Alliance Against Copyright Theft

Issue 01 - September 2010

The country which produces the maximum number of movies every year is now also under the scanner of movie pirates across the globe. Movie piracy has become rampant across the country and the piracy nexus has managed to create a strong foothold in tier I, II and III towns in India. It is estimated that India lost almost USD 959 million and 577 thousand jobs last year. The Alliance Against Copyright Theft (AACT) was born out of a need to unify the entire Indian film industry and fight movie piracy. This unique coalition between Bollywood and Hollywood studios targets all forms of movie piracy i.e. physical source and online. This year AACT has conducted more than hundred (100) enforcement raids seizing pirated DVDs worth several crores. AACT has also launched its toll free number for common people to call and report piracy related crimes across the country. AACT aims to build awareness among common man that piracy is not a victimless crime, but rather a crime that funds organized criminal syndicates and terrorism, and similarly, causes irreparable economic harm.

Alliance Against Copyright Theft. All rights reserved. W: www.aact.in Toll Free No.: 1800 103 1919 | E: contact@aact.in; press@aact.in

Issue 01 - September 2010

No. of stalls at Present No. of stalls Closed

Since its inception, AACT has been constantly working on reducing the supply of pirated discs in Mumbai by conducting regular raids on movie pirates across the city. As a result of the raids close to 30% stalls across the city have been shut down. Before May 2010, there were 178 stalls between Bandra and Dahisar selling pirated movie discs. This number came down to 71 by end of July 2010. In several areas like Bandra Station, Goregaon Station (E), Malad Station (E), etc. all the stalls have been reduced. The figure below show the no. of stalls closed by the enforcement agencies in each area and the no. of stalls present today.

A positive sign for AACT over the past month has been that a large number of raids have been conducted based on complaints received on its toll free number. Along with responding immediately to calls on the toll free number, the anti-piracy team also initiated a drive with a BMC squad in the month of July. As part of this initiative the team, along with a BMC van, conducted a series of raids on sellers of pirated discs between Bandra and Andheri to cover multiple stalls in one day. In the coming months AACT is working on expanding operations across other parts of the country.
Areas Covered & Raided Mumbai Thane Navi Mumbai Total No. of stalls Pre-raid 274 197 132 603 Post-raid 148 69 95 312

drop of 51.74% in stalls Snapshot of Mumbai, New Mumbai & Thane

Total Raids DVDs seized Persons Arrested Total Value

Alliance Against Copyright Theft. All rights reserved. W: www.aact.in Toll Free No.: 1800 103 1919 | E: contact@aact.in; press@aact.in

104 2,42,242 151 Rs. 2,42,24,200/Page 2

Issue 01 - September 2010

Ram Mirchandani, Chief Creative Officer, Eros International Media Ltd shares his thoughts on movie piracy and launching AACT...
What is it that you want to achieve via AACT? Joining hands with AACT is a contributive effort by the industry in an attempt to curb piracy. And this can happen only by educating the common man on how it affects not just the industry but eventually themselves as well. Why in your view is piracy rampant? Simply because pirated material is easily accessible at extremely low costs. In the minds of the common man, piracy is not a crime and that's where the problem begins. Also, tracking piracy is a very difficult task due to the disorganized and widespread nature of this crime.

How do you think piracy can be curbed? That's where AACT steps in. With the industry stepping in along with the government to create platforms to 'involve' and 'collaborate' with the junta, initiatives such as public appeals by well knows faces and celebrities to popularize the antipiracy toll free number is just one of the many steps planned by AACT to address this issue. Without support and co-operation of the public at large, curbing a deep rooted problem like piracy, especially in a geographically spread out country like ours is next to impossible. Hence education down the line becomes an important tool.

Piracy is a global menace, more than 90% of newly released movies that end up appearing illegally on the streets and on Internet sites originate from illegal copies made in cinemas. An initiative to stop camcord piracy, the major source of Indian film piracy, was jointly launched in Sept. 2009 by Motion Picture Association of America CEO and Chairman Dan Glickman and key multiplex chains PVR Cinemas & Big Cinemas. Called the 'Make a Difference' campaign, the initiative sets up a series of anti-camcord training sessions for theatre employees across the country. Since then other players like Fame Adlabs, Fun Cinemas, Cinemax and Inox have supported this initiative. Under the nationwide training initiative to raise awareness of unauthorized recordings in cinemas, AACT has already conducted almost ten (10) such trainings. See alongside chart.

