Former ATS chief A.A. Khan to lead anti piracy campaign for Bollywood

January 9th, 2009

Bollywood’s leading production houses - Yash Raj Films, UTV, Eros International, Shemaroo and Moser Baer have now come together to fight video piracy. They are in the process of forming a committee which will be led by former ATS chief, A.A. Khan.

A.A. Khan was also seen in a brief role in Shootout At Lokhandwala based on the infamous encounter of gangster Maya Dolas led by Khan himself. The committee formed to combat piracy will comprise of retired police officers. While the effort, if taken to its logical conclusion, is laudable, it is worth noting here that at the very outset itself, this enterprise looks still-born.

To imagine that the industry would re­main united in its battle against piracy is still an idealistic situation. One can recall, years back, producers like B.R. Chopra, Pramod Chakravorty and many other top names of the industry had started an association to themselves deal in the video rights of their films. But that time even the initial contribution was difficult to get from the promoters themsel­ves! Need­less to add, the association closed down before it could be started.

The only thing everybody in this industry seems to be united about is to not remain united. When such is the mood, can this new committee to arrest piracy arrest any producer’s attention so seriously as to make some headway? Your guess is as good as ours.