A very long time ago I saw an interview on one of the Telugu cinema websites. The interview was with one of the most successful producer in Telugu cinema. It was stated that the producer asked the interviewer if his website sold pirated VCDs and only agreed to speak if the answer was not in the affirmative. The intention was that piracy was destroying the industry and so he was against it.

The whole point in the above exchange that I would like to make is that piracy or original what a telugu movie addict like me wants is to watch the movie as soon as possible. For some of us, Telugu movie enthusiasts the time between the release of the movie and the time when we watch it is significant, as we live far away from homeland, the cinema theater management in the city we live in is terrible to describe the least. So we resort to the comfort of our homes, loaded with state of the art home theater systems with sound systems far better that the one in the movie theater in the city, to watch them.

The theater managements in the US surely don't know the basics of movie screenings. The show times are ridiculous and the sheer lack of professional maintenance of systems makes watching the movie, all the more stale. None of the big names in telugu cinema wants to venture into the distribution and screening of telugu movies to viewers here who will spend "dollars" increasing the profits per viewer to forty times what you can in India.

Considering all the above data points I am all for piracy, as it helps me watch the movies that are more interesting, in the comfort of my own home, of course with the additional satisfaction of actually getting returns for my home theater investment. Mark the last phrase in the above sentence. It's all about that for a cine consumer like me, here in the US. The very fact that I am spending time and gray matter in writing this article shows that I am a Telugu movie fanatic but even otherwise I am sure normal movie goers here in the US will empathize with me.

So trying not to extend this article with my woes, I will come back to my point "piracy". Let me give you a case study that will help us in understanding the point I want to make to all the big production houses in Tollywood.

In Louisiana state in the southern US, alligators were once endangered because of poaching. So what did the state do? No, it did not express its disgust (read "Nirasana…" in telugu) about the poacher's ways and make appeals to reduce poaching. It started farming the gators and flooded the market with them and suddenly poaching became less attractive as a business and people stopped doing it. Within a short span of time gators no longer were endangered.

What can we all, and persons who need to learn most from the above study, learn from the above case study. If people want to (read desperately want to) watch Telugu movies they will, and as long as they do piracy will continue. No amount of police work will stop it. The producers need to accept this and move on. But how? By releasing the DVD rights to credible companies for distribution to the entire movie rental shops around the US and other countries. The producers can sell the rights to the companies that author and distribute them at premium prices based on the area the company distributes them. This will make sure that the producer makes the right money and more importantly movie addicts like me will be able to watch movies with better quality. In essence it will help us appreciate the movies better.

In conclusion I have another story that I will describe briefly here in this article, in one sentence. It took two days 60 UK pounds and 7 hours of traveling back and forth from a movie theater in London for me to watch a super hit Telugu movie recently. The experience totally ruined the fun for me and the reasons are just as I stated above. Unprofessional distributors who just are in it for the quick buck not corporate business entities who have some pride in whatever they do, like the production houses we have in tollywood. So is anyone listening….!!!!

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