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Tag: Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment

  • Belinda Lui steps down as MPA head – APAC; Urmila Venugopalan to replace her

    Belinda Lui steps down as MPA head – APAC; Urmila Venugopalan to replace her

    MUMBAI: It’s time to say  goodbye to the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Belinda Lui who led the MPA for the past five years as president & managing director for the Asia Pacific has decided to hang up her boots.

    Belinda during her five years did a lot of work to take the Asia Pacific film industry forward  as well as  push Hollywood in the region. According to her during her term, the MPA:

    • Improved cultural exchanges between nations, through expanding access for American films and TV dramas to priority markets like China and achieving 15-20 per cent incremental box office revenue.

    • Fueled local economies and built capacity in markets like Australia, Japan, India, New Zealand and Thailand through competitive film and TV production incentives (up to 40 per cent in tax rebates in Australia alone).

    • Supported thousands of emerging filmmakers from almost 30 countries/territories in the Asia-Pacific through our film grants and LA training programs, with some of those projects going on to win the Academy Award and international Emmy.

    Belinda, who,  through her 30 year career,  worked for companies like Warner Media, Microsoft and Baker McKenzie, has decided to offer her services to companies as an independent non-executive director and spend as much time as she can with her family.

    She is being replaced on 31 January by Urmila Venugopalan , currently executive vice president of strategy & global operations at the MPA.   In her new role, Venugopalan will work on expanding access to local markets and promoting production in new areas, as well other advocacy activities across the region. She also will work with the MPA’s anti-piracy arm, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, or Ace. Venugopalan will retain her duties as the MPA’s corporate board liaison.

    She will be based in Tokyo and report to MPA senior vice president, global policy &  government affairs Gail MacKinnon.

    MPA chairman & CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement that Venugopalan “is a veteran leader who thrives at the complex intersections of business, public policy, and global affairs.” 

    He said that she “joined the MPA (in 2017) at a time of critical change and helped revitalise and realign its structure and priorities, strengthening our organisation from the inside out. I have full confidence that her deep experience working with every aspect of our global business operations, coupled with her existing corporate board liaison responsibilities, will advance our members’ objectives across the Asia Pacific and beyond.”

    “Venugopalan is a trusted advisor who has earned the respect of colleagues and member companies. Her work has already touched every part of our organization, and she maintains a wide-angle lens on key political and sectoral trends – all while remaining laser-focused on how we can best tell the story of a creative industry that drives local economies, creates jobs, and connects communities everywhere,” said  MacKinnon. “With her at the helm of our APAC operation, I am confident the MPA will achieve even greater impact in the fastest-growing region. I am also grateful to Belinda for her effective stewardship and counsel, which has greatly benefited the MPA and our member studios in the region.”

    “The Asia-Pacific region has already played an important part in the history of our industry – and is set to assume a starring role in the future of great storytelling,” said Venugopalan. “At this critical juncture for the film, television and streaming industries, MPA members are more excited than ever about the vitality of this region – its enthusiastic and engaged audiences, its relentless dynamism, and its immensely talented casts and crews. I look forward to supporting our member studios and their local partners in their collective efforts to fuel local economies and enrich cultures across the region.”

    Before joining the MPA, Venugopalan served as a member of the policy planning staff at the US state department in Washington and as a senior consultant at the Albright Stonebridge group. She holds a bachelor’s degree from McGill University and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics & Political Science.

  • Comment: War on online video piracy, which matters, is here for India to fight

    Comment: War on online video piracy, which matters, is here for India to fight

    “There’s only one war that matters. And it is here”.

    So reads the caption of HBO’s official trailer for the blockbuster sixth episode of ‘Game of Thrones’ season seven that is scheduled to be aired next week. Even as Daenerys Targaryen’s Unsullied Army took up position outside the walls of King’s Landing, the online leaks of the TV series continued with unfazed pirates threatening not only to up the ransom figures, but also breach more episodes—Khalessi and dragons, notwithstanding.

    But the caption of the trailer does resonate with the Indian media and entertainment (M&E) industry as well as the government and policy-makers. The war that matters – the battle against online pirates — is certainly here and worth fighting for.

    As the online video market grows around the globe, India being no exception, so has the fear of online piracy and loss of revenues to content owners.

