The Download Busters

When a newspaper called this the ‘download decade’, it was spot on.

When a newspaper called this the ‘download decade’, it was spot on. But it didn’t seem like the ‘download decade’ in India, because the numbers weren’t quite noticeable. But this too changed when internet connections improved. Studios and the Motion Pictures and Developers Association (known as the MPAA elsewhere) keep a close watch on Indian downloading numbers, which are rising. The MPDA tracked four movies this year to see how popular the pirated versions were. In first place came Kaminey. Tracked over a four-week period on Bittorrent (a file-sharing programme), the movie was downloaded 358,803 times. Luck, Imran Khan’s second unfortunate movie choice, was downloaded over 130,000 times. Then came Love Aaj Kal, with 113,347 downloads in a month. And of the four, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi was last, with nearly 43,000 downloads.

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