MUMBAI: In a bid to target physical and online piracy in India, the Hindi film industry launched an initiative at the ongoing Ficci Frames convention in Mumbai on Thursday 

The initiative was announced at the entertainment convention by Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Chairman Dan Glickman, and leading Hindi studio executives such as Yash Chopra (Yash Raj Films), Mukesh Bhatt (Vishesh Films), Sanjeev Lamba (Reliance Big Entertainment), Harish Dayani (Moser Baer), Siddharth Roy Kapur (UTV), Ram Mirchandani (Eros International) and Sandeep Bhargava (Studio 18).

According to the US India Business Council/Ernst & Young 2008 report on The Effects of Counterfeiting and Piracy on India's Entertainment Industry,... the Indian film industry lost US $959 million and 571,896 jobs due to piracy  KPMG has also placed the film piracy rate at 60 per cent  

Speaking about the devastating effects of piracy, Moser Baer CEO Harish Dayani commented, The Indian film industry and �Brand Bollywood' are far too important to be destroyed by criminals. There needs to be a strong legislative and enforcement response in tackling the issue of copyright theft. The enormity of the theft is perhaps not being understood and the current state of affairs of the film business is largely due to large scale consumption of pirated DVDs....

Producer Mukesh Bhatt further added: Online copyright theft in India is growing rapidly  Two separate reports last year placed India in the top ten countries worldwide for P2P infringements  There is a community of internet users who view piracy as an activity without consequence and who engage in piracy with ease within both domestic and international sites across a range of piracy methods. The government needs to sit down with rights-holders and find a solution to this menace....

Rajiv Dalal of the Motion Picture Association's India office noted, Piracy is not a victimless crime  The RAND report on Film Piracy, Organized Crime and Terrorism has clearly demonstrated that film piracy funds terrorist activity  As such, states need to take this menace seriously and place film piracy offenses under organized crime statutes like Maharashtra did in 2009....

Speaking on the damage caused by illegal camcording, UTV Motion pictures CEI Siddharth Roy Kapur stated, Nearly every Indian title is camcorded and available in pirate street markets on average two to three days after legitimate theatrical release  While the industry has come together to provide theater security and anti-camcord trainings, our efforts will be futile without the government passing anti-camcord legislation to hold perpetrators liable for this form of copyright theft....

Giving the keynote speech, MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman remarked that he was pleased to not only launch the coalition, but also to witness the formal alliance of the two most prominent film industries in the world  These last two years of Hindi co-productions, joint television ventures, shared distribution rights, joint ownership of technology companies – has all led to Indian and MPA member studios working in tandem. Such cooperation fosters conducive environments that allow movies like Slumdog Millionaire... and My Name is Khan... to achieve global box office success. And as successful as we have been or can be, we need to come together to overcome common obstacles to our joint success  That is why we are here today to announce the launch of this coalition  While piracy is damaging creative communities across the world, it need not be inevitable if we take steps to collectively address this problem....