The Real Story of Tamil Rockers : Largest Piracy Torrents Syndicate Of South India

One website, which in the past 9 years, has had a traffic attraction of more than any other
website based out of India. Started in a shed in Nungambakkam, Tamilnadu and was initially
named simply as MoviesFreeTo. Within 3 weeks the name was changed to something simple
and locally relevant to remember, and there start the booming Tamil Rockers.

India is one of the biggest movie makers around the world, in all together over thousands of
movies we makes in different indian languages.

The Real Story of Tamil Rockers : Largest Piracy Torrents Syndicate Of South India

We do have a great law and order system to restrict piracy, but still India is the one of the
biggest industry facing the troublesome of Movie piracy in its peak.
Online Piracy Is A Criminal Offence Under Sec 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act,
1957 which prescribes imprisonment for 3 years and also fine of up to Rs 3 lakh.

17-year-old Bhaskar Kumar walks into his small cubicle of a shop. Practically a man-sized
wooden box, in the midst of the ten other retail shops, in the bustling bazaar at Saravanmpatty.
All the shops are in the business of Digital media works.
A fancy little name for DTP and Xerox machines whirring in these cubicle shops all through
the day. Students, Job enthusiast flock this bazaar from early in the morning to late in the
night, buying sundries in relation to their needs. Highest sales, of course, were course materials
from particular colleges, Xerox copies of notebooks of a nerdy topper, or in a recent
phenomenon CDs. While we are on the subject of CDs, the bazaar in question is infamous
for selling practically every software out in the world web market, in the form of ‘cracked’
software. Starting from the just launched Windows OS, to Photoshop, to Nero CD Burner, to
basically everything. And this is not taking into account the humongous business that the
shops started making while selling PC Games. One such outlet for Video Games and Movie
CD’s is what Bhaskar Kumar, turns his key into and opens his cardboard of a door, is for.
“Shiny Videos and CD’s” is the name of this humble little establishment, which is locally
known as “Corner CD Shop”.


Corner because it was situated in the corner of the plethora of digital shops. A little trackback
on this establishment tells us that Bhaskar, a couple of years back, flunks his 10th standard.
He is practically hopeless about his future, as even his supplementary exams show him the
same result. In desperation comes hope, and in hopelessness comes brilliance sometimes, isn’t
it? And so, Bhaskar stumbles upon this idea to start a CD rental shop in the Bazaar.
He opens the shop, and within a few moments a young group of four friends, with their school
bags on, appear at the shop. They explore the CD’s collection standing tall in wooden shelves
behind Bhaskar, who is just sitting on a stool looking at these young students. They discuss,
banter, giggle and finally zero in on “Terminator 3: Rise Of Machines”.
“Rent for 30 per day. Buying 200” Bhaskar says as a matter of factly
“How is the print, Anna? And the movie?”
“Master Print Only. Movie average. Matrix is Better” Bhaskar says, sounding as a master film
critic. Every shop owner needs to sound like he knows everything about everything, yes? Also,
He knows that in a group, when you put another option, there are chances that they’ll take two, to satisfy anyone and silence any conflict. And as expected the talks start again within the group.
“Matrix Revolutions is good, Anna?” asks someone breaking out from the pitching up
discussion.
“Yes. Story-wise it is good. And fights also. Terminator graphics and Arnold is nice” Bhaskar
says, knowing very well, that a little more emphasis on the word ‘graphics’ will make them not
just rent the CD but buy both of them. One thing he has learnt from his experience of running
this shop for the past four months is that the youth visiting him, are suckers for graphics and
fights. Those are the keywords.
And thus, the group buys two CDs. And his first sale for the day is a cool 400. Thus, his shop
makes good business in the day selling to boys salivating on mindless action, James Bond,
Terminators, Graphics, and such. His evenings are more interesting when he gets interacting
with Young adults, who come in for some very particular movies, which presumably have
some content (read sex scenes and Sharon Stone for most parts). “Shiny Video and CD’s”
thrives in the night, when a different stock of movies fills up the lower rack, and a sheet of
paper comes out to the table.
