Piracy: Madras HC directs TN, filmdom to chart out workable solution

Justice Pushpa Satyanarayana, before whom the plea came up on Monday, gave the direction and posted the plea to November 28.

In its plea, the association had sought for a direction to restrain police from arresting members of petitioner’s association unless they found prima facie evidence after due inquiry to show that capture of the visuals was done either at behest or with the connivance of the particular theatre owner.

Advocate K Ravi, appearing for the petitioner association, submitted that film producers were filing complaints against theatre owners without any application of mind, falsely accusing them of being responsible for piracy and the resulting losses caused.

Noting that in most of the cases, pirated copies were made in a theatre by the audience by recording the screen while the film was being exhibited, the petitioner’s counsel said, “It is impossible to check or control the audience entering with cameras on phones, pens, spectacles, etc. It was with the aid of such cameras that audience seem to be capturing and making copies of the film.”

Pointing out that such copies seem to be the major contributor to the piracy market, the counsel added that under the instructions of the film producers, Digital Cinema Service providers like Qube Cinema Technologies Pvt Ltd supply digital prints of films to theatres. These have a hi-tech watermark on the prints supplied by them to theatres. “This is retrievable by experts from any copies made from such prints and from such watermarks, the experts can find the time and the theatre from where a pirated copy was made. With this information, complaints were being arbitrarily filed against the theatre owners concerned,” he added.