Introduction
Piracy in simple terms means theft or unauthorized access to someone else’s creation, which can be carried out in different fields but the most prevalent among them is the piracy carried out in the film and entertainment industry. The process can mostly be carried out in three ways i.e. via DVD/VCD Piracy, Cable Piracy, and Video Piracy. Apart from the piracy of movies, the music industry has also been prey to piracy. Various songs in the past have been leaked online before their official release. Along with that, the pirated songs are also available on a number of websites to be played online or downloaded.
In this streaming age with various platforms providing access to movies and songs to users at a minimum cost, piracy has started to grow again as it offers free of cost content. According to a survey, it was found out that about 3 million users visit a pirated website each day. If piracy has to be eradicated then these numbers have to be brought down. Governments around the world are coming up with plans to tackle the problem of piracy.
About ‘filmyhit’
Filmyhit is a website that hosts pirated digital content for its users to view or download and offers these services free of cost. The site is updated with respect to its layout and structure every year. This year, Filmyhit 2020 website has been responsible for leaking a number of big-budget films before their official release or during the first week of the movie’s release. Due to this, some of these movies couldn’t perform well at the box-office and didn’t earn much revenue. Piracy in any form is considered as a punishable offense and anyone violating a digital content’s ownership policy can be convicted of a fine or imprisonment, depending upon the seriousness of the matter.
Pirated content has been causing a lot of problems for the people of the entertainment and filming profession. And to overcome this, a number of websites that provide pirated content have been banned. Filmyhit is one of the sites to have been banned in India. However, these sites have a number of ways and different domains that could be accessed despite the ban on the websites. The site offers movies across different genres. These genres include Hollywood, Hollywood dubbed, Bollywood, TV shows, OTT series, movies in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Punjabi languages. They also include animation movies and adult movies.
Movies Leaked by filmyhit website
The real experience and impact of watching a movie can only be obtained by going to a movie theatre. However, with the increasing facilities of watching a movie from the comfort of one’s house and the extra entertainment charges on a movie ticket, the action of going to a movie theatre to watch a film has reduced considerably.
Filmyhit website has been responsible for leaking a number of movies including Love Aaj Kal, Thappad, Malang, Baaghi 3, Angrezi Medium, and others. Darbar and Manmadhudu 2 are also some of the movies from Kollywood. The website has a number of options to stream and download the available content. The content is available to download in 300MB files and is available for streaming purposes in 720 HD and 1080 HD format. The statistics for the website have shown that around 3 million users visit the website each day. The increase in the number of viewers can depend upon multiple factors.
Filmyhit in India
Recently, a number of digital content streaming sites like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, ZEE5, ALT Balaji, and others have been gaining more and more popularity as well as views. It is not possible for everyone to be able to afford the cost of using these websites. This is one of the main reasons behind which the piracy industry has been taking advantage of and providing free of cost content. It may also happen that the users are unaware of the fact that they could be viewing or downloading pirated content. It is thus important to spread awareness about digital piracy and also about the ways in which it can be identified and differentiated from the original content.
List of similar websites like filmyhit movie download site
Pirated content is not just available on a particular website, it is spread out over a vast network that comprises a number of websites. These websites may be linked to one another via web direct. Even if one of the websites stops working or faces some issues, their users would still have access to the digital content due to network connectivity. Some of the similar websites like filmyhit movie download site include:
Isaimini
Moviesda
Movierulz
Tamilrockers
Downloadhub
Kuttymovies
Filmyzilla
WorldFree4u
Khatrimaza
9XMovies
123Movies
Todaypk
Moviescounter
Moviezwap
Downloadhub
Isaidub
Bolly4u
MP4Moviez
Tamilgun and many more.
What is the government doing to stop piracy?
People working in the film and entertainment industry had been appealing to the court to carry out some action against the spread of digital piracy. Recently their pleas were heard by the Rajya Sabha and the Copyright Amendment Bill was passed and implemented which states that only the copyright owners have the power of creating, performing, or redistributing their content. The government of India has taken measures of blocking websites and URLs to reduce the piracy network. However, these piracy websites have multiple domains that they operate from and thus can still be accessible to its users.
What will happen if I download movies Illegally in India?
Illegal activities are considered to be a crime and a violation of the laws established by the government. Some of these activities are punishable, depending upon the seriousness of the matter.
