CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has suggested to all stake-holders to conduct a meeting to eradicate the evil of film piracy.
Justice Pushpa Satyanarayana, who gave the suggestion on Monday, posted to November 28 the further hearing on a writ petition filed by the Film Exhibitors Association of the Tiruchy and Thanjavur area.
In its petition, the association sought to restrain the police from arresting the theatre-owners, who are members of the petitioner’s association, on the complaints that the films screened were videographed unauthorisedly.
When the petition came up for hearing, petitioner’s counsel K Ravi submitted that in recent times, piracy of films had become a matter of grave concern and though many measures were being taken by the authorities, it had continued to pose a challenge to the entire film industry. The film producers were unmindfully lodging complaints against theatre-owners accusing them of being responsible for the piracy.
The police arrest or attempt to arrest the theatre-owners merely based on such complaints, without any enquiry. This drives the theatre-owners to obtain bail or anticipatory bail. They cannot be made responsible for such piracy, he added.
Digital cinema service providers such as Qube Cinema Technologies supply digital prints of films to theatres for the exhibition.
They have a hi-tech watermark on the prints, which can be detected by experts while viewing the film on screen.
Such watermarks will also be retrievable by experts from any copies made from such prints. From such watermarks, the experts can detect the time and the theatre from which a pirated copy was made. Despite this, complaints are being arbitrarily lodged against the theatre-owners, he added.
Public prosecutor A Natarajan submitted that the petitioner’s prayer cannot be granted as no blanket order or no arrest can be granted.
As the judge suggested to the parties to hold a meeting with all concerned to find out a solution to the issue, Natarajan said that the State would consider the suggestion.