It is my pleasure to present NK Sreedhar’s first blog post. Myself and Priya Raju have known NK Sreedhar for over 11 years now. Over the years, Sreedhar and his wife Hema have become one of our best friends. Here he takes on a tough topic wrapping it with his great sense of humor. Please be generous with your comments to encourage him. – Sukumar

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“We have to fight piracy” my wife started. I was already conjuring up 5-6 excuses that I am going to give, in case it involved some work on my part. “It doesn’t involve us doing anything” she said. She must have read my mind. “In fact, it involves inaction by a whole group of people” she continued. Now, nothing gets my attention more than the sweet sound of the word ‘inaction’. My wife had me pegged correctly as the king of the ‘lazy’ kingdom, the one to throw a stiff challenge even to a government worker on inaction, the guy who envies an alligator for its’ laziness… You get the point, right!

“We lose out Rs.12,300 crores ($3.075B) to piracy each year”, she started. “I am talking about software, music, movie and books piracy in India”, she continued, “and that’s just the tangible part”. “That’s not bad”, I piped in, not knowing how to put it in perspective. “Not bad! Not bad! Look at this info.”, she was now furious with me.

In comparison, in the 2007-08 budget, Indian government was spending:

Now I got it. We are losing more to piracy than we are spending on our infrastructure, than what we spend on irrigation and nearly half of what we spend on education. “Aha, but we don’t contribute to this”, I was ready to join the Tarzan family by thumping my chest in a testosterone-soaked moment. “Yes, we do” she quipped. “Remember, we watched the movie ‘Tare zameen per’ by renting it from the video store. That couldn’t be an original one. We watched it in the 1^st week of its release”. This got me thinking and I started doing some searches.

Software Piracy

In Asia Pacific region, we have achieved the exalted status of 3^rd largest country in software piracy¹. In 2006, 71% of all software purchased in India is pirate software. Now, that’s better than 2005 in terms of percentage, but unfortunately, the industry is growing faster than that.

We are all guilty to this at some point in our life. Changing the system date to extend a trial period, buying computers from a distributor who provides it cheaper but doesn’t provide copy of the software loaded, borrowing a software CD from a friend with the ‘Key’, etc are just a few examples.

Music Piracy

Here’s one highly abused industry. Get this – In India, annual loss to the music industry due to piracy is Rs. 650 Crores – Size of the industry Rs. 600 Crores. So, we lose a little over an industry each year.

Piracy occurs due to availability of pirated CDs, copying of CDs and peer-to-peer downloads. My mind was playing a flashback for me – (move that pinwheel slowly anti-clockwise with some eerie music, please) That CD that I bought online of Kannadasan that had 168 songs in 1 CD for $13 couldn’t be original, now could it!

India again takes the honor of 3^rd place worldwide in music piracy bowing only to Brazil and China. I am feeling a sense of pride in my country already!

Book Piracy

According to the Federation of book sellers and publishers association of India (FBPAI), a conservative estimate of Rs. 2000 crore is lost by publishers to piracy in a Rs. 7000 crore publishing industry.

That includes you and me buying from the street vendor for 20% of the price that we have to pay from a book store, or reading a book online from pirated sources (similar to Harry Potter books being available on day 2 in India through online servers & sources).

This doesn’t even include the photocopies of books that we take to share with fellow students or family.

Movie Piracy

This is an interesting one. We all have watched a pirated movie or two in our lifetime. We have our own reasons for it – unavailability of original ones, movie not aired in our city, that’s what is available in the store etc. Some of my colleagues and friends are frequent users of desitorrent, IndianPad and Techsatish online.

In India it is estimated that movie piracy basically nullifies theatre revenue after only 3 months, nearly half that of a typical U.S. theatrical window. Imagine the sub-industries that we are destroying by our actions – the popcorn, ice cream sellers, the distributors, the manufacturers, the parking attendants etc – it goes on and on.

Imagine, if I spend half my life in writing a book and I am expecting to save for a rainy day through royalty and I get beaten out of it by piracy – how long will authors be willing to write? “See, why it’s so bad!” quipped my wife. I was woken up from my stupor. “Yes, yes. But I don’t believe my friend Manu watches movies online because he’s trying to cheat the industry” I objected. “We don’t realize how big a problem our actions create”, my wife replied. “That’s why I want inaction. Let’s not watch that pirated movie, let’s not buy that cheap book from the street vendor, let’s not download or copy music without paying for it and let’s not use licensed software that we haven’t paid for”, she finished. “You know me, I am all for inaction”, I told her.

“Now, can you leave the garbage out, dear”, she said as she walked out of the room. I had my excuses all lined up.

References

¹ 2006 Global Software Piracy Study – IDC Research company – Released May 2007

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,116842-page,1/article.html

http://missionisi.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/movie-piracy-at-indianpad/

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-southasia.asp?parentid=46402

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/lr/2003/06/01/stories/2003060100490700.htm

http://in.budget.yahoo.com/article.php?page=industry&article=11345905

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=aqSAruy.miqo&refer=india

http://suryamurthy.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/india-budget-highlights/

http://www.bsa.org/globalstudy