The first and foremost menace the entire film industry all over India has been facing over the last decade is none other than piracy. Each year, producers are losing hundreds of crores because of piracy Most of the films are being released online on the release day itself.
The recent victim of Online piracy is Mani Ratnam’s OK Kanamani(OK Bangaram).The versatile directed moved to high court on this matter and in response to his petition Madras High court on Tuesday granted interim stay on the release of a pirated version of Mani Ratnam’s latest movie O Kadhal Kanmani.
Representing Madras Talkies, a film production and distribution firm, Mani Ratnam filed the civil suit seeking permanent injunction restraining 14 defendants, including Google India, YouTube, BSNL, MTNL, Airtel, Aircel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices from infringing upon the copyright of the film.In his petition Mani had said that it has become a common practice to pirate the original version of the film and distribute it through digital devices across the world.
”These intermediaries unknowingly become channels of piracy in the internet. The Information Technology Rules state that an intermediary shall observe with due diligence and inform the users not to host pirated content.’ He added.
Justice K Ravichandra Babu granted the stay and adjourned the matter by six weeks. Including Google, 13 other intermediaries got an order from High Court to block all the URLs carrying any image of Mani Ratnam’s film.