Is Ravi truly the villain Tollywood claims, or did the industry’s own excesses turn him into a digital Robin Hood?
Published Nov 19, 2025 | 2:43 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 19, 2025 | 2:43 PM
iBomma logo, Ravi.
Synopsis: The Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police recently arrested Immadi Ravi, the mastermind behind iBomma piracy network. Tollywood representatives say the man has caused crores of rupees of damages to the industry. However, average moviegoers seems to have conflicting views since some view him as a Robin Hood who fights the inflated ticket prices.
The arrest of Immadi Ravi — the 39-year-old mastermind behind the iBomma piracy empire — was expected to be a moment of jubilation for Tollywood.
After years of bleeding revenue to rampant digital theft, the industry finally saw the man it believed was single-handedly crippling theatrical business in jail.
Yet, instead of uniting the public behind the industry, the arrest has opened the floodgates to a fierce backlash.
As accusations of “unrestrained greed” and “cartel-like pricing” resurfaced, the debate has shifted sharply: Is Ravi truly the villain Tollywood claims, or did the industry’s own excesses turn him into a digital Robin Hood?
Multiplexes and single screens across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have been reporting dipping footfalls for several years. While the industry blames piracy, a growing number of ordinary moviegoers insist they are being pushed toward illegal streaming not by choice but by compulsion.
Weekend ticket prices of ₹500–1,200 for big releases — especially after “event pricing” approvals — have alienated large sections of the audience, particularly students and middle-class families. What was once a weekly leisure activity has become, for many, an occasional luxury.
A family of four in Hyderabad typically spends ₹1,000–2,000 on tickets alone and an additional ₹300–600 on snacks, most of which cannot be brought from outside. Little wonder then that a September 2025 Ormax survey across Hyderabad, Vijayawada, and Visakhapatnam found that 62 percent of respondents skipped theatres due to cost.
Against this backdrop, Ravi’s arrest on 14 November by Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police has drawn both widespread attention and divided public sentiment. Investigators seized 14 laptops, dozens of encrypted hard drives, and data indicating that iBomma served nearly 50 lakh users at its peak.
Police said Ravi had amassed 21,000 pirated films, neatly organised by language, region, and release year.
A native of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Ravi graduated with a BSc from Andhra University and later secured an MBA from ICFAI Mumbai. In 2019, seeing an opportunity in sky-high theatrical prices and the lack of legitimate OTT availability for several regional films, he built iBomma using offshore servers spanning the US, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the Caribbean.
What set iBomma apart from earlier piracy networks was scale and sophistication. Ravi created 65 mirror domains, including the widely used bappam to keep the platform alive even during enforcement crackdowns.
He relied heavily on high-quality camcorder leaks captured during 4 am benefit shows in Proddatur, Kurnool and Ongole in Andhra Pradesh, and parts of Telangana. Within 60–90 minutes, edited HD versions of major Telugu releases went live.
Industry estimates from the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce (TFCC) indicate the site attracted 3.7 million monthly visitors from India alone. Ravi himself told police that he earned ₹8–12 crore annually through Google Ads, cryptocurrency donations, premium link-sharing, and indirect partnerships with betting apps.
Now, he faces seven FIRs under the Information Technology (IT) Act, Copyright Act, and Telangana Public Exhibition Act.
A local court remanded him to 14-day judicial custody at Chanchalguda prison.
TFCC estimates that iBomma caused ₹3,700 crore in damage in 2024 alone, part of an estimated ₹24,000 crore in cumulative losses since 2019. Telugu cinema, which relies heavily on theatrical revenue from over 1,750 screens in the two states, is said to be disproportionately affected.
Major productions such as Pushpa 2: The Rule, Game Changer, OG, Thandel, and Kingdom witnessed 20–30 percent dips in opening-week business because high-quality leaks hit the internet before footfalls stabilised, producer Dil Raju argued.
At a joint press conference with Hyderabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar on 17 November, actor Chiranjeevi denounced piracy as a “cheap practice” that undermines years of hard work and destroys livelihoods across the value chain.
Filmmaker SS Rajamouli warned that piracy sites not only steal films but also compromise the personal data of users who visit these platforms.
However, even as film personalities push for stringent punishment, public discourse online has taken a very different turn. Memes and posts across X, Instagram, and Telegram channels hail Ravi as the man who made movies accessible when the industry didn’t.
“Ravi gave us Pushpa 2 for free when tickets cost a kidney,” read one viral meme that has been shared thousands of times.
This public outpouring is fuelled by frustration over the industry’s pricing practices. Although Telangana’s 2021 Government Order (Ms No. 120) caps ticket prices at ₹177 for single screens and ₹295 for multiplexes, producers frequently seek — and receive — “event exemptions” that double or triple these rates.
Producers argue that they have no choice because of ballooning budgets.
Ormax’s 2024 box office report shows that Telugu cinema’s revenue growth last year came not from higher footfalls but from inflated average ticket prices (ATP up 15–20%). Big-budget spectacles like Kalki 2898 AD (₹600 crore budget, ₹1,100 crore gross) and Devara: Part 1 (₹300 crore budget, ₹550 crore gross) relied heavily on ₹100–₹200 per-ticket hikes and premium formats to secure ₹400–₹500 crore profits.
A Robin Hood or a digital criminal? This is the moral dilemma that has turned the iBomma case into.
On the one hand, Ravi orchestrated the largest Telugu piracy operation in history, costing livelihoods and revenue. On the other, the public views him as a symptom, not the cause, of an industry that priced itself out of reach.
Tollywood wanted Ravi to be the villain. Instead, he has become the mirror reflecting the industry’s own excesses.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
