“People within the industry cause piracy” - Rajinikanth

Once again Superstar Rajinikanth proves that he is the person who boldly point out the blunder wherever it happens. Yesterday he clearly told that some of the persons with in the industry only caused for video piracy and caused for all miserable.

Yesterday, leading members of the film industry gathered together and rallied around Nadigar Sangam. President Sarath Kumar, whose Jaggubhai, directed by KS Ravikumar has been illegally leaked on the Internet and later came out in DVD format for just Rs 15. So the film personalities showed their solidarity and support to face the problem in some effective measure. After a short discussion, a press meet was attended by Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Sarath Kumar - Radhika, KS Ravikumar and some more personalities of the Industry.

KS Ravikumar broke down and tears filled his eyes as he spoke about what had happened. “I am sad that the movie has not reached the people in the right way it was supposed to. This kind of leak has happened to me even earlier though on a smaller scale with only songs. But even watermarking has not helped. Even as technology is growing, pirates are growing smarter..."

Sarath Kumar and Radhika too broke down as they spoke. Said Sarath, “The bits shown on the net are not even edited yet and there are no sound effects and neither it is in the proper order. The money of Rs 15 crores maybe a loss that can be regained in five years but what about the families of those who work in films? It"s better that the pirates could have shot us on the streets than to do this to us." Radhika thanked the Chief Minister for the swift action taken against the pirates.

Kamal says, “Appealing to the conscience of those in the trade is not going to help. We have to educate the people that terror attacks are financed in part by such funds gained from video piracy so that they think twice before watching such DVDs. We have to take concrete steps like a copyright act as we speake about during our FICCI conclave recently."

But Rajini is the only person who delivered his speech with maximum responsibility and understanding the ground realities. Remember, the script was written for Rajinikanth few years back and later the superstar dropped the venture due to some sentiment reasons. Remembering this on the stage, Rajini says, “Do not worry. Treat this as publicity for the movie. Even if you spend Rs.10 crore, you will not be able to get this kind of publicity from press." Rajinikanth assured the Jaggubhai team that people would come to cinemas to watch the movie, if it is good!

"But we have to realize that its people from within the industry who are leaking such things and we should deal with it with an iron hand. We can"t run to the police or CM every time. We have to enforce proper regulations within our systems...," he added. RB Chowdary, AR Murgadoss, Cheran, Sathyajothi Thiagarajan, Rama Narayana, Sivasakthi Pandian, VC Guhanathan, RK Selvamani, KRG and Lizzy Priyadarshan were also attended the meet. The meeting ended with a promise to take concrete steps which would later be indicated to the media.