Men and Teens (aspiring to be Men overnight) frequent the shop, and Bhaskar shows them the
sheet, filled with details of Porn Movies. And there’s no rental for them, only buying. Each
Porn Movie, stored in 2 CD’s pack, is sold for a cool 350 rupees. When Bhaskar runs out of
the stock, he makes his weekly trip to Chennai, to buy the stockpiles from his friend, Daniel
Raju, at Majestic Circle.
The first day is always crucial. It makes or breaks a movie. That much everyone knew. But
what very few people knew was a street fact that, it wasn’t the first day that decided the fate of
a film. Neither the weekend following. It was the six hours before the release of the film that
decided the fate. Producers and Distributors six hours before the first show would indulge in
the last bid, to offer slots and extensions. Usually, the whole arrangement would be taken care
by mediators, one of them being Daniel Raju, who would collect Paper foldings ‘Chits’ from
each distributor in the city, travelling from one corner of the city to the another, in his old
Chetak scooter. These Chits would contain the amount, the distributor was willing to spend to
acquire the movie for more number of shows beyond the first day. How did he decide how
much he wants to spend if at all he does?
It’s a simple logic, the distributors are shown the movie only up to the first half, ten hours
before the actual release. The second half is never shown, to protect the secrecy of the plot.
Then the producers would go back to their places, and decide on a gamble to invest in the
movie beforehand. It was a risky gamble. If the movie clicked, the producer would coolly
double his Ask rate. If it flunked, the investment is gone. To ensure that there is a common
guarantee between the Producers and the distributors, irrespective of the movie performance
and fluctuation, a third neutral unofficial body was formed in the late 70’s called The Brokers.
They took care of the bidding procedure, guaranteed Asks, and ensured that everything was
proper. In early 90’s cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and other major south Indian
cities, had more than 150 broker agencies, each employing more than two hundred people
each.
Although the business of movie piracy, facilitated by these brokers over time, is a vast
discussion, our narrative requires a small peek into Daniel Raju’s work. Daniel Raju, much
like his friend in Coimbatore, was a man of humble academic bearings. But what he did excel
was in building contacts. He started being a Broker, interacting with Producers and Distributors
directly at the age of fifteen. Thereafter, he started his own Brokering business, by getting
really good deals for smaller budget films. He had a knack of getting them two-week slot
bookings and had made a name for himself with emerging production houses. By the time he
touched twenty, he knew the potential of Movie piracy as a business. And it was a time when
Video CD’s were just coming out. Initially, he tied up with Internet Cafes, and low-level
computer shops, to copy the Video CD’s being released. He used to bulk purchase, 1000 Blank
CD’s from a shipment of Chinese make- UNA, MoserBaer, Sony, BOST, TARA, ZOLO brands,
which started dumping them on Chennai Port.
And thus started his parallel business of Piracy as well. He started making friends across the
state and supplied them with quality prints of movies which were released on Video CDs.
The margin? Well, you see the original Video CD of Kaadhal Kondein (starring Dhanush) of
2003, was priced at Rs.450 initially and sold close to 750 copies. The same was pirated, and
priced at Rs.70, and sold close to 62,000 copies reportedly. One Video CD was sufficient to
fuel an unlimited number of copies. And one of his friends was Bhaskar of Coimbatore.
They were simply making a margin of at least anywhere between 3,000 to 20,000 per movie.
And just to give you an idea, an average year, there are around a 1000 Indian movies releasing
every year. The issue was, Indian movies were very less in the market, for the piracy
machinery already in play, within the country. That’s where Chinese, Korean, English and
Russian movies filled the gap. Not to mention Porn movies directly brought in by foreign
tourists and sold to the Brokers here for a handsome amount.
