Cheran's new idea to combat piracy

Award winning filmmaker Cheran has decided to fight piracy with a new concept. According to Cheran, filmmakers should look for alternate solutions to reach audiences. Apart from theatres, small films should also be released on DVD, Blu-ray, cable, set top box, DTH, online and satellite through his company, whereas, big films can opt for such alternatives at a later stage.

Cheran says, "Last December, my film JK Enum Nanbanin Kadhai got censored. However, I knew that if I released the film in the limited number of theatres available to me then, I wouldn't be able to even pay off my debts. I therefore decided to find a solution and have been doing intense research for the last eight months. Our research showed that last year, 298 films were ready for release. However, the number of movies that actually managed to hit screens was just 143. Of these, only a mere 12 movies managed to make profits. With almost three films releasing every week, we found that over 90 per cent of the films were making losses. Also, factors like price hike facilitate piracy.

Apart from ticket costs, consumers also have to shell out a huge sum for snacks. These limit audiences from watching more than one or two films a month in a theatre. Therefore, audiences opt for pirated CDs which cost Rs 40-50. We spoke to several consumers of pirated CDs and they told us that if the original version was available at a nominal cost, they would not buy pirated CDs. So, we've come up with this alternate solution." The filmmaker further says, "We are in the process of setting up a huge DVD network in Tamil Nadu. Using this network, we will be able to deliver DVDs of new films to the consumers at their homes. Over 7,000 people will be a part of our distribution network all over the state. Likewise, for Tamilians in other states who wish to watch new films on our platform, they can do so using our DTH, set top box facilities. We are not competing with theatres. We are only complementing them."