Alliance Against Copyright Theft. All rights reserved. W: www.aact.in Toll Free No.: 1800 103 1919 | E: contact@aact.in; press@aact.in

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Issue 01 - September 2010

In July 2010, AACT launched its toll-free antipiracy hotline 1800-103-1919 - to report piracy in the Mumbai and Thane districts. The launch was in association with UTV Motion Pictures and Dharma Productions' I Hate Luv Storys. Actors Imran Khan and Sonam Kapoor were also involved in publicising the toll free number across India along with the promotional campaign for the movie. The response from people on the number has been overwhelming. More than 600 complaints have already been registered on the number. In fact on the first day itself the number received a good response with over 100 calls. The anti-piracy hotline allows people in Mumbai and Thane to register their piracy complaints by calling the toll free number without revealing their identity. Upon receiving the complaints, law

Dialling 1800-103-1919
enforcement agencies are immediately notified of the unlawful conduct. The toll free number was launched to involve local public in the efforts made by AACT and enforcement agencies to curb piracy. Now, the average man is also participating in the fight against piracy. With the toll free number, AACT is getting information on anti-piracy activities all over the city, increasing the magnitude of raids conducted on movie pirates. Unlike earlier, the team now also gets information on the smaller vendors/sellers across the city making the enforcement more effective and widespread.

The Indian film industry and 'Brand Bollywood' are far too important to be destroyed by criminals. Over the last few months we have taken stringent measures to curb piracy along with Mumbai Police, and the results are extremely positive even at an early stage. - Harish Dayani, Moser Baer Nearly every Indian title is camcorded & available in pirate street markets on average two to three days after legitimate theatrical release. Our online enforcement teams have shown that we can control online piracy and discourage download of pirated movies. - Prakash Nathan, UTV Motion Pictures Piracy is not a victimless crime. The RAND report on Film Piracy, Organized Crime & Terrorism has clearly demonstrated that film piracy funds terrorist activity. I am glad that lawmakers in the country agree with AACT to make anti-piracy laws tougher. - Rajiv Dalal, Motion Picture Dist. Association (India) Online copyright theft in India is growing rapidly. Two separate reports last year placed India in the top ten countries worldwide for P2P infringements. Educating the masses is a mission for us at AACT over the next one year. Sanjay Tandon, Reliance Big Entertainment

Movie piracy robs local businesses of a livelihood and the capacity to provide local Employment. The industry has immense unrealised potential and we have to ensure that piracy does not kill that potential. - Ram Mirchandani, Eros
International
Alliance Against Copyright Theft. All rights reserved. W: www.aact.in Toll Free No.: 1800 103 1919 | E: contact@aact.in; press@aact.in Page 4

Issue 01 - September 2010

In a bid to curb online movie piracy among kids AACT launched a comic book titled 'Escape from Terror Byte City' in May 2010 at the inaugural session of Cyber Safety Week in Mumbai. Supported by the then Mumbai Police Commissioner D. Sivanandan, the title in the coming months will be distributed in Mumbai to children aged five to ten in schools, multiplexes and malls. The comic will be published in three languages Hindi, Marathi and English - and has been endorsed by the Department of Information Technology, Mumbai Police, Data Security Council of India (DSCI) and the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM). AACT is currently working on initiating a school activation program across Mumbai and Maharashtra to distribute the comic to school children. Over the past month AACT has also been working closely with the Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) to get the book included in the national curriculum of the primary education system. Once this comes through the comic is likely to be translated into more regional languages and circulated among children across the country.