(We shall explore the topics of Movie Piracy, Porn Influx, And More in our upcoming articles
– India in High Definition, coming out soon. Due to constraints of space and discussion, we
shall focus on the story of Tamil Rockers within this article. However, the character
introductions shall play a crucial part in our future discussions on India’s Piracy Rings in
future as well)
It took us seven months to reach out to the admins of the page, which had gained prominence
in South India as the foremost Movie torrents provider. I’d tried reaching out to almost all the
self-proclaimed admins associated with the page. Most of the admin details given out within
torrent host sites like Mononova, KATto, or Pirate Bay, had been maintained as fake. A few
hosts, however, got me through to at least some worthy profiles. One site which majorly
helped us in zeroing on admin profiles for Tamil Rockers was 1337xtorrents.
In May 2017, we left messages to these found profiles for an interview. Why them? For the
apparent reason, that here was a platform, which was reportedly doing a business of 210
Crores every year and with an investment of not more than 8 Lakhs. You calculate the return
on investment now and tell me why it doesn’t make for an incredible story. Technically,
TamilRockers, though illegal, has turned out to be the most profitable Startup organization
ever. The messages were never replied, neither on Emails nor on Facebook. The idea of Piracy
was an exciting prospect for anyone looking to understand the business of it, and thus it
intrigued the writer in me for long. However, no reply was a dampener and we left the idea
there at.
In July 2017, we finally got a reply. From a profile named Dolly Gupta, one of the visibly fake
profiles created for uploading torrents onto PirateBay. The forum thread showed that this
particular Dolly Gupta was an active profile which participated and discussed movies within
PirateBay discussion forum. The profile also managed the upload portals in all major torrent
host sites. The message that we received was a simple ‘Hello. Ok. Let me know how I can
help’. The message piqued my interest in the topic again, and I went onto converse with Dolly
Gupta, on a regular basis. It slowly became apparent that Dolly Gupta had been removed as
an admin from TamilRockers organisation, and was seeking some sort of get back on them.
The situation was simple. And I just needed to convince the profile that we here were open to
exposing the whole racket. Thus, after two months of conversations, I finally met the man
behind Dolly Gupta, a shabby looking 31-year-old, by the name Bhaskar Kumar.
The following are my conversations with him, which throw some light onto perhaps the most
widespread piracy racket of India.
Umm, we were looking to expand to North also ok. So, there was some, like a clash, between
me and another guy. I think, we can do best in our regions, why to go somewhere else. Already
there are many other groups like YiFY, Shakeel, etc in Delhi, Mumbai and such places. So,
yeah. That is where I had a fight with other partners. They are friends only to me, but business
is different na? I can’t work like that when I have to fight. The important thing is I know with
more places; the risk is more also. And Daniel anna is always looking for risk. Before it was
different, but now things are changing. They are tracking IP’s from Internet Service Provider
database. You cannot skip IP also. The initial ping will show who you are like that (clicks his
fingers). So yeah. Another thing is, I used to manage around 70 host pages, means, each
admin has the same number of pages. But most are getting shut down. Now, recently we
started making our own websites, to host the torrents. It will take time before these websites
go popular. So yeah, I got fed up with weird ideas by Daniel anna. Before he used to give us
freedom in uploading torrents, as we wished. Now, he is also starting to feel pressure. Before
it is better that I come out at this point na?
During Vivegam’s release, we had made a mistake. So one of our ripper contributors, posted
up the torrent for the movie, directly to PirateBay. He was supposed to give it to us, and we
pay him for that. But this person, kid he is actually, he thought he will get direct hits and
popularity by going past us. Daniel anna, didn’t like it at all and threatened the boy of exposing
him. I said it is only a small mistake, and tried to make him remember about we started as well.
We started off doing something similar and going against our bosses. When we did it was
right, now this kid does it means it is wrong. There we had an argument, and he hit me.
OK, since you mentioned how you started, can you tell more about that? Specifically, where
and when did TamilRockers start and how is the process of torrent uploading taken up?
I will talk to you about this off the record. Please.
Look, these things will help you get what you want. There’s no purpose in doing this if you are
unwilling to talk and we can’t come out with the article.
You don’t understand. When I answer this, I am talking about every other group as well, as
everyone has a similar procedure for getting movies. Trade secret it is.
Ok. But it is important we need this, as only then we can know how the whole market operates.
