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Movie Piracy Blackmail Plot Fails In India, Six Arrested (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the ransom-where? dept.

An anonymous reader quote's TorrentFreak's report about "a plot against Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, a record-breaking movie taking India by storm." Someone posing as a "film anti-piracy activist" told the company that a pirated copy of the movie had been obtained and if a ransom wasn't paid, a leak onto the Internet would be inevitable... Following the call Arka Mediaworks immediately involved the police, who advised the company to engage the 'kidnappers' in dialog to obtain proof that they had the movie in question. That was delivered in the form of a high-definition sample of the movie, a move that was to mark the beginning of the end for those attempting to extort Arka Mediaworks. It's unclear whether those who sent the sample were aware, but the movie was forensically or otherwise marked, something which allowed police and investigators to track the copy back to a specific theater... shortly after the owner of the theater was arrested by police. This was followed by the arrest of the person who allegedly called Arka Mediaworks with the ransom demand. From there, police were led to other co-conspirators. In total, six arrests were made, with two of the men already known to police.
TorrentFreak calls the ransoming of movies "a worrying trend in 2017" that's "damaging the image of piracy further, if that was even possible."

6 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. They did the needful for the film maker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    But still have not fixed my microsoft pc they called about.
    Fix my pc, dears!

  2. Heh. by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2

    Pirates giving piracy a bad name.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  3. "worrying ... damaging the image of piracy" by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hilarious. An entity built around ripping off other people's work is worried that someone ripping off someone else's work might make ripping off people's work look bad.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    1. Re:"worrying ... damaging the image of piracy" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Movie pirates are strange, I can't think of when the last movie came out that I would even accept if given to me for free. They're basically stealing someones trash.

  4. Typical Indian IT work - shoddy, ends in failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What did you expect when you outsourced your piracy?

  5. No such ransom was or will ever be paid by ffkom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These "movie ransom" stories are weird - I wonder whether these stories are "based on true events" (of incredibly stupid criminals) or whether they are made up PR-stories from movie studios to draw attention (and maybe also a little compassion).

    Of course, even the dumbest studio accountant knows that it does not have any significant impact on his revenue whether unlicensed copies of his movie are "out there" some weeks sooner or later. People will certainly not make a decision for or against watching the movie "unpaid" based on whether that is possible a little sooner or later.

    These ransom schemes, if they actually exist, are 100% certain to fail.