scott, DePalma, Scorsese…you name it.Munich suffered it, so did carlito’s way, american gangster etc…so what is the option if you want to watch the full uncut version here in India?…
OM the major issue is that distributors concentrate on pockets which have large Indian population, like the New York-New Jersey area or Bay Area or the Birmigham-Southall belt in UK. What about Indians living in other areas?
Lemme give my example, last year i was in S.Korea, which does have a good population of Indians, but not very high. But there was no way for me to watch Indian movies, as none of the theaters would screen them. There was only one desi store in entire Seoul, which had Indian DVD’s and which was 1 hr ride by subway from my place. Now when i heard of movies like Johnny Gaddar, Manorama Six Feet Under last year, none of them were available in the DVD store, and so i had to end up watching online. Yeah i know its piracy, but had no go.
In fact Indian movies don’t even need a multiplex or theater in S.Korea. All over Korea there are what you call DVD Bangs or DVD Parlors, where you can go pick the DVD of your choice, and watch it, for a fee. Every neighborhood has one, so if some smart Indian distributor could find a way, to get these stores stock the DVD’s, we could reach out to the Indians there.
And its no better in India. Right now here I am in a small town, Bhubaneshwar, where most of the movies that are released are the mainstream Hindi movies or Oriya cinema. So if i want to see a Hulla or Tahaan, i have to go for online, because even the DVD owners prefer to stock the popular hits.
As long as we are programmed to be freeloaders..piracy will stay.Can not do anything about it.Earlier pirated version used to have bad picture quality..bootlegged videos..but i guess now its all superior quality.
u beleive or not but i am having a strong beleive that piracy is not happening by mafia but our industry’s insider are also involve and its a very organised industry.In fact in some cases you will egt a movie before release..how it could be possible.i came to know in past that there will be a system in which movie shows will be controlled by satelite…but still no evidence..
but i still stress…..everbody had joined hand for a proper piracy system…otherwise ..you never get it on evdery rail stn in mumbai freely and easily…..infact i feel some of producer themselves …support it to recover the cost of movie…..pl bring more facts if i sound wrong..coz i dont find any other reason if i am wrong than how they recover cost of movie ???????
@ Aman..you bring a very important point of students unable to afford the tickets..bollywood history suggests, most of the super hit movies are coz of the multiple viewing by students…like is US, shouldnt there be a student discount on tickets?
@Sougata..in that regard, i feel NDTV Lumeire is doing an admirable job. The question is not of “HAVING” to watch a pirated copy, the point is of choice, if, we have online paid streaming of the movie, will we still watch a free pirated copy with matching specs?
@ Ratnakar…
The DVD Bangs or DVD Parlors is a great concept…you may be surprise to hear that, this very concept was adapted by Blue Film exhibitors in mid-90’s, off course for entirely different reasons, but, this concept would be great for regular/small budget movies…atleast we are heading somewhere now…thanks for the comment
Sourav..i heard there is something like satellite piracy or some..which enables better quality and quicker time to upload them..sheeeshhh
@ Sonu..me too ill-literate in that regards…how do you recover costs from pirated dvds..
Sometimes us desi movie buffs have no other alternative besides pirated copies. Majboori hai, kya karen? A few days back I watched the pirated version of Dasvidaniya, almost as good as the DVD rip. It didn’t release in a single theater nearby; I live in Cleveland, OH. There are a couple of desi theaters in the city, but they will only play Yuvraaj, Karzzz and Drona! I was hoping for OLLO, but no, it will not be showing.
I would not mind paying for streaming movies if they’re good quality and not as expensive as regular price ($3-4 maybe??).
I was browsing thru a desi forum and I came across a thread “Oye Lucky Pre-Dvd”…I checked it and it had a real good print of the movie!
Now I am amazed…with still 2 days remaining for the movie to release how come the print is out in the market?
UTV is such a BIG production house and still it can’t control the piracy. Off course there will be piracy. But even before the release??? :( sad!!!
I knw I will watch the movie @ Dallas tomorrow when it releases here. But, what about in India where the main revenue will come from. With still 2 days to go… half of India will watch the movie @ internet.
Sucks!
Jeez even i found a copy of OLLO..this is really bad….cos torrent download is very much prevalent in India thanks to the high-speed broadband…Other movie releases were at least on satudays or friday nights on torrents…but this 1 was pretty quick
as long as there are pirate movies available on net there will be piracy. why would someone watch a pirate movie.
well for many reasons you see.
1. we are assuming that the person wants to wathc a movie for free. well assumptions is mother of most of the f@#%ups. i mean our assumption that the person wants to watch the movie for free is NOT always correct. the guy would have to turn to movies on net for the following reasons
a) terrorisim. with terrorism flourishing in india its unsafe to step out and go to a crowded place like a multiplex.
b) recession. with recession hitting all of us its tough to ask the layman to shell out 300 Rs each for a movie which might turn out to be a complete waste of money. no way.
c) to expensive. recession or no recession multiplex tickets are too expensive.
d) guy is a couch potato and does not want to venture out of his house but is very passionate about movies.
These are some of the reasons
Now for the solution. Well as they say ‘ use glass to cut glass’ or somethign on those lines.
I mean use technology to use technology. As the guy in the bedroom is using technology to download movies. USE TECHNOLOGY TO DISTRIBUTE MOVIES. INNOVATE when it comes to distribution. All the industries are crying horase about innovation. if you cannot innovate be ready tp perish. you cannot sit and cry saying that people are not coming to theaters. if they are not coming to theaters go to their bedrooms.
Read the book called ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ and innovate.
For starters commodotize the movies. make them available in every kirana shop. for as cheap as Rs 10. Do your buisiness in volumes. Create a use and throw CD which will be cheap to produce and affordable.
Learn something from the BigFlix. Make your movies available for download for a much cheaper price. it should not cost you much. at least not as much as exhibiting it in theaters.
Anyway enough of ranting.
Point being ‘Innovate Or Perish’