MPA launches Hindi-language anti-piracy movie trailer in India

Media News

New Delhi, June 22

Today Motion Picture Association (MPA) launched an anti-piracy movie trailer aimed at making Indian moviegoers aware of the laws protecting copyright and at encouraging the public to reject pirated movies found online or on DVDs.

The Hindi-language trailer will be dubbed into regional Indian languages and played at hundreds of theatres across India. The reach of the trailer will be extended even further when it begins an extensive run on Star India Television's network in July.

The public education effort represented by the trailer campaign is a result of cooperation among the MPA, Star India Television and Indian production house Quality Cine Labs, which is producing the prints of the trailer and undertaking regional language dubbing for free.

"The MPA and its member companies are delighted to join forces with Quality Cine Labs and Star India Television in fighting movie piracy in India," said Mike Ellis, Senior Vice President and Regional Director, Asia-Pacific for the MPA. "India boasts one of the world's greatest movie industries, with Indian films popular the world over; however, the effects of film piracy touch millions of Indian people, and cause significant economic and social damage."

The trailer launch comes near the end of MPA's two-month long region-wide MPA anti-piracy enforcement campaign, Operation Tripod, running in 13 countries and territories across the Asia-Pacific region. Operation Tripod targets the production, distribution, export and sale of pirated movies throughout the region and around the world. While Operation Tripod's crackdown on piracy is timed to run during the peak northern summer period, the MPA makes no distinction between piracy of local or foreign movies and has worked with enforcement agencies to protect sales of all cinema tickets and legitimate DVDs, and VCDs in India and throughout Asia-Pacific.

Operation Tripod operations is being conducted in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

Piracy in Asia

A comprehensive study aimed at producing a more accurate picture of the impact that piracy has on the film industry including, for the first time, losses due to internet piracy, recently calculated that the MPA studios lost US$6.1 billion to worldwide piracy in 2005. About US$2.4 billion was lost to bootlegging*, US$1.4 billion to illegal copying** and US$2.3 billion to Internet piracy***. Of the US$6.1 billion in lost revenue to the studios, approximate US$1.2 billion came from piracy across the Asia-Pacific region, while piracy in the U.S. accounted for US$1.3 billion.

In 2006, the MPA's operations in the Asia-Pacific region investigated more than 30,000 cases of piracy and assisted law enforcement officials in conducting nearly 12,400 raids. These activities resulted in the seizure of more than 35 million illegal optical discs, 50 factory optical disc production lines and 4,482 optical disc burners, as well as the initiation of more than 11,000 legal actions.

For more information, please contact:

Ishmit Dhadial / Pushpanjali Singh

Sampark Public Relations Pvt. Ltd

Tel: + 91 98116 99878 / 99900 82717

Email: ishmit@sampark.com /

psingh1709@rediffmail.com

Anil Nayer

The Motion Picture Association

+ 91 4175 1283/ 98183 31118

anayer@riscsgroup.com