[Commons-Law] relay

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1087452


The FICCI Frames annual entertainment and media industries' convention
organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry, which was flagged off on Monday, ends today. The minister
for information and broadcasting Priyaranjan Das Munshi called on
private industry to form an export promotion council to take advantage
of film benefits under various schemes, including bilateral
co-production treaties.

The PriceWaterhouseCoopers report released at the convention at Hotel
Renaissance, estimates the size of the entertainment and media
industries collectively to be Rs 437 billion in 2006. Of this, filmed
entertainment was estimated at Rs 84 billion.

Among the well-attended discussions was "Defending your intellectual
property: how far have we succeeded?" moderated by Vijay Lazarus of
the Indian Music Industry (IMI). He pointed out that the IMI had been
fairly active. "In the last five years, IMI has conducted 10,000 raids
and seized cassettes and CDs worth Rs 50 crore. It has shut down 630
illegal internet sites, as well as secured 943 convictions," he said.

According to lawyer Tamali Sen Gupta, "Music piracy has actually
fallen from 95 per cent in 1985 to 30 per cent in 1995, making for a
65 per cent drop in music piracy within a decade."

The film industry does not seem as successful in combating piracy.
John Malcolm, executive vice president and director, Worldwide
Anti-Piracy Operations, Motion Picture of America, which is an
advocate for film producers worldwide, said: "India lost $186 million
to piracy in 2005, of which 92 per cent was suffered by the film
industry. $18 billion was lost to piracy worldwide in 2005, of which
$11 billion was in hard goods piracy and $7billion in net piracy."

As pirates made 500 per cent profits, he said one had to think of long
term solutions, encourage suo motu raids by the police and adopt
creative approaches. "For instance, we have Lucky and Flo, a pair of
DVD-sniffing dogs. We are very proud of them," he said. "They are
trained to sit down whenever they sniff DVDs." On a single jaunt
alone, the doggies located 1 million pirated DVDs and 90 DVD burners
in Malaysia.

Clearly, one has to outsmart the pirates with novel approaches. Hugh
Stephens, Senior Vice President, Time Warner, US, observed that "While
IMI was fighting hard copy piracy, it would be more effective to use
time and resources controlling production upstream." He called for
laws requiring licensing and regulation of duplicating equipment and
burning laboratories, and an inspection authority. Singapore, Korea,
Thailand and Malaysia already had intellectual property legislation
for this, he added.

There are other new techniques of tracking audiovisual products and
combating piracy. Patrick Attallah, managing director of the
International Standard Audiovisual Number (ISAN), explained: "Just
like ISBN numbers for books, there is ISAN for global identification
of audiovisual content from its conception till consumption. It can
help fight piracy, as it comes with a barcode and special ink. It
applies universally, regardless of the length of the product, version,
language and format. 1,20,000 ISANs have already been issued by ISAN,
a non-profit organisation," he said.

Rohit Kansal, registrar of copyrights of the government of India,
concluded: "Indian copyright laws are already TRIPS-compliant. Yet, we
are revising them."

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=159277

MUMBAI, MAR 27 : "Piracy is a growing global epidemic and the
proportions of the menace has reached such critical levels that the
very existence of global entertainment is at stake," said Vijay John
Lazarus, president, Indian Music Industry (IMA).

He was speaking at a session titled, 'Defending your Intellectual
Property: How far have we succeeded?' at Ficci Frames-2007 on Tuesday.
Ficci (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) and the
US-India Business Council (USIBC) have laid out plans to fight piracy
and increase levels of employment in the entertainment business. Ray
Vickery, senior advisor, USIBC said, "Bollywood makes more films than
Hollywood, yet its revenue is only 2% as compared to Hollywood.
Roughly, the revenue loss due to piracy in the Indian entertainment
industry amounted to $186 million in 2006. Of the 132 films made in
2006, only 8 films made money." He added, that in teaming up with the
Ficci in a Bollywood-Hollywood initiative, would add more teeth to the
fight against piracy.

IMA and USIBC have chalked out a strategy to fight piracy. Vickery
added, "First we have to conduct a study including Indian losses in
films, television, music and video games. Secondly, we need to educate
people about piracy."

Timali Sengupta, CEO, T Sengupta Associates, added that there was a
need for legislation and utilisation of optical disc technology to aid
combat piracy, scientifically. The governments of the US and India
have to be more proactive in combating cross-border piracy, agreed the
Indian and US delegates present at the event.

Ficci and USIBC will hold more conferences with representatives of the
film industry and the legal world. These two trade organisations will
also share critical and relevant information pertaining to combating
piracy.

http://us.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k7/mar/mar349.php

MUMBAI: One session at the Frames convention looked at the progress
made in the field of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). It looked at
fight against piracy and what needs to be done.

