Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad   

Video piracy racket busted

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD NOV. 8. The Hyderabad police Task Force (West) officials busted a video piracy racket, with the arrest of four persons on Thursday.

While the alleged kingpin, J. V. Rama Rao, owner of Sumapriya creations and a film producer, was still at large, the police apprehended his office manager in Chennai, Y. Ravi Babu, a cameraman of ETV, J. Balakrishna of Srikrishnanagar Colony, D. Krishna of Volga videos and a former production manager of Padmalaya studios, S. Anjaiah. Beta tapes of three new Telugu movies - --Seetaiah, Sambaram and Okariki Okaru -- were seized from the arrested, a press release said.

Producer of an award winning film `Badi', Rama Rao entered into the business of satellite channels and film rights for DVDs and VCDs in the overseas as well as the local market. In the process, he developed contacts with several companies in the entertainment industry. He began luring employees of some organisations to get master prints of films, which would be converted into Beta tapes and sold after making copies of DVDs and VCDs, at exorbitant prices.

The accused adopted a unique way of pirating movies on DVDs and VCDs through Beta tapes for better quality, which made them, appear genuine and acceptable in the international market.

Ravi Babu was charged with procuring prints of new Telugu films from exhibitors of Tirupati and Nellore to Chennai in the name of exhibiting them at Madras Telugu Association.

Later, he used to convert them into Beta at Tele tapes at Cine India, Saligramam in Chennai. Rama Rao developed huge network in Hyderabad with help of his brother, Balakrishna, who roped in D. Krishna and S. Anjaiah.

The raid was conducted by the Inspector, M.S. Venugopala Raoand the Sis -- K. Ramchander Rao, V. Suryachandra Rao, V. Syam Babu and N.L.N. Raju.

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