The Madras High Court, on Thursday, refused to grant anticipatory bail to the five accused who were involved in movie piracy case. Among the five, two of them were involved in releasing the movie Raja Ranguski online, soon after its official release in theaters.
Raja Ranguski released on 21 September 2018, and two days after the release it was leaked in online. Accusing Kavithayala Theatre in Karur for the incident, the movie’s producer Sakthi Vasan filed a complaint against them. P Subramanian, S Geetha, the owners of the theater, were allegedly accused along with three other persons who were considered to be responsible for uploading the video content on various websites including Tamil Rockers. S Baskar, M Maheshwaran, V Sivaraman have been accused for uploading the movie content.
The Tamil Nadu Police registered an FIR against the five people under sections 379, 380, 406, and 409 of IPC, sections 63, 63B and 65 of the Copyright Act, and 66B of the Information Technology Act.
In November 2018, while speaking to the media, producer Sakthi Vasan said that everyone thought such acts didn’t come under piracy or IT issue. However that was not true. This was more like cyber crime. It was like stealing from one’s computer, and so he had registered a case in the cyber crime branch.
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As the Madras High Court recently ordered to arrest of the accused, they filed a petition seeking anticipatory bail. Refusing the anticipatory bail, Justice GK Illanthiraiyan said that the first two weeks were a crucial period for collection. If a movie was uploaded on internet, it would affect the box office collection immediately, and no one would come to theaters to watch the film.
On the same day, the Central government also announced that a person who indulged in filming movies on mobiles would land in jail for three years.
Tamil cinema has been facing the issue of piracy for a long time, and though various steps have been taken from time to time, it is yet to find a concrete solution for this problem.