You said you wanted to do something, this is you doing something. Think about it.
I’ll try. Please try to be discreet. I have seen your site, and you often cross lines. Just see that
for me.
Agreed. Hopefully, you can give us details.(sips on the famous Niloufer chai made with a little
bit of maska) Errm, Ok. So Tamilrockers was started in 2007. I was 21 back then. I still
remember it was after the release of Thalaiva’s Sivaji. Our business spiked so much that we
had to take 70 other computer systems on lease, to make Camrip DVDs for the movie, in the
first week of release. The craze was huge. The movie in its first day itself got a Blockbuster
talk. People, students, fans, everyone was rushing up to CD shops to get their hands on
theatre prints. I remember the comparatively good print came from Chitoor. We had to
mix the audio track from theatre to a good Telugu print.  Thee business was booming
because of Thalaiva. Even after a week, we were producing 900 to 1000 DVD’s every day,
and selling an equal number. So much was happening that, we didn’t realise that Anti-piracy
cell in Chennai were secretly looking at us. Us means not just our outlets in Coimbatore, but
every shop and internet café helping us in the process. And they started busting us one by one.
In a week, around 350 shops in Chennai were closed down. It was also shown in the news if
you remember. Many raids happened in Coimbatore where I owned a shop too.
Some CD shop owners were arrested also. Luckily Daniel anna informed me beforehand,
and I shut shop for a week and stayed at home. Later I got to know many other shops were
raided in our shopping complex. This all went on for a month. But something interesting
happened the next month. Someone from Chennai uploaded a part of the movie, means
maybe 10 minutes on YouTube and gave the link to download. Now imagine how crazy
it went. By arresting us, they had made us desperate to take some revenge. It became
personal. Why I am saying personal is, the producers of Sivaji, they filed an FIR on
our shops and gave out a press meet. I think that how someone got a new way of putting
out the picture. Daniel anna saw this and came to me with an idea. He mentioned something
about Torrents.
Three things he told me about Torrents, that made me take it up seriously.
1. A movie is divided into 100 pieces, and each piece is shared with anyone interested. So,
everyone gets the movie.
2. No need for a shop. We just needed to buy computers and take internet connection. We can
use our contacts to bring out movies without any police tracking.
3. And most importantly, you can download the remaining movie even if there is a power cut,
or shut down.
That’s when Daniel anna, Me, Govinda, Chinna, Saami and Balu, met for the first time. And
decided to sell our shops, and come to work with Daniel anna at a shed in Nungambakkam,
Chennai. He decided on the name of TamilRockers. And the DVD’s and CD’s were gone.
From 2007, we are uploading every movie in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi,
in three to four versions. Camrip, Webrip, DVDrip, HD rip, and recently, BluRay HD rip and
original. So yeah that’s it.
We are curious as to how the whole process is taken up, and I’m sure if there is one part of
this discussion that our readers would be waiting for is to know how do you describe the
whole procedure from getting the movie and uploading it?

Procurement Of Movie – Sources And Reasons – Method One

(My interviewee goes into deep thought. There is some kind of conflict that he is battling out
in his mind. It’s the look, a look that I often see in people when they know they are excited,
or at least ready to speak something, but the sanity of their experience asks them to stop. Most
people do stop and never utter a word. Some overcome their fear and speak up. Bhaskar
belongs to the latter. He really needs his revenge. It is clear that he is hurt, not just because
of the reasons he stated above, but I can sense there is something more personal. Nevertheless,
he does speak up) For example, let’s say there is a movie, Bhagavan. Assume that, a superstar
is acting in it, and it is made with a big budget, of say 70 crores. Why I am saying big budget
is that there is a procedure for different types of movies and different production values. So
let’s say Bhagavan is a big budget movie, with so much pressure on it to perform. Today, as
a producer, if you can make half your budget back in the first three days, you are successful,
because the remaining you can make in remaining time, satellite versions, and YouTube
channels. So, Bhagavan is fully prepared. First, what does the producer do? Let’s say I’m the
producer, ok? So first I will call a press and insider premiere, in a closed preview theatre.
