Piracy or Pricey

Piracy is inevitable and we have been listening a lot about the ongoing Piracy of almost everything weather it is a movie, software, game or any other thing. The efforts to stop piracy are getting stronger, and so as the ways to break the code and copy anything possible on the earth. So much so, it is joked around that the Pirated CD of a movie is available, even before shooting of the movie is complete. Funny!!... Not really.

The other day I heard an actor requesting on a radio channel to stop piracy of the movies as it results in a lot of revenue loss. Yes, he was right and so are a lot of other people who are suffering from it. But then I started thinking, what could be the root cause of Piracy; why every effort towards this is going futile. Here are some of the major issues due which Piracy is so well engrossed in our lives.

Pricey Tickets

It’s the multiplex culture; the tickets are available at no less than 120 to 150 rupees per person. All the cinema halls which earlier used to offer tickets worth 10 to 50 rupees are being transformed into multiplexes. Can we not judge that to a population like India where we still have 25% people under poverty line and another 55% of lower middle class, the idea of pricey tickets is not that great?

Multiplexes are still a luxury for a lot of people. For an ordinary family earning 6000 – 8000 rupees, spending Rs.500 to watch a movie is still unaffordable.

This is one of the root causes of Piracy. The common man is more than happy to spend 30 rupees and rent out a DVD for a new movie rather than going to a cinema. Who has to bother about the revenue losses then? With the recession hitting hard, the matters are going to worsen.

Secondly, the DVDs of the movies come to the market after 3 months. It’s a long time for any movie to survive from piracy

The possible Solution

1. The most obvious solution to this problem could be reduction in prices of the tickets. It’s for the film makers, distributors and the multiplexes to decide what could be an ideal price of the tickets, so that they have maximum people coming to the cinema halls.

2. The life of any movie is very short these days. These days, a movie survives till the time the next big movie releases, so it is more appropriate to release the DVDs within a month or so of the release of the movie.

Having watched this phenomenon very closely, the efforts have to be made both ways, i.e. to request people to stop piracy and also to reduce the ever increasing prices of tickets.

I am sure, if we take appropriate measures towards this, we could kill this piracy once and forever.