Actor Sarathkumar is truly a man of vision. He has big dreams for the country and lots of hope for cinema. Given that his political career has faced some early hiccups and his most recent movie Jaggubhai fell prey to video piracy, one would be surprised to see how optimistic he is! For instance, instead of slumping in a corner after Jaggubhai leaked on the Internet even before the re-recording was done, he says with fervour, “Jaggubhai will go down in the history of Tamil cinema as the movie that woke us up from our daydreaming and alerted us to how much video piracy has increased!” The actor is immensely grateful to the entire cinema industry for standing by him, director K.S. Ravikumar and his wife, producer Radikaa. He extended his thanks to Chief Minister Kalaignar Karunanithi for immediately reacting to the situation and bringing it under control.

But what is the way out? How does one put an end to piracy? “Licensing and encryption is something that has become imperative now. We have to find a way to implement that as soon as possible. Another factor against us is the fact that today, umpteen copies of a movie-in-progress are made to be given to various technicians associated with the movie. The editor has one, the music director has one... No more do we do all the post-production work at one studio. Editing suites are plenty. Recording studios are plenty. So either we bring back the Single Window system or we must each recognise our moral responsibility to the job at hand, with more care,” insists Sarathkumar. Adding, “Video piracy must be made a punishable offence. While an editor is at work, no one else must be allowed a peek. We have started to take these things for granted, and hence we’ve had to face the consequences. When you’re shooting in a public place, you cannot stop everybody in the crowd from taking a video on their mobile. But you most certainly can prevent someone from stepping into an editing room or a dubbing studio.”

Well, that does make sense. Let’s hope that everyone realises their moral and ethical responsibility to their job and jointly fights film piracy.

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