RJ Balaji’s sane and practical take on online piracy & TamilRockers

While the entire Tamil film industry is breaking its heads to find a solution to the online piracy and TamilRockers, the most notorious piracymonger, actor RJ Balaji gave a different yet practical and saner take on the issue.

Speaking at the audio launch function of his upcoming film 'Ivan Thandhiran', the popular RJ turned actor said it is impossible to end online piracy and we have to look into ways of how we can make money out of technology.

"For a medium like cinema, any new technology will be a threat when it comes. 20 years ago pirated VCD was the biggest problem. Later it was DVD. now both VCD and DVD have become almost extinct. Online piracy is common problem for all language films across the world and not just Tamil cinema.

The problem is we cannot destroy a technology. We have to grow along with it. Kamal Haasan sir has observed many times that we can survive only if we co-exist with technology. My point is we cannot stop online piracy by conducting a protest in front of Valluvar Kottam. We have to sit with software technology wizards and discuss a practical solution to end piracy.

We have to think how we can make money out of that. Now an young director Balaji Mohan is making a web series. This is making money out of a tool that is seen as a threat. People like SR Prabhu are also making money by selling films to online platforms like Amazon Prime. So our way forward should be on how we can use technology, television and cable channels.

If we nab TamilRockers, will the entire online piracy network be wiped out? No. Ten more TamilRockers will emerge. So it is better to make money out of these people. I am telling this as a member of general public."