Film fraternity suggests amendments in Law to curb video piracy

Prominent members of the Film Fraternity on Friday expressed their concern over the damage caused to their film industry due to video and audio piracy at before a Group of Ministers at a meeting held at the state Secretariat on Friday.

The meeting was convened to discuss the proposal for including of offence of video piracy under the ambit of AP Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bottleggers, Dacoits, Drug Offenders, goondas, immoral traffic offenders and Land Grabbers Act 1986 as is done in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Kerala.

The members of film Industry representing AP Film Chamber of Commerce and Telugu Film Producers Council attended the meeting, apart from Home Minister Sabita Indra Reddy, Minister for Information and Public Relations DK Aruna and Law Minister Erasu Pratap Reddy. Bureaucrats BP Acharya, IPR Commissioner C Parthasarathi and police officers also participated in the deliberations.

The meeting saw the possibilities to include video piracy in the Act by Amendment being discussed.

Telugu Film Producers Council president P Shyam Prasad Reddy and other representatives expressed their concern due to video piracy and other offenders who are causing lot of damage to the film industry in both audio and video formats.

He stated that the origin of the offence is not possible to be traced that easily.  Thus the video libraries and parlours are to be checked regularly to trace the pirated DVDs and CDs.

 Keeping in view the discussions at the meeting, the possibilities for taking stringent measures by way of imposing heavy penalty  and enhance the period of  punishment and to amend the existing Act  with provisions of non-bailable warrant  was proposed to be examined by the government.

It was also decided that the total list of the video libraries operated in State shall be obtained and  they will be insisted to obtain the license from the authorities.

Initially the issuing of the licenses to the   video libraries in Hyderabad , Cyberabad, Ranga Reddy district be taken urgently to complete by April 30, 2011 and later will be completed in other districts in state by May 31, 2011.

Another suggestion to curb the piracy was that the film industry will have coordination meeting with the police department every month to inform the details regarding the video piracy offenders and action taken.

The government will examine the request of the film industry for starting special courts in all the districts in the state for quick disposal of the video piracy related cases.

The Group of the Ministers assured that it will review the matter again and make suggestions to the government for amendments in the existing Act.