The speakers were Time Warner US senior VP international relations and
public policy Asia Pacific Hugh Stephens, Motion Picture Association
executive VP and director worldwide anti piracy operations John G
Malcolm, Isan MD Patrik Atallah, India Government registrar of
copyrights Rohit Kansal, Stonebridge International senior advisor
Raymond Vickery, DLAPiper China managing partner Jingzhou Tao, Wipo's
Jorgen Savy Blomqvist and T Sengupta Associates CEO Tamali Sengupta.
Indian Music Industry president V.J. Lazarus says that the IMI has
visited the 25 optical disc plants in the country. It has so far
shutdown 630 sites which offered illegal music downloads. In three
cases it has introduced forensic methods to build evidence. Last year
6.8 raids were conducted each day a rise of 58 per cent. 7.41 arrests
were made everyday. 9500 CDs
were seized each day a rise of 86 per cent compared to 2005. It
managed 943 convictions. This amounts to a conviction rate of 85 per
cent compared with the national average of four per cent. It has
introduced over 100 police training programmes. In Tamil Nadu the
Goonda Programme was enforced with strong results. It was the state
with the most number of convictions.

Malcolm notes that cost of making a Hollywood film on an average last
year was $100 million. Six out of 10 films do not recoup their
investment. A major reason for this is piracy. It is not an American
problem alone he notes. In 2005 the film industry globally lost 18.2
billion dollars. MPA members lost one third of this amount. 186
million was lost in Bollywood. 92 per cent of the loss was
Bollywood's. For filmmakers it is like taking money out of their
wallets.

"Organised gangs know that this is a low cost high return business.
The profit is upwards if 500 per cent. In India you have professional
camcoder thieves. They use high quality digital cameras. Internet
piracy is growing. It took 38 minutes to illegally download a copy of
Nishabd for free. It is important for there to be a multi pronged
approach to identify targets. It is
also important to maximize efforts and use public education as a means
to get across the message."

He spoke about the MPA introducing two DVD sniffing dogs Lucky and
Flo. Last year the Malaysian authorities used the dogs help to seize
one million pirated discs. Altogether the Malaysian government seized
six million units. Then a an ad was put out by the pirates offering a
reward to anyone who would kill the dogs. That is how grave the menace
is says Malcolm.

Wickerie was representing the US Indo business council. In conjunction
with Ficci they have started the Bollywood Hollywood initiative. The
aim is to bring precision to the loss that the Indian entertainment
industry is suffering as a result of piracy. The aim is also to use
the optical disc legislation and other technologies to fight piracy.
The aim is also to involve the Indian and US
governments more fully to fight the problem.

Stephens spoke about the draft of the optical disc law that has been
presented to the I&B Ministry. An optical disc covers CD, DVD, VCD
etc. The aim of the law which has been in passed in countries like
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea is to tackle the piracy problem upstream.
Laser beam recorders, glass or polymeric masters are among the
ingredients used to make optical discs. It is estimated that there
were 20 plans in India making optical discs. 581 million discs were
made last year. Such a large number allows for the possibility of
illegal content to be inserted.

The optical disc legislation aims at supplementing the copyright
infringement actions. The optical disc law has 10 elements.

This includes licensing of plants, establishing a registration system
for those engaged in commercial burning, providing for inspection
authority so that plants are not making illegal products. Sample discs
must also be collected for forensic purposes. A source identification
code should be given to discs, blanks, masters/stampers. A mechanism
should allow the authority to deny, suspend or revoke a license if a
plant is making discs that have pirated content.

Controls should also be imposed on the export of discs and export and
import of raw materials used to make discs. Offering a viewpoint from
the government Khansal notes that a virtuous coalition of affected
parties needs to be formed "Tackling piracy is at the top of the
government's agenda. We want to cut off the losses caused as a result
of IPR theft. We are in the
process of making amendments to the copyright law. It is however also
important that the copyright holder stand up. It would good if a
platform was created that would bring the government, judiciary and
IPR holders on one platform."

Blomqvist notes that Wipo has held three congresses on fighting piracy
and counterfeiting. One suggestion that came out of the last congress
is that each country establish a national task force. This will
facilitate coordination between the private and public sectors to
fight the menace. For instance a customs official should be able to
contact the rights holder to check if a shipment of a particular
property is legal or not. The structure of sanctions imposed should be
reviewed.

Sengupta notes that one problem in India is that there are not enough
legal outlets to buy Hollywood films on DVD and VCD. Courts also do
not allow for punitive damages. It is only an approximation of the
actual loss. On the television front the courts have in the past have
come down on the issue of MSOs inserting ads. Time shifting is also
frowned upon.

Tao says that piracy exists in China due to the large number of
production lines and also due to the quota restriction of around 20
foreign films that a cinema hall can show. 87 per cent of optical disc
production in China is underground. The local authorities need to have
the incentive to help the government at the center tackle the issue.