Govt says no to curb film piracy with policy

In what is viewed as a setback to the efforts of the film industry in curbing piracy, the government today said the recommendations of the draft optical disk policy on combating piracy would lead to the creation of a regime of inspectors that would go against the grain of the liberalisation policy.
 
For the past few months, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting was examining the draft Optical Disc Law to check piracy in the film sector. The draft law was prepared by the members of film sector at the initiative of government of India, and they were expecting a positive response. However, addressing the Ficci-Frames 2008 convention in Mumbai, Asha Swarup, Secretary, Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, made it clear that the government was not in favour of implementing the recommendations.

Acknowledging, though, that the menace of piracy in the entertainment and media industry was huge, she added that the problem had to be tackled by closing the supply side gaps. "A possible way", she said, "is to release films in