Tollywood blamed for piracy

The call to shut down the Telugu film industry by actors, filmmakers, script writers and technicians pledging to fight video piracy, has highlighted their demand that the government pass stricter laws to fight a menace eating into their profit. But city movie buffs say that the main cause of video piracy is the high cost of movie tickets and late release of DVDs in the market.Actors Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna, NTR, Bhumika Chawla, Navdeep, Ram, Allu Arjun, Naga Chaitanya have pledged their support to producer Yalamanchili Ravichand who is on a hunger strike. They have demanded the government clamp down on piracy.

Fans, however, say the film industry should do its bit to address the real cause for piracy.“I don’t support piracy at all and prefer to watch the movie in a theatre. But the onus on the industry is to reduce the cost of watching a movie in the theatre. Many people can’t afford to watch a film in theatres given the ticket price. If they reduce the price, people will not buy pirated CDs anymore says Siddharth Manohar, a movie buff and working professional.

Surpiya Jagarlamudi, a student of mass communication, says it is amusing to watch stars like NTR and Nagarjuna fight to ‘save the film industry’ while charging sky high remunerations. “These actors make one movie once every two or three years charging hefty amounts. They don’t compromise on that. They should fight to reduce movie ticket prices,” she says.However, film personalities say it is not viable for theatres to slash ticket prices.

“The ticket prices in theatres were Rs 20 a decade ago. Now the highest price in stand-alone theatres is Rs 50. The average income has gone up at least four times in the last decade but theatres only doubled the prices. The cost of producing a film has increased and ticket prices are reasonable given increasing maintenance cost,” defends Thammareddy Bharadwaja, member Telugu film producers’ council. He says nothing can justify piracy. “We provide entertainment at the most reasonable price.”

However, filmmakers acknowledge releasing DVDs earlier and at a lower cost could reduce piracy. Suresh Babu, a senior producer who runs several theatres in the state, says filmmakers are keen to release movie DVDs early at a lower cost. “But pirated CDs are released at even lower costs. We have a list of pirated CD makers and sellers in the city against whom several cases are booked,” he said. If the government arrests them immediately, filmmakers could release movie DVDs by the third or fourth week after movies hit the screen, says Suresh.