Piracy to be treated as cyber crime: Kerala Police

In a meeting convened in Kochi by heads of all Cyber Cells and Hi-Tech Cell of the State Police, representatives of film producers and three companies that are into digitizing their new films, the State Police has decided to consider piracy as a cyber crime!

"The major shift in focus is that piracy will be considered as a cyber crime as well from now onwards. Till now, it was treated as a copyright violation alone. The advancement in technology means instead of prints, the films are digitized and transferred through intranet used by the digitizing companies. So we need to arrest the source of leakage, from where these films are uploaded to the Internet,” Sreejith, Deputy Inspector General, Crime Branch, said.

A sub-committee has been formed comprising police officers and industry representatives. "The source of the leak can be tracked as each company has unique encryption stamps. Cyber cell personnel will be trained to track the pirated movies to the source and also to all persons who have uploaded or downloaded that file,” he said.

The renewed probe has been triggered by complaints lodged by producers of the Prithviraj starrer Urumi, which appeared for free download online, he informed. G. Suresh Kumar, general secretary of the Kerala Film Producers' Association, said the new change would entitle producers to make claims of up to Rs. 5 crores as compensation and the accused would be booked under non-bailable charges.