Jebe Stephen Raj, a person allegedly associated with TamilRockers, was arrested by the Kerala police in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday, July 26. The accused, who hails from Madurai district in Tamil Nadu, was recording the Tamil film Raayan, helmed by actor Dhanush, at Ariesplex theatre on its release day. TamilRockers is a movie piracy site infamous for circulating pirated versions of new film releases on their website.
According to sources, TamilRockers was started by a small group of friends in 2011 and has grown over the years. Most of them believe that these individuals are based out of France, while their sites are believed to be hosted in Russia or Romania. Their DNS and other information are protected and secured.
Copies of the Malayalam film Guruvayoor Ambala Nadayil starring Prithviraj Sukumaran, Nikhila Vimal, Anaswara Rajan and Basil Joseph was circulated on Telegram groups a few days after its release. Following this, the film’s producer Supriya Menon filed a complaint against TamilRockers with Ernakulam City Cyber Police Station on May 23. According to the police, Jebe Stephen Raj confessed that he recorded the film Guruvayoor Ambala Nadayil. “He also admitted that he had engaged in such activities before,” Ernakulam City Cyber Police Station Sub-Inspector Vinod told TNM.
According to the First Information Report (FIR), Stephen Raj has been booked under sections 51(a)(i) (copyright violation), 51(b)(ii) (distributing copyrighted material), 51(b)(iii) ( trades in public), and 63 (infringement of the copyright) of The Copyright Amendment Act, 2012.
How police traced the culprit
After receiving the complaint from the producer, the police tried to track down the theatre where the film was recorded. “It took around 30 days for Qube Digit (provider of end-to-end digital cinema technology and solutions) to provide us with the details of the theatre and it was Ariesplex Theater Thiruvananthapuram. However, the CCTV footage was not available in the theatre. Due to this, our investigation got stuck,” Vinod explained.
Later, by analysing the angle of the video of the movie, the police approximately identified the seat from which the movie was recorded and collected the booking details. The police noticed that the phone number used to reserve the seat was from Tamil Nadu. “We discovered that this number was used to reserve tickets for more films on the first day of release. However, the person who was using this number did not travel to Thiruvananthapuram and their location showed they were in Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu, even during the show. We alerted the theatre employees and waited for the next time they booked a seat,” Vinod added.
On July 25, the police received information that two seats had been reserved from the same mobile number. Police waited for the men to start recording, and once they confirmed it, Ernakulam City Cyber Police alerted the Vanjoyoor police and they arrested the two individuals.
According to police, they had selected recliner seats and used the cupholder to mount a tripod fixed with a phone upon it. One of the arrested persons has now been turned into a witness as the police felt they did not have sufficient evidence.
Police also mentioned that the accused confessed to his previous crimes and the instructions he received from the person who told him to record the movie. “He said he received instruction to record only using the latest iPhone and from a theatre which has a good screen as well as sound quality. They used to pay him Rs 5,000 for recording each film. He also said he uploaded the recorded videos in a link, and the movie would disappear from the link after five days,” the police explained. They are also exploring whether the case is connected to individuals in other countries.