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After a long break due to the pandemic, Pakistani films have finally been releasing in theatres, hoping to revive the Pakistani cinema industry. First battling foreign films premiering at the same time as local movies, Pakistani filmmakers now have a new battle to fight — piracy. A pirated version of Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad was being illegally sold on Daraz and director Nabeel Qureshi is not having it.

On Thursday, he shared a screenshot of the on-sale film captioned, “This is criminal! Daraz is selling our film Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad’s pirated version officially on their website while the film is playing in cinemas across Pakistan. This is damaging the cinema and film industry, it’s alarming.” He added that the production house for the movie, Filmwala Pictures, is going to take strict action.

Daraz replied to the tweet from its official account to clarify its stance and said it was “allegedly” uploaded by a seller. “[It] has been removed from the platform as soon as our compliance team picked it up. Daraz, in any way does not support plagiarism and any such violations.”

One of the leads in the film, actor Mahira Khan, retweeted Qureshi’s tweet and called the matter “ridiculous”, tagging Daraz.

Filmmaker Fizza Ali Meerza also commented on the issue saying legal action should be taken to “set an example”.

Netizens spoke about how detrimental this could be to the film industry.

Some pointed out that the film is already out on other websites, that too with free streaming.

What is your take on free streaming impacting the film industry?