Most of such preview theatres are in film studios and have a capacity of not more than 50
people. The movie in its unedited format, just after CBFC certificate is shown, with
watermarks and stuff. That’s where TamilRockers come in. If you are someone related to
TamilRockers, you will go and talk to the organizers and film studio staff. Pay close to 70k
or 1lakh to get the preview print. You take the print, rip it, and save it for yourself. Just before
the release date, you just make that money back, by showing a small clip to the producer. Say
you can ask him, 3 lakhs to not upload the movie online. The loss is too much for him, he
thinks, and pays automatically. You get a margin of 2 lakhs, of which again 30% will go to the
organizer, who will claim that their system was hacked or put the blame on some peon or
worker.  That is one way of getting business. If the producer doesn’t pay, I can still make my
3 lakhs from torrent host sites, who jump to take my print. I send them the clip too. They know
it’s a huge budget movie. Imagine the number of Ads and Downloads they will get. So, they
are more than happy to pay 3 lakhs (even more) to get the movie. You get the margin and the
same procedure as above. Once, we have the movie, it’s easy to do other parts of the business.
Getting the movie is the most difficult task. Buying Preview copy from preview theatres is
one way.
Sometimes, it also happens, that some movie producers, when they get a feedback that the
movie is not very good, approach us to release a small clip onto online, either torrent or
YouTube. It is very rare, but it did happen a couple of years back with a blockbuster
Telugu movie. Initially, preview people were bored of it, but when we released an hour
of the movie, through torrents, people became interested and made it a hit when it released
a week later. These days, instead of movies, we are asked to release trailers beforehand to
see how the response is. If it is good, then fine. If it is not good, they will change it and
rerelease. You see, everything is very fragile. If someone gets an impression that the film is
bad, because of the trailer, gone, the movie is gone.
Procurement Of Movie – Sources And Reasons – Method Two
The second method of getting a movie before release, or on release, or a few hours later is
W.F.D. Worldwide Film Distribution technology. So let’s continue with the movie Bhagavan,
what is the easiest way for me as a producer to make money back quickly. Simple I have to
screen it overseas. Why overseas? Theatre and Slot rentals are cheaper, and the margin you
make in USD, Dirham or Euro is higher. Since there are hundreds and thousands of screens
abroad, you can easily fixate on at least a 100 shows abroad. So, yeah, as a Producer I want
to reach a maximum number of people na? That’s where I approach, Worldwide Film
Distribution technology. All the major multiplexes use this technology, where they just have
to stream the movie. Means, your movie is uploaded in their secure server, spread across three
to four different servers, and they give the multiplex people links of each part, as and when
required. The whole movie, depending on 2D or 3D, is divided into 4 or 2 parts, and stored
on different servers. They are secure systems, and you can’t touch them. But the links have to
come to theatres right? That’s where we come in.
So it is simple. You get a deal with a theatre, registered with W.F.D, and when the streaming
link arrives (usually just 15 minutes before the first show), you ‘double route’ it. The double
route is a technique where you can register as two screens showing the same movie at the
same time, or at a difference of ten minutes maximum. So, then W.F.D sends across
participation key,  we can login for the link as well. Of course, there is no other screen, it is
just playing into our system. Some theatres help us, because it’s easier to make money from
us. We pay them around 4 to 10 lakh for those links. That is his additional income over and
above the screening money, which he has to record and pay tax on. Calling up the producer is
common here also.
That was a flaw W.F.D was having last year, but now after complaints, it has changed the
login system and streaming credentials.Another easier way to get your print is when you have
people in Dubai, Bahrain, Canada or China. Because of Movie regulation there, W.F.D has to
send the whole movie at least 2 hours before. And since the Exhibitors union has to record
how the movie is performing, all the links are forwarded to local film committees way before
the release. A leak always happens.
Procurement Of Movie – Sources And Reasons – Method Three
Another way of getting Camrips, and Firstday rips, is through contributors. It’s simple.
