nti-piracy investigators have said that scores of films submitted for certification at the regional office of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) could have been pirated in the past two years.
Their startling inference gained gravity on Monday with the arrest of three temporary employees of the CBFC on the charge of illegally duplicating and disseminating the “censor copy” of the Malayalam film Premam . The accused, all local residents and computer diploma holders, have been employed at the agency since 2013. They are Arun Kumar, 26, Lithin Kumar, 25, and Kumaran, 30.
Their arrests have turned the spotlight on the “lack of data security” at the CBFC’s office that allowed unauthorised users, in this case insiders, untrammelled access to high value copyrighted movie content submitted in good faith for certification.
Investigators said the accused had the job of checking the functionality of the digital storage devices containing uncertified movie content.
They used their access to copy the content on the sly and distribute it to friends. They chiefly used Xender, an application that facilitates the transfer of large video files between smart-phones with instant messaging functions such as Whatsapp.
The pirated version of the film ended on the internet inadvertently. Its first up-loader, an 11th standard student, had hosted the film on peer-to-peer file sharing website running on bit-torrent protocol. He was among the thousands who have received the pirated copies on mobile phones and digital devices, and like most others, had no direct link with the suspects. At the time of his arrest in early July, more than 1,50,000 persons had downloaded the movie and another 30,000 were in queue.
Investigators said the administrators were perhaps the only persons who made a profit from the crime. Efforts were on to identify and arrest them. The investigation has also highlighted the flaw in allowing temporary employees access to sensitive material. It pointed out that the suspects were recruited through a private placement agency and without any security check.
The police have, for now, ruled out the role of any CBFC official or other film professionals in the crime. They have sought the custody of the accused who were remanded on charges of cheating, copyright infringement, and violation of the IT Act.
Investigation highlights the flaw in allowing temporary employees access to sensitive material.
