Tollywood on piracy alert

Following the recent leak of Pawan Kalyan���s latest release, Telugu cinema filmmakers turn vigilant, doing all they can to protect their films. It���s been exactly one week since the first pirated footage (90-minutes) of Pawan Kalyan���s latest release surfaced on the Internet, sending shock waves through Tollywood. Ever since, police have seized over 22,500 pirated copies of the movie from across the state.
Raj Kumar, who heads AVPC (Anti Video Piracy Cell) gives the extent of piracy stating, ���A total of 594 online links have been identified out of which 489 have been deleted. We are in the process of taking down the remaining 105 links (consisting of eight hosting sites and the rest being linking URLs) as well.Over the last week, 18,520 links of the pirated movie were shared on Facebook. The total number of users blocked by the AVPC and CID stands at 69,480.���
In order to ensure that their films don���t suffer the same fate as Pawan���s, mana filmmakers are now busy devising new safety measures to prevent any more such leaks prior to the release.
Rajamouli, director of magnum opus Bahubali, has revamped the security system at his edit suites. Shobu Yarlagadda, one of the producers of the film, says, ���We created special passwords for all edit suites to plug data transfer. We are also keeping a constant vigil at key locations to rule out any possibility of data leakage before the release of the movie.���
The makers of Nagarjuna-starrer Bhai, have decided to insulate the edit suites from the Internet. ���We have alerted all the concerned duty managers to protect the content of the CD. Besides creating new passwords at the editing room, we have also unplugged the internet service in the edit suite to deny hackers any access to the content,��� explains director Veerabhadram Chowdary.
In fact, A Raj Kumar, head of the anti-piracy cell at the AP Film Chamber of Commerce, is working towards building a ���much more robust security system���. ���We have identified a system which, when applied, can pinpoint the source of the leakage. However, a lot more needs to be done to prevent leakage in the first place,��� says Raj Kumar.