Notorious piracy site Tamilrockers on Thursday released the pirated version of Rajinikanth starrer Kaala at 5:28 am, reportedly even as the first shows of the film were screened across Tamil Nadu.
Screenshots doing the round on social media suggest that the website even put out a HD version of the film.
This comes despite the Tamil film industry's strong stance against piracy, which has seemingly not made a huge difference.
Many took to Twitter to complain about the piracy and also tweeted to actor and Tamil Film Producers Council (Nadigar Sangam) President Vishal, demanding that swift action be taken.
A member of the Nadigar Sangam told TNM that their team was trying to get the link blocked.
#Kaala released in #tamilrockers.......what are you going to do Mr. @VishalKOfficial ??
— Subramanian Nambi (@lion_hdb) June 7, 2018
Can we wait for a day to arrest them?
unsatisfactory ...... Nothing doing.... Simply sitting as chairman!
@VishalKOfficial @Dhananjayang tamilrockers uploaded movie can you block him #kaala
— ஊமை பேசும் (@saravanan2365) June 7, 2018
@dhanushkraja @soundaryaarajni @VishalKOfficial #Kaala pirated version is now available in Tamilrockers and other torrent sites. Pls get it removed. Not sure what the heck the Piracy team is doing?? @beemji @rajnikanth
— Maria Ponnaiah K P (@kmpdiwa) June 7, 2018
Seems the movie #Kaala is available now for download in the #TamilRockers website. This is totally illegal, unethical, criminal, bad, sick and should be curbed at the earliest. What is being done by our governments and Cinema folks for this??
— M.Saravana Karthik (@mskarthik12) June 7, 2018
This came hours after Vishal announced that a man was arrested from Cathay in Singapore, after he streamed the movie from the cinema threatre via Facebook live.
This guy's streams live from Singapore premire show so far he covered first 40 mins of the film plzz report.@beemji @soundaryaarajni @VishalKOfficial @itisprashanth @LycaProductions @wunderbarfilms @dhanushkraja @cinemapayyan @kishen_das @Dhananjayang pic.twitter.com/TjCako53DW
— Jai Kishore (@Jk_jaiki) June 6, 2018
On the job @Dhananjayang sir. He has been arrested. Took it from Cathay Singapore.
— Vishal (@VishalKOfficial) June 6, 2018
Tamilrockers is one of the biggest piracy sites that routinely releases south Indian movies online.
Soon after he got elected as head of Tamil Nadu Producers Council, Vishal issued a warning to the torrent site.
Tamil Rockers has been a favorite online destination for lakhs to stream pirated South Indian movies. The admins of this site have remained anonymous. The torrent site has run into controversies many times by streaming movies live including big films like Baahubali, Premam and others.
The website joined the police's wanted list after it sold the censor copy of Malayalam blockbuster Premam online.
Kaala is directed by Pa Ranjith and is a gangster story loosely based on Mumbai-don Karikalan. The film has an impressive star cast with veterans like Nana Patekar and Samuthirakani included. Huma Qureshi and Anjali Patil have been roped in to play the female leads in the movie.