India 4th Largest Illegal Downloader of Data
India is losing $959 million and 571,896 jobs due to piracy. According to Envisional and DtecNet, two global firms engaged in providing software solutions to track and prevent piracy of digital content and online business, the facts are staggering. US, Britain, Canada and India were the top 4 piracy-infested nations. The downloading occurs mainly through peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks like BitTorrent and cyberlockers, or web-based file hosts such as RapidShare or HotFile.
The unfortunate part is that there is no enforcement of under-effective anti-piracy laws. Rajiv Dalal, Managing Director, Motion Picture Distributors Association (India) said, "We need strong laws to support copyright, strong enforcement of those laws, stiff sentences for people who violate those laws, and most important, an understanding by ordinary citizen that buying pirated movies hurts the industry and makes it difficult for movie-makers to make new films." Michael Ellis, President and Managing Director of MPDA (Asia-Pacific) feels that a widespread awareness of the evils of piracy amongst the general public will be quite effective.
As per statistics, Hindi films are most downloaded. The latest 'Kaminey' was downloaded 350,000 times on BitTorrent and out of these two-thirds were from Indian IP addresses! Closely followed were Tamil and Telugu films downloaded mostly in Chennai and Hyderabad, respectively.
