| Sundaram used to earn anywhere between Rs 200 and Rs 500 a day, depending on the demand for the movie that had been released. He now says there are not many takers for English and Hindi movie VCDs. |
| Indeed, many video shops in Chennai and elsewhere in Tamil Nadu wear a deserted look after the Tamil Nadu government passed a law on September 27, 2004, to curb rampant video piracy of the latest Tamil movies released. |
| Anyone who circulates pirated VCDs will be arrested. Those possessing pirated VCDs, can be jailed for two years and will have to pay a Rs 5 lakh fine. Tamil Nadu is the only state in India to have acted so strongly to curb piracy. The state government has ensured that the Copyright Act of 1957 will be strictly implemented. |
| It has established six video piracy cells and the existing cells are being strengthened. More than 200 shops in Burma Bazaar (close to Chennai port), a hub for smuggled and pirated goods, have been closed. |
| Two weeks before the Tamil Nadu government moved to curb video piracy, 2,500 members of about 27 film unions, comprising actors, actresses, directors, producers, distributors and exhibitors, stopped work for a day and took out a rally to meet the chief minister, J Jayalalithaa (a former Tamil screen star herself), asking her to take severe action against piracy. |
| While Kollywood (Chennai's tinsel town) and owners of cinema theatres are popping the champagne corks, owners of VCD shops and their customers are plunged in gloom. |
| Lakshmi Subramanium, a housewife who lives at Pursawalkam (Central Chennai), used to watch most of the latest Tamil movies at home, as did Geetha Sridaran. Both cite the convenience of watching a new movie at home. |
| It was cheaper, too, to watch a rented VCD "" about Rs 20 versus about Rs 200 for a family of four to watch the same movie in a theatre, plus transport charges. |
| It was cheaper too to even buy a new Tamil movie VCD: just Rs 50. Not surprisingly, Subramanium and Sridaran say that they haven't gone to a theatre in ages. |
| That will change. Abirami Ramanathan, owner of Abirami Theatres in Chennai, says that theatre collections have increased by over 20 per cent since September. The movies released for Diwali two weeks ago are doing quite well. |
| Understandably, Tamil Nadu's film industry hurrahs the crackdown on piracy. It has been hurt by piracy. More than 150 theatres have closed in Tamil Nadu in the past two years, film industry men claim. |
| Says a film industry veteran, who does not want be named: ''Earlier, good films used to run for 250 days. With VCD piracy, an average film runs only for 50 days. The collection in cinema halls came down by 60-70 per cent at all centres." |
| Exactly, how do the pirates operate? According to Ramanthan, VCD copyrights of any Tamil movies are meant only for overseas screening. These copies of VCDs are smuggled through illegal channels into Tamil Nadu. |
| The cost of converting a movie print into a VCD is Rs 2 lakh (the cost is much lower when a large number of CDS are involved), he adds. Also, if a new movie print is available for three hours in Tamil Nadu, it is copied on a VCD and several copies of it are made. |
| To be sure, pirated VCDs are still given out on rent, but to a much more limited extent. Kumaran and Sundaram has yet to decide on what they will do for a living in the coming months. Sundaram says he thinks that he will continue to run his shop. |
| Krishna Balan, another video shop owner who made Rs 7,000 a month, has started selling duplicate consumer electronic items, from stereo systems to VCD and DVD players. |
| As for housewives Subramanium and Sridaran, they'll start going to the theatres to see movies. Life has profoundly changed for these people. |
Top Section
Explore Business Standard