Showbiz

Piracy International

By Ananta Wagle

Disembarking from the plane at Hong Kong Airport and waiting by the carousel for his bag, Shrawan Ghimire was jubilant with the hope of making a good money. Showing his movie Darpan Chhayan to the large audience of Nepali residents in the island was surely going to be a success, when reckoned against the fact that a number of other mediocre ones had earlier garnered over Rs. 100,000 each from Hong Kong. Darpan Chhayan was a blockbuster in Nepal. Thus, the money Ghimire expected from Hong Kong was between Rs. 500,000 and Rs.600,000. But after he met a couple of Nepali residents there, his hope soon turned to a gloom. Every Nepali there had already viewed Darpan Chhayan on the video, thanks to the easy availability of pirated copies there.

Ghimire: Empty-handed
from Hong Kong

Piracy of music music and video records was not something uncommon toGhimire. He had seen a lot of pirated copies of them in Nepal itself. But what surprised him was the fact that his movie was pirated despite strict precautions he had taken against that possibility. For example, he had not made a telecine copy of the movie to show on a high-vision hall (it is not possible to copy a celluloid movie directly on a VCD, it needs to make a telecine copy first).

So, instead of making any money by screening the movie, Ghimire made some additional expenditure to find out how his movie was pirated. With little effort, he reached the root of the problem and, surprisingly, it was very simple. The copy was made in a celluloid cinema hall in Kathmandu itself, though it was not possible to exactly name the hall. What was required was only a video camera. Mount the camera on a stand, aim it properly on the celluloid screen and run the movie. The moment the last scene is played, you have the entire movie in your videocassette. Within three hours every thing is over and a copy of movie in VCD is ready.

The resulting video picture may be hazy and oscillating, yet saleable. More so in a foreign country where the Nepalis are so hungry for anything Nepali that they may not care much about the quality of the print. While in Hong Kong, Ghimire also saw similar VCD copies of other movies that were just being released in Nepal.

"But I could do nothing, except being a mute spectator of someone else there illegally reaping benefits of my efforts", recalls Ghimire. "Strong measures should be taken right here, as the roots of this illegal activity are here", he suggests. It is not possible to enforce Nepali copyright in a foreign land.

Industry sources say, this practice of selling pirated video copies of Neali movies is now spreading rapidly also inplaces other than Hong Kong where the size of Nepali-speaking population is substantial. Cine-entrepreneurs go on spending money to find new markets overseas, but pirates are quick to overtake them when it comes to reaping the benefits. Countries like the USA, the UK and Qatar have emerged as promising markets for Nepali movies. But pirates have already captured them all, moan the entrepreneurs.

Send your feedback to the editor: bizline@mos.com.np 1999 © Mercantile Communications Pvt. Ltd. P.O. Box 876, Durbar Marg, Kathmandu, NEPAL. Tel : 977 1 220 773, 243 566 . Fax: 977 1 225 407. Reproduction in any form is prohibited without prior permission. No part of the articles which appear in the internet version on BUSINESSAGE may be reproduced without the permission of Mercantile Communications Pvt. Ltd. For reprinting rights, please write to us. Send us your feedback:contact us . This site is best viewed at : 800 X 600 resolution