US Ambassador to India Nancy J. Powell launched here on Sunday a mobile phone application called “Indian movie cop” (IMC) to curb piracy of feature films as a joint venture between the police and film industry. The US has supported the tool because Telugu films, including the latest Junior NTR starrer “Badshah”, were played on 120 screens across that country.
It is developed by AP Film Chamber of Commerce in association with the US Consulate of Hyderabad. Director General of Police V. Dinesh Reddy, noted film producer D. Rama Naidu, director Rajamouli and actor Junior NTR were present at the launch.
The IMC is an application that can be downloaded free into smart mobile phones using either WI-FI or GPRS Internet facilities. It is available on Mac’s App store or Google and supported by Android, iOS and other popular mobile operating systems.
A registered user can report piracy in real time in any of eight Indian languages whereas a non-registered user can access movie related news or buy tickets online.
Speaking on the occasion, Ms. Powell said the Economic Bureau of the US Department of State and the US Consulate General at Hyderabad were happy to support the initiative because it was aimed at fighting “fire with fire”.
Producer M. Shyam Prasad Reddy said the pirates initially copied films physically on the very first public show and replicated on computer within two days since 1999. In the past three years, however, online piracy had started using Internet.
Additional Director General of Crime Investigation Department T. Krishna Prasad explained that this was the first version of checking piracy by getting information from movie goers. The next step would be to get admissible evidence for prosecution.
Mr. Dinesh Reddy also addressed the gathering.
