Director Zoya Akhtar's recently released film Gully Boy has become the latest victim of online piracy as illegal sites have opened gates to download the full movie or online streaming for free soon after it hit the theatres on February 14. The movie stars an ensemble cast of Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Kalki Koechlin, Vijay Raaz and many others.
The notorious torrent site Tamilrockers has released Gully Boy full movie download links from unofficial servers. The movie has taken a flying start at the box office. The full movie download is likely to hit the film's box office collection to a large extent.
Some of the pirated copies seems to have been shot from a handy camera with average print quality while some have made HD quality prints available.
Gully Boy has opened to rave reviews from critics and audience alike. The movie has collected Rs 19.40 crore on the opening day because of the immense buzz and strong word of mouth. It has also become Ranveer Singh's second after Simmba (Rs 20.72 crore) and Alia Bhatt's biggest opener beating Shaandaar (Rs 13.10 crore) at the box office.
However, this is not the first time a Bollywood movie has been hit by piracy. Earlier, movies like Manikarnika, Simmba (Simba), Badhai Ho (Badhaai Ho), Thugs Of Hindustan (Thugs Of Hindostan), Zero, Race 3 and several other movies have also been leaked online which affected their overall box office performance at the domestic market.
Bollywood industry has been trying hard to stop the piracy of films for the past several decades. Some filmmakers and producers with the help of cybersecurity forces have managed to block sites that allow online users to download the latest Bollywood movies that get released almost every week.
On Tuesday (February 12), members of the Film Federation of India (FFI) urged the government to pay attention to issues ailing the film industry and sought creation of "special courts" for the industry.
