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Amendment will deter cable piracy: Arun Jaitley
By MSM Desai
A high-level interactive meeting between Arun Jaitley, minister
for information and broadcasting, Maharashtra chief minister
Vilasrao Deshmukh, deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal,
top officials of the I&B ministry and state government,
film producers, distributors and exhibitors was held at Sahyadri
Guest House, Mumbai, to find out ways and means to curb piracy
in the wake of the recent amendment to the Cable Network Regulation
Rules 1994, which prohibits cable operators from showing films.
Arun Jaitley assured the filmfolk that the amendment would
serve as a deterrent to the cable operators from showing films
for which they do not possess the copyright. The 1994 cable
bill had not provided the clause that cable operators had
to obtain copyright before screening films. Now, stringent
punishment involving a 2-year imprisonment and fines await
culprits.
“Before the amendment was introduced, the film industry
had suffered losses of Rs one crore daily on account of piracy.
Producers were helpless when pirated films were shown on cable
all over the country as they were not in a position to stop
the menace. I had meetings with cable operators who confessed
that they were showing films illegally owing to the competition
between networks, and the demands of cable subscribers. Therefore
an amendment, whereby cable networks showed only films to
which they had copyright, was called for.
Under section 5 of the programme code, no film can be shown
without copyright. The powers to raid cable networks have
been given to district and sub-district magistrates and police
commissioners, because low-level officers may harass cable
operators unnecessarily. They have also been authorised to
seize the equipment of culprits under section 16,” said
Jaitley.
Several leaders of the film Seducing Marya for Bangkok Dr
Mohan Agashe, director of the Film and Television Institute
of India, is leaving for Bangkok to attend the Bangkok Film
Festival on September 22. Seducing Marya, the film in which
he plays a key role, is to be screened at the festival, which
will last till month-end.
try including Yash Chopra, Pahlaj Nihalani, Tilak Raj Magan
and NN Sippy wondered whether there would be effective implementation
of the amendment was possible, since the police force was
already over-worked. Jaitley said cable operators had met
him after the amendment was announced, and urged him to ask
producers to sell cable rights officially. He assured the
leaders that the cable networks would not violate the cable
rules. After all, the cable networks had stopped beaming PTV
when it was banned during the Kargil insurgency, Jaitley pointed
out.
Mumbai’s joint police commissioner (detection), Shivanandan,
asked producers to monitor the cable networks, and inform
him of copyright violations so that immediate action could
be taken. He advised them to maintain a monitoring agency
to alert the police stations of violations.
Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh assured the trade that the
state government would implement the cable amendment immediately.
Deputy CM Bhujbal urged the producers to inform the police
immediately of violations, to ensure a strict implementation
of the rules. It was suggested that since most of the piracy
took place through the 44 headends of the cable networks in
Mumbai, it was easy to stop them.
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