Oscar-nominated film director Shekhar Kapur yesterday spoke of his "disgust" that his US$60 million film The Four Feathers has been pirated, weeks before its UK release.
Kapur, movie makers Miramax and distributors Buena Vista were last night conducting an urgent investigation on both sides of the Atlantic after discovering their work had been stolen.
The Bafta-winning director, who won acclaim for Elizabeth and co-produced the London West End musical Bombay Dreams, was shaken when presented with the first of thousands of illegal DVD copies of The Four Feathers.
"This is amazing," he said as he examined the disc and artwork. "It looks like the real thing. The only thing that tells me [it is fake] is that they have spelt my name wrong."
The India-born filmmaker, who also made Bandit Queen and co-produced The Guru, is the latest victim in a huge counterfeit fraud which is costing Britain's motion picture industry more than US$600 million a year. Thousands of copies of The Four Feathers, which stars Kate Hudson and Heath Ledger, have gone on sale at street markets throughout Britain. The Observer newspaper in London last week bought a copy from a Chinese woman for US$7.50 at a London market. She spoke little English and was unable to explain where she received her batch of films from. In August police used a helicopter to stage a dawn raid on the market in Hackney, seizing piles of illegally made DVDs and making seven arrests.
But the crackdown has failed to stamp out the problem as other films, including Signs and Disney's Lilo & Stitch and My Big Fat Greek Wedding have also been copied.
Kapur, who made his name in India's movie capital, Bombay, said: "This DVD must have gone all over the world. The cost of the disc is not more than ?0.50, so somebody is making a huge whack out of it. This is going to kill the film industry if it goes on.'
The copies on sale in markets give the impression that the film has been shot straight from the screen in a cinema as sound and pictures are shaky. Kapur said it was "highly unlikely" a copy had been stolen from the cutting room or while being edited. An investigation would be carried out to discover how many video copies were made and distributed in post-production.
Daniel Battsek, UK head of Buena Vista International, said: "People who buy these DVDs have got it into their heads that the sellers are providing some sort of philanthropic service. But they are not. They are damaging the film industry. They could be cutting off filmmakers in their prime as a lot of the money made through films is put back to make more films."
Spencer Mott, director of operations at the film industry's Federation Against Copyright Theft said: "We estimate that 20 percent-to-30 percent of the DVDs sold in Britain are pirated versions. They probably cost the pirates, who are mostly from Malaysia, US$0.78 per disc to produce, and the selling price is usually US$15.62, so it is not difficult to see how the whole thing has attracted crime syndicates. We have seen that criminals previously involved in importing drugs are turning more and more to intellectual property crime.'
This year Fact has worked closely with police forces and trading standards officials to help seize 400,000 DVD and video-disc copying machines which were churning out hundreds of thousands of illicit discs.
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