Hindi
US Motion Picture Association files suits against retail pirates in China
MUMBAI: The Motion Picture Association (MPA) in the US has announced that its member companies had filed civil suits against the operators of two pirate retail outlets in Beijing, China.
They are seeking damages of RMB 60,000 per infringed title, as well as legal costs and a pledge to cease and desist from all illegal sales of pirated movies.
The actions against the companies operating the Feng He Ri Li and Yu Hao Qing retail outlets, both located in Beijing’s central business district, are being heard by the Beijing 1st Intermediate People’s Court and Beijing 2nd Intermediate People’s Court respectively.
Both Feng He Ri Li and Yu Hao Qing have in the past been raided by the Beijing Copyright Bureau and Beijing and Chaoyang District Police. In May Chaoyang District Police seized 13,000 pirated DVDs from Feng He Ri Li. The MPA and its member companies maintain active litigation programmes in many countries aimed at defending member companies’ copyrights against unauthorised and illegal infringement. During 2002 and 2003 MPA initiated 10 civil cases against manufacturing and retail sales operations in China. Those cases were all settled or judged in favor of the member company plaintiffs.
MPA senior VP and regional director Mike Ellis, says, “These actions demonstrate that copyright holders can and will vigorously defend their property, and that there is a price to pay for copyright infringement.
“In China, the MPA is active in the support of government enforcement and education efforts. However, unquestionably one of the foundations of China’s piracy problems – and the piracy rate for motion pictures in China is estimated at 93 per cent – is the lack of market access accorded to foreign films.
“The maintenance of the theatrical exhibition quota, combined with the frequent imposition of blackouts on the theatrical release of foreign films, and the restrictions on home video distributors compared with pirate retailers, give movie pirates a tremendous market advantage. Market access, i.e. a more open market, is a prerequisite for reducing piracy, and piracy affects foreign and domestic movie producers alike.”
In China, and many countries around the world, the MPA works closely with governments to support enforcement and education efforts, and conducts its own education and enforcement initiatives in many markets.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
