As reported in TOI, the digital crime unit (DCU) of the Maharashtra cyber police has decided to crack down on web portals that upload pirated music albums and movies. The police have already issued notices to 100 websites and will lodge FIRs against them if they are found uploading pirated content again.
The DCU was formed after Motion Picture Association of India and the film industry approached chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in October 2016 to complain about the losses they have to bear due to online piracy. The Chief Minister had forwarded the fraternity’s mail to the home department. The DCU has been launched under the directives of additional chief secretary (home) Sudhir Shrivastav.
In July, the DCU started a pilot project and zeroed in on around 9,000 websites where pirated content has been uploaded.
Superintendent of police (cyber) Balsing Rajput said industry stakeholders and officers of the cyber cell are members of the team. “After studying the model of London Metropolitan Police’s ‘PIPCU’ unit, the DCU was formed. It works in three stages. In the first stage, all ecosystem players are being told to desist from supporting illegal activities. Secondly, notices will be issued to companies that are advertising on such websites. The first stage also involves writing to the domain host, the Internet Service Provider (ISP), and the data server from where content is uploaded,” he said.
In the third stage, web servers will be blocked and domain names cancelled. “If content is uploaded again, we will block the webistes and register FIRs.”
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