Thiruvananthapuram:Tens of thousands of Indians who care little for copyright and patent rules on the internet are getting a serious warning from down south in Kerala, where police are poised to bring to book a few thousand people who have either uploaded or watched the pirated version of a Malayalam movie on the internet.
It is estimated that over 30,000 people have watched the movie ‘Bachelor Party’ on YouTube or other internet sites, and the anti-piracy cell in the state is moving to take legal action against them, starting with 16 people who are thought to have played a role in uploading the movie on the net.
Early reports say that a 19-year-old Keralite manfrom Pune is among the 16 who are facing litigation for pirating the Amal Neerad movie.
First information reports have been filed in court against the 16. On the list of the police may be thousands of non-resident Keralites, too.
It is understood that the anti-piracy wing has the internet protocol addresses of at least a thousand people who watched the movie in India, and action may follow on the tens of thousands of others who watched the movie overseas, as the IP addresses are collected and the addresses of the viewers gathered.
The development is a major success for movie industry operators who have been trying to arrest piracy, and a particularly sweet moment for industry players who put to use the Agent Jadoo software to identify pirates who were involved in uploading movies on the net.
The case was initiated by Movie Channel, the company which launched the CD and DVD of the movie. The Jadoo software, developed by Jadootech Solutions, helps track IP addresses of those who upload or share a particular title.
Reports say that piracy of movies has been so rampant that the movie industry has been facing financial disaster. More recently, it was reported that perhaps 2 million people watched the pirated version of Malayalam movies, ‘Second Show’ and ‘Ordinary’.