Alliance Against Copyright Theft. All rights reserved. W: www.aact.in Toll Free No.: 1800 103 1919 | E: contact@aact.in; press@aact.in

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Issue 01 - September 2010

According to an online anti-piracy report, released on June 22, 2010 nearly 32,000 unique links to download a pirated copy of the Hrithik Roshan starrer Kites were detected. 94% of these sites were successfully taken down in an anti-piracy campaign. Practically three crores (P2P-1.5 crores & Sites-1.5 crores) of the movies losses were averted with the help of this operation. Another similar report, released on July 30, 2010, mentions that nearly 93% of the global piracy for the Imran Khan & Sonam Kapoor starrer I Hate Luv Storys (with 10, 05, 468 infringements) occurred in Asia alone. Europe is second with infringements as low as 35874 (3%). Over the last few months, AACT has been regularly generating reports that indicate the increasing adoption of torrent based sites among audiences. While incidences of piracy in India are largely offline, cyberspace is gaining momentum. Between July 2-29, 2010, India topped the online piracy market with close to 8,00,000 infringements. Pakistan comes next in the online piracy race but is still far behind, with less than 1,60,000 infringements. Although, the city of Islamabad is the leader in online piracy, second only to New Delhi, Mumbai is not far behind either followed closely by Bangalore.

H e n c e , A A C T i s m a i n t a i n i n g e f f e c t i ve communication with the youth through various means in order to create awareness about the adverse effect of piracy. For obvious reasons, the maximum downloads for I Hate Luv Storys (IHLS) occurred between July 6-10, 2010, since the movie released on July 2, 2010. Peepli Live, which released on August 13, 2010, too was unable to escape the clutches of piracy. India with approximately 2200 IPs, again ranked 1st in the number of IP downloads for this movie.

Online Piracy for Peepli Live on 24.08.10 Worldwide The team at AACT is working hard towards limiting the scope of the varied forms of online piracy. Their key counter measures are focused on the popular P2P (Peer 2 Peer) sites.
Takedown of sites hosting IHLS

% of infringements in major cities for IHLS

The recent statistics suggest that online piracy is rampant where there is easy access to broadband internet. This report also revealed a startling fact that Islamabad, being the capital of Pakistan, is a major hub for Bollywood movies through piracy.

Encouraged by the success during Kites, I Hate Luv Storys & Peepli Live, AACT has decided to adopt a similar approach to combat online piracy for other major releases coming up this year.

Alliance Against Copyright Theft. All rights reserved. W: www.aact.in Toll Free No.: 1800 103 1919 | E: contact@aact.in; press@aact.in

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Issue 01 - September 2010

AACT will make its presence felt at youth platforms by partnering with youth festivals. These college festivals attract thousands of students the ideal place to spread the word against piracy. AACT is all set to launch its official identity, backed by the combined might of the film industry. AACT is partnering with Whistling Woods International (WWI) for an anti-piracy trailer competition among WWI students along with support from US Consulate. AACT will soon release an anti-piracy film that will be played at all the multiplexes to capture the attention of the theater audience and build momentum for the anti-piracy cause.

Moving beyond the metros, over the next few months AACT will be conducting camcord trainings in tier-II and tier-III towns.

During 19th 22nd August, 2010, Alliance Against Copyright Theft (AACT) actively took part in Umang, the college festival of NM College, Vile Parle. The activity was undertaken in order to create awareness amongst the students & engage them in the fight against movie piracy. During the four day fest, AACT reached out to more than 40,000 students by actively engaging them in dialogues about the ills of piracy and its effect on the common man. As a part of the activity AACT has also put up banners at strategic locations round the college and was distributing pamphlets to students as well. The comic book, Escape from Terror Byte City was a highlight of AACT's activation in Umang, with several students asking for copies for themselves. The comic books and AACT branded T-shirts were given to students as freebies at the end of various competitions and kept the interest going. To ensure that the antipiracy message reaches out to all students, AACT also made regular announcements across the venue to inform students about piracy, the toll free number as well as competitions, prizes etc.

With the inventiveness of the volunteers at the event, the toll free number 1800 103 1919- too breed extensive hype for AACT. By the end of the event, people recognized AACT & its mission.

Alliance Against Copyright Theft. All rights reserved. W: www.aact.in Toll Free No.: 1800 103 1919 | E: contact@aact.in; press@aact.in

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Issue 01 - September 2010

Alliance Against Copyright Theft

Alliance Against Copyright Theft. All rights reserved. W: www.aact.in Toll Free No.: 1800 103 1919 | E: contact@aact.in; press@aact.in