MUMBAI: Piracy is chewing into Indian movie profits! This has been a long lingering whine amongst stakeholders of the Indian movie business.

In a bid to combat the menace, Percept Picture Company (PPC) has unveiled a documentary campaign. PVR Cinema has joined hands with PPC to convey the social message in an entertaining manner aimed at educating movie-goers.

The two-minute documentary on anti-piracy will be aired across the PVR cinema chain. This is not the first time that PVR Cinemas has extended its hands towards such efforts. The multiplex major had also teamed up with BBC World Service Trust's initiative Haath se Haath Mila to screen the music video in all its screens.

The theme of the campaign Stop Piracy, showcases a woman on the delivery table giving birth to a child. On seeing the baby, the women utters, "Have you ever seen something so beautiful." The husband reacts by saying that he has a copy. In agreement, the doctor says that he too has a copy. While the overwhelmed nursed informs that she has the ninth version from Bangkok and suggests that the couple can get multiple copies of it from Ahmed bhai.

The husband points out that henceforth he would opt for copies. Listening to this, the poor mother is left weeping…

"Every movie or song you copy is someone's baby. Stop Piracy." This subtle message has been conceptualised and directed by O&M senior creative director Rensil D'Silva and senior creative director Anup Chitnis.

The scourge that is gnawing at the industry's innards affects everyone in the film food-chain, points out PPC MD Shailendra Singh, who has joined hands with the Excel Home Video for this initiative and is in talks with other fraternity members to come together on this project. "Though the fraternity, judiciary and the government are all working to curb piracy, the epidemic has just been growing," says Singh.

Interestingly, the PPC also has a movie project in the pipeline with the theme of 'piracy' as the backdrop.

For the industry, which churns out at least a 1,000 films per year, piracy of content is happening at the theatre level (camera prints), on cable networks and through distribution of illegal VCDs / DVDs. According to Sony BMG MD Shridhar Subramaniam, 90 per cent of all hit movies are hit by the scourge. Conversely, flop movies are barely scathed.

Music revenues are affected to the extent of 50 per cent, while with DVDs it is to the tune of 80 per cent. As for theatrical receipts, it is affected by up to 50 per cent, Subramaniam points out.

Pirated content copying and distribution costs the industry an estimated Rs 4.3 billion annually, which is as much as 42 per cent of the industry's total revenues. The Indian audio-video market is estimated to be growing at an explosive pace of almost 300 per cent. However, this growth has not been reflected in a corresponding growth in the legitimate sale of CDs, VCDs and DVDs. The volume or pirated units has been rising consistently despite the falling prices of legitimate music, concludes Subramaniam.