Image for representational purposes only. , Photo credit: The Hindu
Induna, a Kolkata-based e-commerce platform for buying DVDs and home media, announced on Friday morning that it would be shutting shop. The shuttering was announced in an email to the site’s customers and on the firm’s social media pages. This site will not be accepting orders beyond March 20th.
In the years since its launch in 2007, when e-commerce was just beginning to gain a foothold in India, Induna emerged as an aggregator of movie DVDs – and later Blu-ray Discs – for movie enthusiasts in India, from smaller towns and cities. offered shipping everywhere to countries without extensive film libraries where DVDs were not available locally.
Despite rampant piracy in the form of physical discs sold by unauthorized sellers, the site continued to operate, serving everything from big budget films to more independent films that would be difficult to find elsewhere.
The company wasn’t shy about the reason for its shuttering: Streaming on OTT platforms had put more films within reach of more people without having to buy physical discs, and filmmakers in India are increasingly skipping physical releases altogether.
“With so many other new means of consuming cinema, and the end of DVD releases by almost all production houses, it was already impractical to run the affair.[s] For a while in Induna, [and] We have now reached the point when we say goodbye and thank you all for being with us on this most important ride,” the site told users in its farewell email.
In other words, the death of the physical media format for film releases spelled the end for Induna. It even faced blocking in India in 2016, when the makers of the comedy Great Grand Masti reportedly objected to an automatic listing on the site, announcing that the film’s DVD was ‘coming soon’. (Copy of the film sent to the now-defunct Appellate Tribunal of the Central Board of Film Certification GrooveApparently prompting its producers to obtain blocking orders for sites that may not have even hosted a copy of the leaked cut.)
The site’s inactivity over a long period of time is indicative of the circumstances it faced. Its last promotional email claiming new additions to the site’s catalog was sent in 2018.
The difference is understandable. In 2007, the average internet speed in India was calculated to be less than 1 Mbps. According to the Speedtest Global Index, the average speed today is 37 times faster on mobile networks, which is less than half that of wired connections. With lower streaming subscription prices and faster internet, the media distribution baton has been firmly passed on to OTT services.
The death of the physical media model for the distribution of films was not, however, inevitable – the United States still sees physical releases for most major films and some TV series produced in the country, as do countries such as Japan.
The Japanese home media market is so vibrant, in fact, that it is the only country that has a physical version of SS Rajamouli. bahubali Available in Blu-ray format. Despite the success of the franchise, it did not receive a Blu-ray release in India, instead settling for a DVD release which is largely out of stock on most online marketplaces. A Twitter handle named @isRRRoutingOnBluMeanwhile, Mr. Rajamouli’s latest film, RRR, there’s a high-quality physical release on the horizon. The film has been nominated for an Oscar, but its makers are yet to announce whether it will be released physically.
However, unlike Japan and the United States, the Indian market for legal physical media releases was already burdened by increasing levels of physical piracy. Ernst & Young estimated in 2009 That film piracy was so rampant in India that it caused the loss of more than 8 lakh jobs and $4 billion in revenue.
Even Moser Baer, which tried to beat the pirates at their own game with legal but affordable disc releases of Indian films, failed to gather steam and filed for bankruptcy in 2018. The company’s assets were taken over by Los Angeles-based VinPower Digital, which announced in 2021 that the brand was returning—but with no more films coming out under the Moser Baer brand. Its disks are empty.