'Attarintiki Daaredi' in piracy's clutches

VIJAYAWADA: Tollywood woke up with a start on Monday when reports of pirated CDs of Pawan Kalyan's yet-to-be-released 'Attarintiki Daaredi' being available in several towns in Krishna district, reached the industry. Fans of Pawan Kalyan laid their hands on bundles of pirated CDs in Pedana, a town close to the district head quarter, Machilipatnam, in the morning and lodged a complaint.
The fans staged a dharna in protest against the police negligence in nabbing those responsible for circulating and selling the pirated CDs. They claimed that the pirated CDs of the film were being widely available in shops for Rs 50. The film was scheduled to hit screens on October 14 on the eve of Dasara. Krishna district SP J Prabhakara Rao directed the police in all the towns in the district to conduct surprise checks on all video parlours and submit a report to him. Sources said that producer of the film BVSN Prasad's son Bapineedu rushed to the office of DGP V Dinesh Reddy and lodged a complaint in Hyderabad.
An hour after the CDs were available in Pedana, Pawan Kalyan fans attacked a video parlour in Vijayawada and seized CDs of the yet-to-be-released film. The fans association representative S Satish alleged that the pirated CDs were deliberately released by some vested interests.
Producer Prasad and the film director, Trivikram Srinivas, reportedly carried out an in-house investigation into the leakage of the visuals.
Sources said the producer reportedly came to a conclusion that the visuals of the film for about 90 minutes were uploaded on Youtube by someone in the editing theatres resulting in the film going online. Sources said that after seeing the film freely available on Youtube, the manufacturers of piracy CDs downloaded the version and copied it onto disks and flooded them into the market in no time.
Industry sources said that the delay in release had also adversely impacted the film as the patience of the fans is running out. The film was originally planned for release in the first week of August but was postponed following the agitations in Seemandhra.
With agitators threatening to stall the films of Union minister Chiranjeevi's family members including Pawan Kalyan's in protest against Chiranjeevi's reluctance to resign from the ministry in support of their cause, the producer put the release of the film on hold.
With the piracy affecting the film, it is learnt that the producers are now planning to release the move later this week.Based on the complaint lodged by film's producer BVSN Prasad, the Cyber Crime police of the CID have registered a case under the relevant sections of the Information Technology (IT) and Copyright Acts.
Police have begun identifying the websites where the copy of the movie is online and directed the site managers to remove it.
The probe team began the investigation with a specific motive to identify the original source of piracy and the persons involved in the activity.