Cyber hitmen take down internet pirates

BY BEN GRUBB

The film industry is using pirate tactics to beat the pirates – by employing “cyber hitmen” to launch attacks that take out websites hosting illegal movies.

Girish Kumar, managing director of Aiplex Software, a firm in India, told smh.com.au that his company, which works for the film industry, was being hired - effectively as hitmen - to launch cyber attacks on sites hosting pirated movies that don't respond to copyright infringement notices sent to them by the film industry.

In Australia, such cyber attacks are illegal.

Kumar said 95 per cent of sites hosting illegal movies co-operated with notices, but a few - mostly sites hosting torrents and used primarily for illegal content - did not.

"Most movies are released on Friday morning at 10am in India," Kumar said in a telephone interview. "The movie is released in the morning [and] by afternoon it's on the internet."

His company trawled the net to find movies uploaded, he said.

"What we do is we see all those links on the net," he said.

"We find the hosting [computer] server and send them a copyright infringement notice because they're not meant to have those links. If they don't remove [the link] we send them a second notice and ask them [again] to remove it."

He said that if the provider did not do anything to remove the link or content hosted on its site, his company would launch what is known as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the offending computer server.

In Australia, DDoS attacks are an offence under section 477.3 of the Criminal Code Act 1995.

"People undertaking distributed denial-of-service attacks should be aware that they are committing criminal offences that attract a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment," an Australian Federal Police spokesperson said.

"Generally speaking 95 per cent of ... providers do remove the content. It's only the torrent sites - 20 to 25 per cent of the torrent sites - that do not have respect for any of the copyright notices," Kumar said.

"How can we put the site down? The only means that we can put the site down is [by launching a] denial-of-service [attack]. Basically we have to flood [the site] with millions and millions of requests and put the site down."

He said commercial sites such as YouTube and Daily Motion were the only sites that responded promptly to infringement notices.

"They are immediately responding to our copyright notices and removing the links and this is saving immense revenue to the producers [of movies]," he said.

Asked whether his company ever threatened to launch a DDoS attack on a site if it did not remove pirated content, Kumar said that it did not.

"No, we don't do that. We generally ask them to respect the copyright notices under DMCA ruling XYZ."

Kumar even pledged to come to Australia to help out on internet piracy here.

"If you want me to service any Australian companies I would be really pleased to come down and do a presentation and work for the Australian movie [industry] also if they are willing," he said.

Kumar said that at the moment most of the payment for his company's services came from the film industry in India.

"We are tied up with more than 30 companies in Bollywood. They are the major production houses."

As for Hollywood films, he said they, too, used his services.

"We are tied up with Fox STAR Studios - Star TV and 20th Century Fox - who are a joint venture company in India."

The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, or AFACT, which represents the film industry on piracy in Australia, said it did not condone the activities of Kumar's company.

"The methodology [used by Kumar's company] ... is not something that AFACT has undertaken nor sub-contracted to outside vendors," executive director Neil Gane said.

Asked whether it, on behalf of the Australian film industry, would use Kumar's services, it said: "AFACT have very talented in-house investigators and a successful track record that does not require outside vendors to assist in ongoing criminal investigations."

"AFACT investigates websites that infringe our member companies content and refers such alleged criminal matters to law-enforcement agencies using investigative techniques that are within the law, cost effective and would elicit the necessary level of evidence to support further police inquiries."

- © Fairfax NZ News