Search and you sh­all find! That seems to have guided quite a few people who couldn’t get tickets last weekend for 3 Idiots, possibly the biggest Hindi film hit of the year so far, to look for pirated copies of the movie online and offline. And they did find it.

A quick search on the web for Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots will throw up a number of links to download the movie on your computer and even to your mobile. The film is the latest among several Bollywood movies that can be downloaded from mOvies­4mO­bile.net. A 20-something young man was seen watching this movie on his Nokia E71 on Monday mor­ning in a Virar-Churchgate local train. The movie was downloaded from the site as it was evident from the so-called copyright credit to mOvies4mObile.net seen on the screen. For the you­ng man, an hour-and-half long commute is good en­ough to watch half of the three-hour movie.

Pirated copies are also available for download on different websites. For example, movmania.blogspot .com has uploaded the whole movie in nine parts. The clarification menti­oned on the site says: “All of the content provided on movmania.blogspot.com are hyperlinks from peer-to-peer (P2P) applications and programmes. No stre­ams are created or produc­ed by us.”

Telecine, Screener, Cam and DVD-Rip and Telesync are some of the common bootleg version methods used to pirate original content. For example, Telesync means a copy that was shot in an empty cinema or from the projection booth with a professional camera, directly connected to the sound source. In fact, movmania.blogspot.com mentions PDVD (pirated DVD) as the source for 3 Idiots movie available on its site.

PDVDs are usually sold by movie bootleggers. A PDVD is usually a telesync copy of a movie that has been encoded to DVD. Quality varies, of course. These DVDs are widely available on busy footpaths of Indian metros at an extremely low price.

While the pirated version of 3 Idiots was available online right from the day of its release across the globe, the Mumbai police, in association with former police officer Aftab Ahmed Khan, conducted several raids in Mumbai and found pirated DVDs of the film along with several copies of some of the other recently released Hindi movies. Khan heads AA Khan & Associates, an anti-piracy ag­ency that offers service to the film industry and works with the police department in Mumbai.

“Piracy is a serious offence and is rampant in major parts of the city. We, along with the Mumbai police, are dedicated to the cause of arresting the increase of such activities,” said Khan.

Interestingly, in a bold move, the producer of 3 Idiots, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, has struck a deal with Google to release the movie online 12 weeks after the release date. The deal will allow people to download the movie and watch it on YouTube.