Piracy has been a cause of great concern in India over the last couple of decades. With the advent to technology, piracy has not only allowed a consumer access to cheap copies of the latest bestseller being sold on the traffic signals or a bad camera held copy of the new English blockbuster that was yet to released in India, but has allowed anyone with decent internet access to download movies, music, e-books and software without worrying about the quality or the consequences. It is no more about getting a copy that is cheaper than the cost of the original but getting it at no cost at all. And this could very well be the reason that Flyte, the MP3 store by Flipkart is closing its doors come June 17, 2013.
The Media and Entertainment industry has been dealing with the menace of piracy for a few decades now and while they have tried to put disclaimers at the beginning of the films, or publicize that piracy means losses for the industry, they have not been able to stifle its growth. To curb piracy, cheaper original DVDs and VCDs were introduced, and being released in the marketplace a few weeks after the release on the film in movie theatres, MP3’s which cost half of an average music CD but have at least twice the number of tracks on them, and while players like Moserbaer and YRF have to a certain extent helped the cause of curbing physical piracy, the mindset of buying the original is avoided by most people like the plague.
It is however online piracy that has been creating the largest dent in the pockets of the Media and Entertainment industry as a whole, with all the stakeholders admitting to losses being incurred by the industry, running into billions of dollars, because of piracy. While there have been attempts like the introduction of Flyte by Flipkart or the Itunes store in India, where original music is available at a per song basis ranging from anywhere between Rs. 7 and Rs. 15 on an average, or websites like ErosNow or Spuul which allow people to stream the latest films at a per monthly subscription akin to Netflix or Hulu in the west, none of the models have helped reduce the level of piracy in India. With the average Indian consumer not been able to accept the practice of paying for the music he listens to and assuming that anything that is available online for free is being made available to him legally and hence no crime is being committing by downloading the same, the current attempts seem to have fallen flat.
India has been trying to adopt the model which worked for the US with respect to curbing piracy and encouraging people to spend money on their movies and music. However, what the Indian counterparts have forgotten is that the enforcement measures that were and are being used in the US to curb piracy are nowhere in sight in India, and half hearted amendments to the law, or a few judgments categorizing piracy as a menace are not going to dissuade people from indulging in piracy.
With Flyte shutting shop in a little over a year the question again arises – are the stakeholders in India willing to go the extra mile and change the mindset of people or is it always going to be about the numbers?
