Beyond The Download: How Piracy Hurts India's Creative Economy

INTRODUCTION

In the vast, interconnected world of the internet, the allure of "free" is powerful. At the touch of a couple of buttons, the newest blockbuster movie, a number one album or even a whole season of a popular program can be on your screen without subscription. Such convenience, however, is surrounded with an influential and detrimental monstrosity. When one clicks downloading a torrent or streaming through an illegal site, the action is not victimless. It forms a vicious cycle of unstable business to Indian entertainment as a whole, and nowhere is the effect felt more strongly than among the small, individual creators who drive the business of entertainment with their creativity and dedication and whose enthusiasm and effort are the foundations of the entertainment we watch. It is exactly what a torrent costs; something much beyond a mere copyright infringement and risks the livelihoods of thousands of artists and technicians.

THE HUMAN COST OF A FREE DOWNLOAD

We can forget a digital file is a creation of people very easily. However, there is a huge collaborative work behind every movie, song or show. Once piracy is rampant, this is a direct revenue loss to the right ecosystem and the effects are realised all the way to the production chain.

The authors, who literally are the builders of the tales we enjoy, frequently rely on royalties and other commercial outcomes of a project to pay their own bills. Piracy takes away these potential earnings thus making it more difficult to be able to sustain a career and also decreasing the overall desire of the industry to invest into new, original scripts. There is also low returns to the artists like the actors, musicians and singers. Although the elite artistes can be cushioned, most artists depend on the finances that they get in the form of sales of the ticket, album sales, and above board streaming to sustain them. The main victims who are continuously neglected are the unaccountable number of technicians who slave behind the scenes. This involves the cinematographers, sound mixer, editor, gaffer, costume designer and the set builder. They work on a project basis. When piracy cancers the earning ability of a film, subsequent production costs are cut down. The results include loss of job opportunities, reduced wage rates, and the fragile economic livelihood of the highly qualified professionals, which form the mainstay of the industry. Small filmmakers and producers of niche content are particularly sensitive, since failure of a given film to break even because of piracy may be a career- ending event.

THE LEGAL SHIELD: "JOHN DOE" ORDERS

In response to the drastic economic cost of piracy, the Indian legal system has come up with what can be considered an effective and special mechanism, the so-called, the John Doe order. Mainly ordered by the Delhi and Bombay High Courts, they are anticipatory injunctions applied at the request of the copyright owners against unknown parties--the titular John Does.

Basically a film studio or a broadcaster (such as the Indian premier league - IPL) can come to court just before a big release/event. They show their evidence of the great risk of piracies and are provided with a dynamic order. This order gives them the freedom to order Internet provisioning companies (ISP) around the country to block the sites that will be identified to be illegally hosting or distributing their copyrighted material. This aspect of the blocklist is so essential since it becomes quite easy to add new infringing websites as well as URLs to the blocklist as they become available without having to go back to court with each of them.

While not a foolproof solution, as tech-savvy users can bypass blocks with VPNs and new pirate sites pop up continuously—John Doe orders serve as a critical, reactive shield. They couple with interrupting the accessibility by the hobby-pirates and conveying a firm legal message that violators will be tracked, including anonymous ones. It is among the best initiatives provided by legal systems to secure intellectual property and economic well being of the creative industries at a most compassionate commercial window.

CONCLUSION

Leaving the easy mantra of, piracy is illegal, it is important to know some of the real damages that it causes. All the illicit downloads are helping create a system where the creative work is devalued and everyone suffers including the writers, artists, and technicians. Willful misconduct needs to be defended (John Doe orders are one legal remedy), and more importantly, requires a change of attitude on the consumer side. The decision to patronize legit platforms be it through the purchase of a movie ticket, subscription to a streaming service or legal purchase of music is more than a sale. It is an investment in artists whom you like. This is an endorsement of Indian Entertainment Industry. It is both the recognition that creativity is something of worth and that writers who send stories to our screens have a right to financial reward. Please bear this in mind, next time you have to chose between a torrent and a ticket.

Author: Shubhangi Maske, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us via email to chhavi@khuranaandkhurana.com or at  Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP Attorney.

REFERENCES

1. Balaji Motion Pictures Ltd. v. Mr. Rohit Sharma, 2014 SCC OnLine Del 7086. [No Link Available - Citation of a Legal Case]

2. Network Ten Australia Pty Ltd v. Mr. Johnny Unleashed, 2019 SCC OnLine Bom 147. [No Link Available - Citation of a Legal Case]

3. The Copyright Act, 1957. [https://copyright.gov.in/documents/copyrightrules1957.pdf](https://copyright.gov.in/documents/copyrightrules1957.pdf)

4. Agarwal, Nidhi. "John Doe Orders in India: An Analysis." Journal of Intellectual Property Rights, vol. 22, no. 3, May 2017, pp. 157-163

5. PTI. "Delhi HC asks internet service providers to block access to infringing websites showing IPL matches." The Economic Times, 24 Mar. 2023, [https://www.google.com/search?q=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/delhi-hc-asks-internet-service-providers-to-block-access-to-infringing-websites-showing-ipl-matches/articleshow/98946588.cms](https://www.google.com/search?q=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/delhi-hc-asks-internet-service-providers-to-block-access-to-infringing-websites-showing-ipl-matches/articleshow/98946588.cms)