3 held for uploading pirated films on private websites

Three persons, including two BTech students, were today arrested for allegedly posting pirated films of recently released Telugu films including 'Rudramadevi' and 'Bahubali' on private websites, police said.

Filmmaker Gunasekhar, Director of 'Rudramadevi' lodged a complaint with the police stating that there was rampant online and physical piracy of his film and it was eroding its revenue, police said.

'Rudramadevi' starring Anushka Shetty was released on October 9, but it came to light that online piracy of this film broke out on the same evening, police said.

In his complaint, Gunasekhar said that the Anti-Video Piracy Cell of Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce had made a list of the websites indulging in piracy and requested for urgent action against these culprits and urged all the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to block the pirated content of 'Rudramadevi'.

Following the complaint, a case was booked under relevant sections of the IT Act besides IPC and Copy Right Act and investigation was taken up, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crimes and SIT) Swathi Lakra said.

During the course of investigation, two students Prashanth Chaitankar and Pavan Kamble were nabbed for committing the offence of piracy.

"Due to financial crisis, Prashanth and his friend Pavan decided to operate movie sites and earn money on the advice of Soma Shekar (classmate, who is absconding). As per his advice, they copied the pirated movie links from websites and posted it on their websites, and earn easy money through the pop-up advertisements on their websites," the Additional CP said.

So far, the accused have purchased about 12 websites for running these pirated films and it was revealed that they have uploaded about 1,200 films, police said.

Police also nabbed another accused Tanveer Ahmed, a businessman, for committing the offence of piracy by adopting a similar modus operandi.