No more tracking in USA: What’s Happening?

The United States market is regarded as one of the most transparent theatrical markets for the Indian film industry, and this is primarily due to the online tracking that is available here. But going by the latest developments, we could be witnessing a sharp decline in this tracking system in the United States as well.

A leading distribution house based out of the United States has issued a legal communication against tracking and reporting of their films.

“It has come to our attention that certain social media handles are publishing premiere pre-sales numbers of our films extracting data through unauthorized means, including the use of illegal data-scraping scripts. This unauthorized extraction and dissemination of data constitutes a serious copyright violation.

There have been multiple instances where inaccurate and misleading numbers were published related to our titles to hurt their box-office prospects and create reputational harm to our released titles. These actions breach legal boundaries and attract serious copyright from our end.

We urge all individuals and entities to refrain from publishing or circulating premiere pre-sales numbers unless officially released by us on our official social media platforms. Any such misuse involving our films in the future will be met with strict legal action, including filing for copyright infringement and taking necessary steps to hold the offenders accountable.” Their communication read.

This is pretty much legal warning to everyone who has been tracking the box office number of distribution house. This could potentially bring down the tracking percentage and potentially we could be witnessing a new trend in the United States market, where distribution houses pressure trackers not to publish the data. This is a completely different precedent.