File Sharing in India Skyrocketed
Studies point to India as the world's fourth largest illegal downloader.
File Sharing and movie (or music) industry continue to be presented as arch enemies. Another two piracy reports commissioned by Motion Picture Distributors Association (MPDA) come to confirm this.
The first study conducted by Internet Company DtecNet and based on tracking of downloading IP-addresses on P2P networks revealed that from April to September this year, illegal file sharers propelled India in the top 10 countries with the highest rate of copyright infringement.
According to the second study published by Envisional, the main threat for movies and TV shows in India is the file-sharing network BitTorrent followed by file hosting services like RapidShare or HotFile. The popularity of video streaming is also growing but at a slower pace than that of bittorrent and cyberlockers. Indians just seem to love grabbing content online using p2p networks.
Dalal, Managing Director, MPDA (India) said in a recent statement: “Around the world film industries face the same problems.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 citizens, the people who love movies, that buying pirated movies hurts the industry and makes it difficult for movie makers to make new films.”
Studies also show that India is at the moment one of the most fervent users of cyberlockers in the world with 8.2% of visitors to the top ten cyberlockers worldwide coming from this country which also accounts for 11.8% of visitors to the top ten cyberlocker link sites which index copyrighted material offered by cyberlockers.
The Indian movie industry fears that country's broadband growth may also trigger a dramatic increase of the P2P file sharing phenomenon:
“There is a danger that as the Internet infrastructure in the country continues to grow at a fast rate, it will serve to power a community of Internet users who will view piracy as an activity without consequence and who will engage in such activity with ease,” said Hindi film producer Mahesh Bhatt.
