NEW DELHI: Stronger enforcement of copyright laws and educating audiences are a must if Bollywood wants to reduce millions of dollars in losses incurred every year because of piracy, says a top Hollywood official.

Hawkers selling cheap pirated CDs and DVDs on busy Indian streets find easy patrons among many cost-conscious consumers who pay less than $1 for a disc instead of going to a multiplex with tickets priced at about $3.

Industry estimates say this means more than $400 million in revenue loss for India’s entertainment industry.

Bollywood, the world’s largest film industry by ticket sales, is worth about 85 billion rupees ($2.1 billion) and is forecast to more than double to 175 billion rupees by 2011.

“The industry needs strong laws to support copyright, strong enforcement of those laws and stiff sentences for people who violate those,” Dan Glickman, the president of Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) said at a seminar in New Delhi this week.

The MPAA, which represents the interests of major motion picture companies in the global market, estimates copyright theft cost $1.2 billion in lost revenue in the Asia-Pacific region last year, with annual worldwide losses at $6 billion.

Bollywood films’ growing popularity abroad has fed a thriving bootleg industry in countries such as Britain, the United States and Pakistan.

To limit the drain on profits, some Indian studios have gone after the pirates, identifying with the help of police shops stocking bootleg CDs and DVDs and seizing disc writing equipment.

But these steps have achieved little, and experts say that is mainly due to weak law enforcement and a lack of awareness.

Breach of copyright laws is punishable by prison for up to three years, but most pirates get away paying a nominal fine.

“Most important is an understanding by ordinary citizens, the people who love movies, that buying pirated movies hurts the industry and makes it difficult for movie makers to make new films, Glickman said.—Reuters