Mumbai: In response to the Viacom18’s complaint to Mumbai Cyber Crime Cell and subsequent filing of FIR against K Sera Sera in the matter related to piracy of Force 2 movie, the company has clarified with an official statement, in which, it accused Madhya Pradesh based Prakash Cinema of involving in piracy of the movie through a camcorder recording that was circulated in to DVD Copies later-on.
K Sera Sera has also disclosed the Copy of the complaint filed against the exhibitor and assured Viacom18 of co-operating with it in all possible ways to solve the issue.
However, K Sera Sera denied receiving any intimation neither from Viacom18 nor from Mumbai Police. The Statement issued by the company stated that “In reference to the recent news about a case against K Sera Sera Digital Cinema Ltd. by Viacom 18 for the movie Force 2, we, at K Sera Sera Digital Cinema Ltd., would like to clarify that we have not received any intimation from neither Viacom 18 nor from the Cyber Cell department of the Mumbai Police about the said case”.
The statement also stated that “As a responsible company operating in the Indian cinema space for over two decades, we have always worked along with other members of the industry to fight and stop piracy. As a part of this practice we regularly conduct audits of various across cinema chains where our servers are installed to stem any attempt of piracy”.
According to K Sera Sera, they have identified an attempt for piracy of the movie Force 2 during its audit conducted in November 2016 and the details of the same are listed below:
- On 18th November 2016, as a part of their audit process, they purchased pirated DVDs of Force 2 from the market.
- All the movies distributed by them normally contain an additional watermark which helps them during the audit process.
- Upon inspection of those DVDs with hard-coded watermark and found one of their watermarks on a DVD, linking to Prakash Cinema in Dabra, Madhya Pradesh. The piracy seemed to be on account of a camcorder in the cinema hall.
- Following this discovery
- K Sera Sera immediately terminated the contract as well as access to the digital server for Prakash Cinema
- withdrew the physical server from Prakash Cinema to check for any other attempts of infringement
- On 7th December 2016, a complaint was filed in Amboli Police Station, Mumbai against Prakash Cinema
- On the same day (7th December 2016) they have intimated Viacom 18 about the entire matter with Prakash Cinema via an email, which also included a copy of the Police Complaint.
- On 8th December 2016, a hard copy of the email to Viacom 18 along with the Police Complaint was hand delivered to Viacom 18. The receipt of the same has been acknowledged.
The Company also acknowledged the threat caused to all stakeholders (incl. us) by piracy and assured to extend complete cooperation to the concerned authorities in this matter.