Piracy is one such activity that can be convicted for punishment. Piracy involves unauthorized access to one’s content and sharing without their knowledge. This makes it a type of theft or plagiarism. Movie pirates have been creating and redistributing illegal copies of the movies, TV series, and any other type of digital content. These containers are then uploaded online for users and viewers to have free of cost access to. The sites don’t charge money for the content which they are providing, however they earn their income by including ads, web directs, and pop-up windows within their website.
With the increase in the viewing and downloading rate of these movies, the value of the original one decreases. People usually opt for free of cost content instead of paying a minimum fee that online streaming sites like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and others may offer. Moreover, the present generation also hesitates to watch a good quality in movie theaters. Such has been the impact of piracy. The content specially available to be viewed on such streaming platforms i.e the platforms original series or their original production is also available to be accessed on the pirated websites.
The pirated movie websites usually have a network of multiple domains that they work from, taking into consideration the fact that one of these domains can be shut down by the government at any time. Due to the number of domains and the interlink between them, it becomes difficult for the officials and government authorities to completely eradicate any pirated content available.
Filmyhit is a website that functions from multiple domains as well. Some of these domains include Filmyhit com, Filmyhit plus, Filmyhit rocks, Filmyhit sale, Filmyhit world, Filmyhit in, Filmyhit fund, Filmyhit live, Filmyhit club, Filmyhit net, and many more.
There may be a number of reasons as to why the pirated content is viewed or downloaded by the users. Some of them are as follows:
Not wanting to pay: It may so happen that the people want to view or download certain content but are unwilling to pay for the same. Most of the people around the world in general and in India in particular refuse to acknowledge that availing digital content requires a certain amount in terms of payment. The availability of pirated movie streaming websites have made this situation worse.
Affordability: It may also be the case that it is not possible for everyone to be able to afford the cost of having access to such content being officially provided by the creators. People feel that it is better to have free access to the content when they aren’t in a place to be able to pay for the official services. Especially in a country like where the average income of an individual is below the global standards. In order to save valuable finances, people generally tend to opt for online pirated content.
Availability: The availability of content is different for different regions around the world. It is released in some countries before and later on in the remaining countries and the curiosity amongst people wanting to view the content leads them to pirated sites. In a country such as India which is culturally diverse, there are thousands of regional movies being made which people from different states fail to get access. Thus, the masses rely on online pirated influenced content to satisfy this need.
One Time Usage: Most of the users just want to have access to the digital content only once and not for longer durations of time. Having to pay a monthly or yearly subscription for official streaming websites may not be feasible to them and thus they turn to pirated sites.
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How can you stop digital piracy?
Digital piracy can only be minimized and prevented to a certain extent. Completely eradicating it may not be a possible scenario. However, some of the methods that can help to curb its network are as follows,
● Watermarking: A watermark is added between the frames of a movie or video which would not be visible to the naked eye. However, it will affect the quality of the content recorded from a camera and can help to differentiate pirated content from the original.
● Registering Copyrights: Copyright policy helps the owner to have sole rights to his/her creation and the authority to send a legal notice to anyone violating that copyright policy without any prior notice or permission.
● Monitoring the Internet: The websites are available on the internet and to keep a track of the pirated content, monitoring the internet is a good option. Any violations if noticed can be reported.
● PR & Education: Some of the violation cases that are registered could be against an individual who isn’t aware of having used pirated content. It is thus important to educate people about piracy and its consequences.
● Pirate Uploaders and Downloaders: They are the people who are responsible for uploading and downloading pirated content from a sharing platform. Likewise, people should be made aware of these fraudulent people who take part in such activities in order to limit their combined online reach.
● Fingerprinting: It is the process of digitally creating a fingerprint for particular copyrighted content that is stored in a database. If any online content or website is found to have a similar fingerprint of the authorized copy then it is automatically flagged for piracy.
Conclusion
Digital Piracy has a negative impact on society. We do not recommend piracy nor we support Piracy. However, piracy cannot be completely stopped or eradicated and steps can just be taken to prevent a movie from becoming its prey. These steps range from banning the websites to sentencing the guilty causing piracy of content. The most difficult aspect which people face when it comes to dealing with the issue of piracy is that the general people find it convenient to access, stream, and download movies from the comfort of their houses.
However, the general public fails to realize the negative consequences of digital piracy and its adverse effect on the entertainment industry. Therefore, people from all corners of India must be educated about the issues related to piracy so that the demand for the said activity stops immediately.
