CHENNAI: Superstar Rajinikanth’s latest release, Lingaa, is barely three days old, but its pirated CD version is already out in the market, as an Express reporter strolling along the Burma Bazaar area on Sunday evening found out. It all began after a man from one of the shops walked up to the journalist and offered to sell movie CDs and DVDs at low cost. “Is Lingaa available?” the reporter asked. He promptly said no, but the reporter was persistent.
“Look I am a student coming all the way from Adyar just to get to watch Thalaivar’s movie and the theatres are full,” the journalist said.
The man yielded and quoted Rs 100 for Lingaa. He went into a shop and came back with a list of other movies and asked if the ‘student’ wanted any of them. While doing so, he slipped a CD with no markings into the reporter’s hands.
But did the CD really have Lingaa? The journalist reached a computer, played the CD and found it had the movie, all right.
Pirated versions of the movie are also available online at tamiltorrents, torrents.eu and thiruttuvcd, posing a stiff challenge to production house Eros Entertainment.
“Attempts are being made to weed out every possibility of the movie being illegally sold. The technicians who have worked in making the movie are out in the market to find such cases. We hope the links are blocked and the merchants who sell these CDs are nabbed,” said a source close to the film unit.