In the last three years, the Tamil film industry has declared war on movie piracy. But like a multi-headed hydra, the problem keeps coming back, and in different forms.
, starring Udhayanidhi Stalin and Manjima Mohan hit the theatres, a team of eight techies working out of Anna Nagar in Chennai, got busy. Sharath Kumar, former Operations Head of Tamil Film Producers Anti-Piracy cell, recalls that a few hours before the release, they started scouring through social media, messaging platforms and scores of websites to see if the film had been leaked online.
Within hours, as expected, TamilRockers — the most notorious movie piracy website — had uploaded a camera quality print of the film. Sharath and his team had their work cut out. They used takedown tools to block the prints, appealed to various domain registries to block as many sites, found the source of the leak and went to the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) Cell of the Tamil Nadu police which deals with intellectual property rights.
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Though the anti-piracy cell started operations in May 2017, the focus initially was on a wipeout campaign. More than 60, 000 infringing links on Facebook, 18, 000 videos on YouTube, and 24, 000 movies on Dailymotion were removed amongst other things. It was only when
Was leaked, that the team got an FIR filed against TamilRockers for the first time. In the next two years, the team filed 40 police complaints against many sites like TamilRockers, Tamil Gun and Tamil Storm.
In the last three years, the Tamil film industry — and a few notable producers — have declared war on movie piracy. But like a multi-headed hydra, the problem keeps coming back, and in different forms. Today, it is not just theatrical releases that have to be protected, but even movies releasing exclusively on OTT (Over-the-Top) platforms are under the threat of piracy.
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Was the first big Tamil film that released directly on an OTT platform in May this year. But within an hour of it premiering on Amazon Prime Video, the film was available for download on TamilRockers. This was also the case with Zee5 Original’s
That released on August 14. The time stamp on the TamilRockers website will show you that it was up at 11.15 pm on August 13.
According to MUSO, a London-based data company that tracks global piracy, there has been a significant increase in film and television content piracy since the coronavirus lockdown was enforced. In India, film piracy rose by 63%, second only to Italy where it rose by 66%.
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What is the modus operandi of these piracy websites and what can be done to stop them? TNM spoke to people from the industry to understand the issue.
Most of the copies uploaded on piracy sites are camera quality prints. Meaning, they have been shot inside the movie theatre using a camera — phone or digital. Film producer SR Prabhu, who is also the Treasurer of the Producers’ Council, says, “There are a lot of people who do this as a part-time job. They just have to upload the film they’ve captured on the link given to them by the piracy site. For this, they get Rs 10, 000 to 20, 000 or even an iPhone. There are thousands of members on the Telegram app who subscribe to such piracy groups, and within a matter of seconds, the film reaches them.”
A cursory glance at Telegram shows that multiple groups run by TamilRockers have lakhs of subscribers. But this is their forum which can be accessed by the public. These piracy websites also have closed networks where their agents, spread across states, coordinate on the theatres in which a movie will release and then decide from which theatre the movie can be recorded. TamilRockers now has many groups for Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi movies too.
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According to Sharath, illegal recording in theatres is how most movies are pirated, even though piracy websites advertise that they have ‘HD quality’ print.
Senthil Kumar, Co-founder of Qube Cinema Technologies, a pioneering digital service provider company, says that protocols have been put in place to track prints that are coming from a cinema hall.
It's called forensic watermarking. It's an invisible mark that's embedded into the picture which the camera cannot see and neither can the audience. But when we run it through software, it will tell us the exact serial number of the theatre with the date and time, ” Senthil says.
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Sharath says the anti-piracy cell would first download a leaked movie and rush the CD to Qube’s office. “We then wait for the forensics to tell us from which theatre the movie was recorded from. Almost every time, the recording would have been done from a theatre in the suburbs, or in theatres from other states.”
We have found out such details for hundreds of films. Every week, we have a few production houses asking us to detect where the film came from and invariably we're able to tell them which theatre it was. As long as it's from a DCI compliant (Digital Cinema Initiative) or Qube system. There are many competitors of ours, smaller companies, which don't have such capabilities. But all the rest, we can identify it very accurately. Courts, especially in Kerala, have used this as evidence.”
Senthil says that earlier, they would inform producers about which theatre, date, and show the leak happened, but now they give more details. “We try to understand whether it's happening from inside the auditorium or whether it's happening from inside the projection booth...which means the projectionist or somebody else from the theatre is in collusion. From the angle and the quality, whether they have used a tripod, from the sound and so on, ” Senthil adds.
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Sharath says that in one instance, they found that the movie was leaked from a multiplex in Chennai’s suburbs as the piracy website accidentally uploaded a fraction of the popcorn ad.
Qube found that many Malayalam movies were being leaked from a single screen theatre in Bengaluru, while Telugu movies were being recorded from multiplexes in Delhi.
“Tamil movies, we found, were coming from multiplexes in Bengaluru. Some of the producers took action and said they'd stop releases in that multiplex, and then the theatre stepped up and stopped the piracy. In all these cases, it was someone from the audience who was doing it, ” Senthil says.
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However, convincing all theatres to join the anti-piracy movement has not been successful, admits SR Prabhu. While some don’t want to take responsibility, others simply don't have the revenue to install CCTV cameras. “Many employees get low salaries and these piracy websites offer them money, the theatres just don’t do enough to ensure that their employees don’t leak directly or abet this, ” he points out.
Many in the industry agree that the leaks also happen through overseas buyers, and these doubts have been strengthened due to a few HD leaks. Typically, an overseas buyer gets a print a few days before the release.
“I am very sure that these piracy websites that act as if they are doing some service are paying money for the print. In my knowledge, one overseas buyer was paid quite a lot for leaking a movie, ” claims a producer who did not want to be named.
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SR Prabhu says that he is not aware of financial transactions, but that the leak from foreign locations has been discussed many times in their forums. The Malayalam film industry, which is also battling piracy, has started postponing releases in outside Kerala centres by a few weeks. They believe that if the movies release only in Kerala first, they have more control and can ensure that leaks don't happen.
“It is difficult for Tamil producers to delay overseas releases as the money involved is much higher. Overseas buyers will not agree to buy with the same rates. Moreover, if the reviews label a movie bad or average, it's a huge risk for the producer, ” he points out.
“I am sure these piracy websites have huge networks and support systems in Tamil Nadu. How do they otherwise know who the foreign buyer is and negotiate terms with them? At least one buyer has to be blacklisted and only then can we send out a strong message, but we never will, ” says another producer.
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This producer added that in the case of a particular film starring a popular actor, the movie’s producer paid money to a piracy website which claimed that they had the movie’s print, in order to stall the leak. This allegation, however, was not confirmed by any of the others TNM spoke to.
Though not often and much lesser in the last few years, there have been some instances of a movie being leaked from any of the facilities where it goes for post-production.
Poster mockingly declared that TamilRockers was the film’s ‘official piracy partner’ and that the film would release on the piracy site, the day after its theatrical release.
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CS Amudhan says that there are various theories on how piracy thrives, but no real breakthrough has happened. “There are a lot of
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