Saturday, July 16 2005 15:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who left for Washington today, is likely to take up with the US authorities the issue of video and cable piracy that has been causing huge losses to both American and Indian entertainment companies.

The matter was first raised with US officials by India's Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia during his visit to that country last month.

The Prime Minister would discuss the problem of video piracy. This has been a major problem for US (and Indian) companies and there are huge losses with many Hollywood films and films from Asian countries (produced by US companies) being pirated as VCDs and video cassettes in India, Planning Commission sources told PTI.

It is likely that the government may consider further amending the existing Copyright Act.

The menace of piracy can be dealt with only if the Indian government gets serious about reforming its judicial system by removing the procedural hurdles that unnecessarily prolong court proceedings.

According to film industry estimates, trade losses due to piracy in various sectors in India till 1998 was to the tune of 311.8 million US dollar.

India has to take necessary action to free its own huge copyright industry and that of the US as well from piracy, industry sources said.

Cable piracy, is clearly the most significant piracy problem now in India, according to the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

Unauthorized cable transmissions of films made by companies affiliated to MPA and the American Film Marketing Association have severely undermined the video and theatrical markets.

There are at least 40,000 cable systems in operation in India and many of these operate a 'Western' channel that illegally beam US-produced content, a large proportion of which is also from pirated copies.

Losses from both cable and video piracy is estimated at 66.0 million USD in 1996, with video piracy estimated to account for 85 per cent of the market.