India’s entertainment industry loses $4 billion a year due to piracy

MUMBAI: The Indian media and entertainment industry loses $4 billion (Rs 160 billion) in annual revenues due to piracy, a study said.

The menace of piracy is also costing the sector 820,000 jobs, said the US-India Business Council (USIBC) in a report titled ‘The effects of counterfeiting and piracy on India‘s entertainment.‘

“This is the reason why while Bollywood makes more feature films than any film industry on earth its revenues are only two per cent that of Hollywood‘s. This is also why India is only a marginal market for Hollywood. The story is much the same for music, television, music and electronic games,” said USIBC president Ron Somers.

The Indian film industry loses $959 million and the television sector $2.6 billion a year. In the gaming segment, piracy eats away $40 million of annual revenues while music loses $325 million.

The job losses are equally significant. Films lose a little over half a million jobs each year, TV , and the music industry 133,434.

In the television sector, the loss is partly due to under declaration by the local cable operators (LCOs) where the average price paid by subscribers is Rs 180. The cable operators also air pirated films.

For filmmakers their ability to fight this menace is determined by their financial strength and individual initiatives, the study said.

USIBC, in conjunction with Ficci, commissioned Ernst & Young to conduct the study.

Said Ficci secretary general Dr Amit Mitra: “This study shows that the best way to make a boom in the Indian entertainment bigger is to stop the affliction of piracy. For the average Indian who wants to increase his or her chances for being employed in Bollywood and associated industries, fighting piracy is a place where all our collective efforts must start.”

Filmmaker Yash Chopra said, “We have incurred huge losses in film industry due to piracy. This piracy issue started as early as 1979.”

Added filmmaker Ramesh Sippy: “Without government‘s help, we can‘t stop piracy. When we released Sholay, there was no piracy as its one of the greatest films. The government should control piracy and curb it to the maximum.