Express News Service By

VISAKHAPATNAM: Just like the movie makers, those who resort to movie piracy are adopting new technologies. If ace director SS Rajamouli brought in state-of-the-art technology to unveil the fantasy world of ‘Baahubali’, offenders pirating the movie are opting for pen drives and memory chips to provide quality movie experience to their customers using cellphones and tabs.

The City Task Force (CTF) Thursday night nabbed seven persons from Dabagardens under charges of selling pirated copies of the blockbuster movie and selling them to people in USB drives and memory chips.

On a tip off, CTF sleuths led by ACP I Chittibabu raided the makeshift shops outside cellphone showrooms in Dabagardens area. They arrested seven persons - D Anil Kumar (19), Santosh (27), V Sankar (35), G Raghu (24), MV Ramana (27), K Siva Kumar (22) and M Naga Srinivas (23).

About 20 makeshift shops have been set up outside cellphone showrooms in Dabagardens.

The accused were downloading pirated songs, video games and other apps on new cellphones purchased in the cellphone showrooms for a nominal amount.

“The accused were using pen drives and memory cards where a downloaded movie is charged at Rs 50. They were downloading movies and songs from various torrent sites and also video/song sharing sites like U Torrent, The Pirate Bay, Thirittu.com, and uploading them onto these flash drives,” a police officer said.

While piracy of movies and songs was a difficult task earlier as it took considerable time to write a compact disc, the process has become easier now. Once downloaded from the website, pirated copies can be copied within minutes and easily distributed using pen drives and memory cards.

The CTF also seized about seven computers and numerous memory cards. The accused were booked under the Piracy Act and handed over to the Maharanipeta police station for further investigation.

The police said that though the accused were not directly linked to piracy mafia, they were promoting piracy for their business development.

“Based on preliminary investigations, we suspect that the movies were being pirated abroad and then uploaded to the websites for downloading across the globe, making it difficult for the police to nab the kingpins,” the officers added.