1st day, 1st show ignites piracy wildfire

Every year, the government loses Rs 1,700 crore in revenue because of the booming film piracy business.

Anil Nayer of Motion Pictures Association (MPA) - an association of seven Hollywood studios that tracks film piracy worldwide - says the first target of the film pirates is to leak an original print.

In piracy king's den, trade booms
Pirates of reel-world crack the Code before release "What typically happens is that a truck carrying a film print stops at one place and the truck driver makes a copy of the same. That becomes the master copy then. En route he has tie-ups with people who actually help him to make it. So, it is a very well-oiled machinery that is working," says Head of Operations, MPA, Anil Nayer.

CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team tracked down a film pirate in Mumbai and found out how the film piracy nexus operates.

"The print of Gangster was leaked from M4U, a Ghaziabad-based theatre. The print is then sent to Bombay and from there to Karachi in Pakistan," says a man involved in film piracy.
Once a copy of a new film is made, the master copy spawns the entire film piracy trade. It is replicated into lakhs of pirated CDs, which are then distributed through a well-knit film piracy network across the subcontinent.

"It comes to Mumbai and then goes to Pakistan again. After Mumbai, it goes to Karachi, Nepal, it goes everywhere," reveals a man involved in the racket.
The film piracy trade also spawns other activities. For instance, the inlay cards that are meant to be pasted on the pirated CDs, are printed much in advance.
With Fanaa all set to hit the theatres, film pirates of Mumbai are eagerly waiting for the 'pirated master copy' of the film. The moment they lay their hands on the 'pirated master CD', lakhs of pirated copies of Fanaa will be made within hours and the inlay cards of Fanaa will be pasted on them.

And before the evening show of Fanaa on Friday, its pirated CDs would have hit the markets all over the subcontinent.