TamilRockers pays 500 to 1500 for each movie. Kids go and record movies in theatres send
us the sample, and after payment, they send us the movie. The better the print, the better the
pay. Recently, we have a few graphic designers for editing, brightening, and scaling the prints.
They edit it and put up. It’s a simple process. Prints from projection rooms, mobiles, tablets
etc, mostly come from B town theatres where usually, second show movies or Benefit show
movies are played at 4 am in the morning. They are still showreel based theatres, so the print is
ok only. There is no master print, but who cares. People, fans, curious people still download
them and watch them. And latest movie always sells.
When you say all this, it seems to me that you are a widespread network. Then how is it
possible for you guys to stay under the radar for so long? Also, how do you make money out
of movie torrents? Is it hit based or download based?
I am talking to you, so I think we are coming out of radar. And I personally also, want to bring
out TamilRockers. We are a good network. Our office is only one, in Nungambakkam, even
now. But we have contributors and distributors all over the world. I’ll tell you something. Our
biggest contributors come from US, who send us movies like Vivegam first day, with the help
of W.F.D hackers. Easy money no? They will come. And if there are individual uploaders in
KAT or PirateBay, we buy them off. Also, for HD prints, we have screenrips from NetFlix,
Eros Now, Hulu etc. So it is a good business.
Between the two of us, the producers are afraid of exposing us. Let’s say I’m a rival producer,
and you are producing a movie. I will pay TamilRockers to leak the movie beforehand on the
first day. Take the case of Uthama Villain. We had the print out after 3 hours of release. HD
print that is also. We were paid to do so. Huge payments come across for that. Lakhs of rupees.
Even recently, a Telugu producer approached us to leak another movie, so that his movie can
perform well. You see, those two movies had the same release date. So it all happens. When
you are part of the crime, how can you expose the criminals?
Regarding money, apart from the above ways of doing so, we have a different revenue way
online. So, basically, we upload the sample of the print we have to the torrent host. They
contact us back, giving us a separate portal and account to upload. The more hits we get to our
account, the more we appear in search. The ad revenue is distributed in 45% to us, and 55%
of them. Some sites like KAT, ISOHunt, DesiTorrents, Torrentz pay us for the print as well.
There is a bid. How we do that, I can’t tell you on record. But there are ways, and we get paid
for the prints we have. And it also depends on the movie name being searched on the torrent
sites. These are recorded and the demand arises. Demand and Supply is the answer.
Lastly, Do you don’t think you are doing something wrong? Your business, or at least the idea
of business, don’t you feel is ruining the other business of movie production? Because of Piracy, movies get hefty losses every year?
So don’t download movies from Torrents. Simple. And we are gone. Simple question, how do you watch this Game of Thrones episodes? Don’t tell me that 3 million people in India watch Game Of Thrones on Star Plus.
(Star World, I say, compelled to correct him irrelevantly)
Huh. Yes. Star World. Will you wait? No, no, you will download, put out the status, do
discussions etc. Tell me how that is correct, and what we do is wrong? As I said, you search
for movies, and we give you those. Why? Don’t judge us. Your all movie discussions would
not happen if we didn’t bring out movies across the world to your system in torrents. Netflix
and Amazon Prime came now, but who wants to buy a subscription right? You are as it is
paying 500 for internet every month. Why are ISPs giving you 100 GB free data? To just
watch legal videos or porn? No no, for you to download torrents.
If I sit on your side, I can also say many things about legal, morals, ethics etc. But tell me the
truth, can any movie enthusiast live without torrents today? Why? Reasons are, you need to
spend 500 to 1000 every time you go watch a movie. If it’s a family, it comes to 2000 in
Gemini Multiplex or Casino Movies. Movie watching is becoming a rich people’s luxury.
No one questions that? Even if you make utter bullshit, we have to go watch ah? Which is a
bigger crime? The only way is making a movie like Bahubali or Enthiran, which you want to
watch in theatre for the experience. But others, who cares? Every producer wants to release
the movie in Multiplex because the margin is good. As soon as they do it, who will watch?
