Is Bollywood Fuelling Piracy?

The film industry is one such area which faces tremendous effects of the piracy/leak. In fact, the fear of movie leaks among the filmmakers has overpowered the threat concerning the film’s failure.
From the highly awaited Hollywood’s Quantico 3, starring Priyanka Chopra to the controversial flick Udta Punjab and Parched, innumerable high budget movies had to go through the most turbulent quotient of pre-release piracy. But what’s the truth behind these leaks?
Speaking of the same social media expert Raju Singh Rathore says, “It’s really unfortunate as a single movie is the result of efforts of hundreds of people. But at the same time, in the light of the prevailing scenarios and the desperate need of marketing a film better than anybody else, we cannot deny that PR agencies often take to deliberate leakage of few scenes of the movie. Owing to certain factors, these tactics fail to work properly thereby turning everything upside down. An effort which was made to garner publicity, end up with negative criticism and poor box office collection.”
Bollywood’s latest release Julie 2, an adult-drama, got trapped in a similar situation when few intimate scenes from the movie were leaked on social media. Despite the buzz created around the country, the movie failed to attract the audience towards the theater. Well, we cannot directly comment if it was a deliberate leak or not, but obviously, the mishap didn’t really go in the favor of the filmmakers.
But how to sense what’s real? Adding to his comment, Singh said, “Today’s audience is smart enough to sense what’s intentional/deliberate and what’s not.”
“Moreover, the laws against film leaks are strong enough. So, in case it’s an accidental leak or a hack, the concerned authority reacts immediately to get hold of the culprit so as to punish him under the law. A great example of it is the movie Kabaali, which was leaked on Torrent before its official release but was immediately taken down within few hours. The man behind the leak was also arrested in no time.”
At the end, such things are unavoidable. All that can be done is to stay cautious. It’s high time that filmmakers take a step ahead to create better and stronger firewalls for themselves.