- I Paid A Bribe
- 13 years ago
- 1136 views
Extortion in the name of Copyright Protection.......
- Judiciary
- Unfair Legal Proceedings
- Paid INR 2,00,000
On 15th Sep 2011, 5 persons in civil dress and two persons in police uniform entered our premises at about 4 pm.
They informed our senior staff that they have an order to check all our computers for downloads of songs/movies/objectionable material. The policemen confirmed that they were from Vakola Police Station and that
the other 5 persons were authorised to check computers in our premises.
After checking a few computers and not finding anything, they widened their search to our other offices and finally stumbled upon some music and pictures which were risqué in nature. Almost all the computers had some music downloaded into them from the net, some of them being religious in nature. (Bhajans Etc).
These 5 persons then started to threaten our staff with dire consequences including confiscation of all our computers as well as arresting without bail for 7 days some of our staff. They started disconnecting most of our computers and gathering them in our reception area. While all this activity was going on, one of them kept talking to our staff to do some settlement or face confiscation and arrest. I was out of office due to a meeting but was apprised of the situation at the office at all times. I was trying to get hold of my lawyer but he was in Mangalore and his deputy did not have the requisite information about the law.
In the end late in the night, we agreed to a settlement as some of the families of our staff were quite upset and were afraid that their family members will get arrested. Also the loss of our computers for some time would mean loss of our data without which all our work would have come to a standstill. They still took one of our staff to the police station and lodged an FIR late at night and let him go home.
On coming to the office this morning I was informed that these people were from A Copyright Protection & Piracy cell based out of Dharavi.
I googled that name and came upon your article with similar experience of some businessmen in Sewri last year.
I feel that this company will terrorise some more small establishments like ours in the Santa Cruz area and try to extort more money in this manner. I have no idea who or what is this agency and how they can put people behind bars for small infringements in the copyright act.
I would request you to take this matter further and get to the bottom of this activity so that small business people like us are adequately fore warned.