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Tag: Maharashtra Police

  • Game of Thrones episode leak with Star TV watermark traced to Prime Focus Tech; 4 people arrested

    NEW DELHI: “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” Ygritte told her reluctant lover, delivering one of the most iconic lines in the drama series. But  the Maharashtra police do know who leaked  episode four from season seven of  the blockbuster HBO series ‘Game of Thrones’ with the Star India watermark about 10 days back. And, the source of the crime is Prime Focus, a technology partner of Star. 

    Police investigations done in Mumbai and Bangalore have shown that present and former employees of Prime Focus, technology vendor for Star India, were responsible for the leak. GOT airs in India on Star channels and its digital platform Hotstar.

    “The information and material collected at the Bangalore office (of Prime Focus) and the Mumbai Police station were collated, studied and analysed by the police. On being satisfied, the investigating agency sufficiently established the role and involvement of various persons, both existing and former employees as well as outsiders,” Maharashtra special IGP (cyber) Brijesh Singh said in a statement yesterday, adding four persons were arrested on 14 August 2017.

    It transpires that the leak, which was one in the series of many leaks globally involving, GOT in recent times, happened in Prime Focus Technologies’ Bengaluru office.

    The police said interrogations revealed that more than one person was involved, included outside people, who had access to the raw data of the TV series. All the accused persons were produced in a court and later sent to police custody till 21 August 2017.

    During investigations, Prime Focus had come forward accepting the leak had happened at its end. It also lodged a police complaint against one of its serving employees alleging that he, along with another former employee and other persons, illegally gained access to the episode and leaked it online.

    Indiantelevision.com could not independently reach out to Prime Focus for the company’s reactions to the developments on online leak. 

    In a separate statement Star India said, “This was the first time that an incident of this nature has occurred. We are deeply grateful to the police for their swift and prompt action. We believe that valuable intellectual property is a critical part of the development of the creative industry and strict enforcement of the law is essential to protecting it.”

    On 4 August 2017, The Verge had reported an unaired episode of GOT appeared on the Internet early that morning. While HBO’s servers were breached earlier that week, this episode leak happened at GOT producer HBO’s distribution partner in India, Star India, and the company’s logo appeared watermarked throughout the leaked episode.

    According to The Verge, Smartprix spotted a direct link to the MP4 of the episode over at Star India’s own distribution site, allowing people to download GOT freely before sharing it with Google Drive links on Reddit.

     

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    https://www.vox.com/2015/4/12/8394447/game-of-thrones-leak

  • FICCI Frames ’17: Maharashtra to form IP crime unit to fight online piracy

    MUMBAI: Well, well. The Indian media industry and the government are finally getting serious about content piracy. After Telangana Intellectual Property Crime Unit (TIPCU), Copyright Force and the government-mandated Copyright Board, Maharashtra state is all set to get Maharashtra Intellectual Property Crime Unit, which may be called MIPCU.

    Announcing the go-ahead for MIPCU, a body that would be a joint endeavor of the entertainment industry and the state government, Inspector General of Maharashtra Police (Cyber) Brijesh Singh (in the picture) said, however, the initiative would have to be backed by the industry players too in terms of resources to effectively fight cyber crime and online piracy.

    “I would want it to be set up under a public-private partnership model and want the industry to come forward and help me achieve this. I want the industry to come and tell me that this is what we need and we will then help them. There is a commitment from our side,” Singh said while delivering an address at FICCI Frames 2017 session themed `Decoding the Pirate Economy in Interconnected World: From Noise to Action.’

    Though Singh, who was also slightly skeptical of the losses in terms of revenue that were often quoted by the entertainment industry, said that if the industry was serious, so were the law enforcement agencies. Pointing out that it’s often seen that the film industry’s piracy concerns were “limited” to the first seven days of a film’s release, he added, “I think this issue needs us to be more serious. I want the industry to come to us to build this sustainable and long-term partnership.”

    Motion Pictures Association of America’s Indian unit (MPA) and the Film and Television Producers Guild of India have joined hands to fight the menace of online piracy. After discussing the idea of MIPCU with the chief minister of Maharashtra and MPA last month, the state government formally okayed formation of a unit to fight cyber crimes, especially online piracy. Offline offences regarding this issue will be dealt by the regular police units.
    The budget of this new proposed unit will depend on what kind of technology it plans to offer for a solution. The entire idea is to co-create a global facility, Singh later elaborated and added that the unit’s launch was dependent on the industry’s long-term commitment in terms of negotiating that space.

    Commenting on the proposal to form MIPCU, Viacom18 group general counsel Sujeet Jain said the entertainment and TV industry would back any such move as long as results were delivered irrespective of structures and modalities.
    Incidentally, some months back, as reported by indisntelevision.com, MPA, broadcasters and FICCI had joined hands to announce formation of Copyright Force to set agendas for effective safeguarding of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy and engage with the government.

    To give an international perspective, TIPCU, Copyright Force and the proposed MIPCU have been seemingly inspired by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) of the UK , which is a specialist national police unit dedicated to protecting the UK industries that produce legitimate, high quality, physical goods and online and digital content from intellectual property crime.

    PIPCU is operationally independent and launched in September 2013 with £2.56million funding from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) of the UK government until June 2015. It was announced in October 2014 that PIPCU will receive a further £3 million from the IPO to fund the unit up to 2017. The unit is dedicated to tackling serious and organised intellectual property crime (counterfeit and piracy) affecting physical and digital goods (with the exception of pharmaceutical goods) with a focus on offences committed using an online platform.

    Also Read:

    Online pirates beware, Copyright Force on way

    Internet included in broadcasting for purpose of Copyright

    Telangana leads fight against online piracy in partnership with film industry

    FICCI keen on IPR awareness & enforcement to encourage innovation

    Internet included in broadcasting for purpose of Copyright