The war against pirates has just begun: Girish Kumar

Interview with Founder, Aiplex

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Last week’s release Dishoom became India’s first film to use encryption while submitting a film for certification. The move came after Great Grand Masti crashed at the box office as it was leaked online 17 days before release. Bengaluru-based Aiplex helps some of the largest studios in the country, including Yash Raj Films and Eros International, tackle online piracy. It also works with  studios such as Universal, Italia Films and Sony Pictures in 25 other countries. Aiplex founder Girish Kumar tells Vanita Kohli-Khandekar how his company helps tackle film piracy. Edited excerpts:

How does Aiplex help studios tackle film piracy?

Aiplex has a multi-pronged approach. One, we send our DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notifications to infringers, protected domain providers, registrars and to the infringing website’s hosting service providers, located outside India. DMCA does not apply to certain countries, which were not a part of the Bern Convention, so taking action against websites in these countries is a challenge. But traffic to these websites, a bulk of which is from India, is crippled due to our John Doe orders (an injunction sought against someone whose identity is not known at the time it is issued). We have a database of about 30 million infringers documented over the years. This includes evidence such as screenshots, notices dispatched, email address and contact numbers. This evidence is provided to our clients’ legal counsels or our panel of lawyers. It then becomes useful in securing John Doe orders or Ashok Kumar Orders.

Two, educate viewers. Before the release of a movie, we begin building an average of 12,000 decoys. These are uploaded onto popular forum websites with a message addressed to illegal viewers stating “piracy kills and please watch the movie in theatres”.

Three, we have partnered with several hosting websites where we have been provided with take down programme or added as trusted websites to delete pirated content instantaneously. We also partner with payment gateways, advertisement brokers and advertisers to withdraw their support to infringing websites, thereby, reducing their income.

Does the shutdown of sites such as Kickass Torrents help?

The war against pirates has just begun. It has a long way to go. Because of the success of John Doe orders, pirates are coming up with out-of-the-box solutions. After the arrest of Artem Vaulin, owner of Kickass Torrents, piracy has seen a paradigm shift. Much before his arrest, there were several mirror websites being created, using a prefix, suffix or a new domain name. The crux of the issue is that a new website substituted it. Within few hours, the entire content on www.kat.cr was transferred to other mirror websites. So, we neutralise one website and another comes up in its place. This is a continuous battle.

What steps can be taken at an the industry level?

Internet service providers (ISPs) spend a lot of money to procure licences to distribute internet across India. Since blocking is a non-billable process, ISPs are often reluctant to execute it immediately because their top line gets affected.

Also, an additional electronic device needs to be procured and the infringing uniform resource locators (URLs) need to be fed into the system to block the flow of traffic to those websites. Hence, most ISPs request the government or the affected industry to release software to block such URLs or websites. ISPs and production houses could create a neutral third party agency to help block content on behalf of ISPs. Their services could be paid for by the industry. This will reduce the burden on ISPs.