MUMBAI: A team of four enforcement officers from the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism (MDTCC) assisted by officers from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), Cybersecurity Malaysia as well as the Malaysian Federation Against Copyright Theft (MFACT), the latter representing Motion Picture Association (MPA) in Malaysia, conducted a raid on a datacenter that had rented server space to Piradius Sdn Bhd, a company providing webhosting services to websites hosting infringing movie content.

Following investigations, MDTCC officers found copies of MPA member company titles, including Avatar, G.I Joe – The Rise of Cobra and Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen on the websites. The data trail also led officers to the AIMS Datacenter, located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, which rents out server space to the company.

"We are heartened to note that the authorities have no tolerance for webhosting companies that allow rogue websites to operate. Such enforcement effort reinforces our work in the Malaysia and the region in going after the source of such illegal content. This is a promising start to the New Year and we look forward to working with the Malaysian authorities to crackdown on more such cases," said MPA president and managing director Asia-Pacific Mike Ellis.

 "I’d like to say to the criminals trying to hide behind a webhost in Malaysia – that it’s of no use. We’re going to be actively monitoring webhosts and will take the necessary action to remove all illegal activity taking place," said Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism’s (MDTCC) Enforcement Department director general Roslan Mahyuddin.