I personally cannot even buy the tickets, let alone popcorn, snacks, parking tickets. Why is
Popcorn 200 rupees? No one questions that? So anyway, we exist because we are needed.
And I am not just saying about Tamil Rockers. But everyone in this illegal business of
torrents and piracy. As the interview came to an end, Bhaskar pleaded with me, that he wanted
to share something off the record. These were things which implicated multiple production
houses, streaming partners, and the nexus of film distributors. Every single one of these
elements had some part to play in the widespread contagion of Piracy. TamilRockers were,
as per the information, just the tip of the iceberg. As my interviewee said, Demand and Supply
was always the key. Torrents were just the perfect bridge to match the two economic
standpoints. The bigger the movie gets, the riskier it gets. The feverish anticipation, backfire
as people of meagre means, what their passion for a hero, movie, caste, or region rewarded.
“I’ve watched the movie first day” means something in our part of the world, doesn’t it?
A misplaced bravado and achievement come up. To watch it, post it on Facebook, create
Memes, trolls, anything and everything. We are partners in this, don’t you think?
Piracy is illegal. And so is watching pirated movies or downloading pirated/cracked software.
Where does it end? We leave it to the reader to decide.
On August 29th, Bhaskar presented to us, vital and essential information about the torrent site,
TamilRockers, who he previously had a fall out for. Despite the personal reasons, Bhaskar’s
evidence has been submitted by us to the respective Cybercrime divisions. Upon perusal by the
officials, most of the evidence provided had been found as legitimate, and action worthy.
On September 10th, a coordinated scheme of luring admins of torrents site, TamilRockers to
Coimbatore was orchestrated with the help of Bhaskar. Unfortunately, only one another admin
turned up at Coimbatore. On September 12th, this admin was arrested on the charges of illegal
production and distribution of unauthorized movie content under Indian Copyright (Protection)
Act, 1957 as amended to include online piracy by 2012.
(The main head, behind TamilRockers establishment, Daniel Raju has since absconded.
Bhaskar presently has been the prime informant on the nexus of piracy and shall remain
to be in police protection for the foreseeable future. The story of Daniel Raju, his rise from
a humble ice cream seller, to establishing the biggest movie piracy ring in India, is a story for
another time).
7 Points of Online Movie space in India
1. Indians are the fourth largest English movie torrents download group, constituting a share
of 6.5% of all the downloaders. Also, India has the highest level of Broadband Piracy relative
to the Broadband users. (Simply FUP theft)
2. The highest downloads for an Indian movie were Bahubali (1.72 Million), Theri (1.67
Million), Dilwale (1.33 Million), Sultan (1.27 Million), Enthiran (1.22 Million), Kabali
(1.16 Million), Raaes (1.11 Million), Dangal (1.09 Million), and Two States (1 Million) to
round off.
3. India stands fourth in accessing piracy movie sites for streaming purposes. A study of 2015
found that Indians constitute 18% of the total population who stream the movie online on
illegal upload sites.
4. Students from Technology Colleges (BTech Colleges) constitute 37.08% (the largest portion)
of the total users downloading movies through torrents in India for the period 2015/16.
5. The most downloaded English TV Show torrents in unsurprisingly Game Of Thrones with a
huge 37.2% of total TV show downloads in India constituting it. It is followed, more
noticeably by Friends (10.6%), How I Met Your Mother (7.8%), Two And A Half Men
(6.5%), and Narcos (3.3%).
6. One solution for this, was worldwide DTH release, alongside theatres. In 2013, Kamal
Hassan’s Viswaroopam was touted to release in DTH formats, on the same day as the theatres
to avoid piracy. The distributors and producers brought a case against Kamal Hassan and
stopped him from doing that. This procedure could have been something worth a try to avoid
piracy.

7. Viewing, downloading, exhibiting or duplicating an illicit copy of the contents is punishable
as an offence under the laws of India, including but not limited to under Sections 63, 63-A, 65
and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957 which prescribe imprisonment for 3 years and also fine
of up to Rs. 3,00,000/-.
[content courtesy : voxspace]
TAG