Mobile application to combat film piracy launched

Hyderabad: A mobile phone application that helps combat film piracy designed by Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce with the support of the US Consulate General, was launched by US Ambassador to India Nancy J Powell on Sunday. The application called 'Indian Movie Cop'(IMC), available as a free download on Mac's App Store, provides movie fans with a one-stop shop of movie trailers, plot synopses, theatres and show times and educates them about piracy and enables them to report piracy in real time in one of eight Indian languages.

It provides tools to identify, report and prevent piracy, and those users alerting about the piracy will be rewarded, an official said. As per a Northbridge Capital Asia report, the Indian film industry estimated to be worth Rs 14,400 crore produces around 1,050 films every year, but loses 14 per cent of its revenue to video piracy, Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police V Dinesh Reddy said.

"About 90 per cent of pirated DVDs of films available in Indian market are a result of illegal camcorder recording in theatres," the DGP said. Veteran film maker Daggubati Rama Naidu said, "As a film industry, we have been waging a war against piracy for many years. Indian Movie Cop is a significant step to producing long-term results and bringing all stakeholders together." Uday Singh, managing Director of Motion Picture Association (India) said that the new mobile application will help law enforcement officials and movie going audiences to understand the negative impact of content theft and help build a platform for respecting content creators and owners.

CID Additional Director General of Police T Krishna Prasad said information on piracy given by the movie goers through the IMC to the AP Film Chamber of Commerce will be processed before it is taken up as an actionable intelligence. "That information has to be processed before we take an actionable intelligence. In order to ensure convictions (of the accused), we will be looking for admissible evidence in the form of IP addresses and transfer of technology," he explained.