Govt to launch anti-piracy awareness drive in 12th Plan

Terming piracy as the prime reason for the decline of the home-video market, the government on Tuesday said it will launch an anti-piracy awareness drive in the 12th Five-Year Plan period. The drive will place special focus on piracy on the Internet where mechanisms of regulation do not exist, the information and broadcasting ministry said in a statement.

"The government on Tuesday approved a scheme under the 12th Five-Year Plan for carrying out an anti-piracy initiative in the audio-visual sector. This new scheme of the ministry of information and broadcasting has an outlay of Rs 2 crore for the Plan period 2012-17," it said.

"Piracy continues to be a key challenge for the Indian film sector and has been a prime reason for decline of home-video market in the country," it said. Quoting the FICCI-KPMG report for 2011, the ministry said that the piracy market accounts for 600-700 million unit-sales of DVDs each year with more than 10,000 vendors operating in illegitimate DVD market. With increased competition, prices of pirated DVDs are declining, the ministry said.

"Another new emerging threat to legitimate exhibition of films is illegal download of films available on websites. The magnitude of this problem is set to increase in the coming years, given the expansion and availability of broadband infrastructure."

According to the ministry, the film sector faces a massive challenge from software on Web-based platforms in the current environment as mechanisms for regulation of content on the Internet are non-existent. "It is generally felt that money from piracy goes towards funding anti-national activities. In view of the foregoing, there is no alternative to government intervention. Hence, it has been envisaged to spread an awareness campaign against piracy in collaboration with stakeholders like business chambers, schools, colleges, etc," it said.