    The leak of an episode of GOT that recently happened in India, courtesy Prime Focus Tech, Indian host broadcaster Star India’s technology vendor, brought to the fore that the menace is closer home and will grow in coming days. And it happened just in the week – or after Hotstar – started a high decibel media campaign  urging  viewers to stop downloading torrents and go for originals on the streaming VOD service. The comnsumer – it seemed – was cocking a snook at its suggestions, though the leak happened through its vendor-partner. 

    Earlier, it was primarily the Indian film industry that was battling online pirates through John Doe court orders and blocking of some websites. But now, it seems, the whole entertainment industry needs to come together with policy makers to put up a joint front against piracy. More importantly, admission of the fact that the scourge has arrived on Indian shores and will spread in the coming years more aggressively, will only help drive anti-piracy initiatives.

    It’s not that initiatives against piracy are not taking place, but they are individual acts. “There are various industry bodies operating in the M&E sector in India and since there can’t be divergent views on tackling piracy, it’s high time a single coalition is formed by all industry stakeholders in partnership with government, which will help align business interests in a common mission,” said Viacom18 Media group general counsel and company secretary Sujeet Jain, one of the industry execs at the forefront in the fight against piracy.

    Why the fight against online piracy is imperative and India must start taking counter measures to safeguard against revenue losses?

    Sample some figures. Singapore-based market research firm Media Partners Asia (MPA) recently estimated that the Indian online video industry generated approximately $ 230 million in total sales in 2016 and could reach approximately $340 million in 2017. Online video revenues, including net advertising and subscription fees, will grow at a 21 per cent CAGR across the Apac region between 2017 and 2022, climbing from US$17.6 billion in 2017 to US$46 billion by 2022, MPA reported.

    Data revenues across fixed and mobile networks in Apac will reach $318 billion by 2022 and average mobile broadband penetration will reach 73 per cent per capita by 2022 versus 59 per cent in 2017, with some of the biggest growth coming from India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

    Indian regulator TRAI’s figures state till May-June this year India had 282 million wireless and 18.33 million wired broadband subs.

    While acknowledging the potential of the Indian online video market and its weaknesses for breaches, a TV exec, on the condition of anonymity, pointed out that lack of cohesion and unity is stopping various industry associations to come together under one umbrella for anti-piracy activities. The need for finances to keep such an initiative afloat is an impediment too.

    For example, a body called Copyright Force was announced last year with much fanfare with few Indian and foreign industry associations promising to collaborate on anti-piracy measures. But, recently a senior government official in the Ministry of Commerce, which oversees IPR-related policy-making, told indiantelevision.com that he had not heard about Copyright Force, but some individual media companies were in regular touch.

    Writing a blog on the need to uphold IPR, Viacom18’s Jain very aptly had pointed out programs such as Digital Bharat may not achieve the  desired results if online piracy is not curbed as IPR enforcement for the M&E industry was no less important than IP assets emerging from innovations and R&D from other sectors and for India to be globally successful, it must ensure safeguards against IPR breaches.

    While the government admits India is a big and complex market, officials also point out efforts are on to evolve an ecosystem where IPR is respected  and online piracy is arrested, if not totally demolished as even more developed markets are finding it difficult to plug such loopholes – leakage of GOT episodes from various parts of the globe being an example.

    A senior government official also told indiantelevision.com that the Commerce Ministry is in touch with organizations like the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ministry of Electronics and IT and Ministry of Law to amend some of the existing relevant legislations (The Cinematograph Act, 1952, the IT Act and the Copyright Act, for instance) to update them in the modern context.
     
    However, the government also expects the Indian M&E industry and related industry associations to give it exhaustive and cohesive feedbacks and suggestions to help framing of futuristic legislations to fight piracy and uphold sanctity of IPRs. Probably, such a united approach is not coming forth from the industry, even while piecemeal suggestions are being given to the government.    

    That raises another question: how is the issue of IPR piracy is being sought to be addressed in other parts of the world?

    The UK has PIPCU or the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, which is funded by the Intellectual Property Office and run by the City of London Police to combat this criminality, with a special focus on offences committed online. Australia has a controversial, but stringent law against piracy. In Asia, various countries have different standards, but collaborate with media associations like Hong Kong-based CASBAA to crack down on pirates through jointly funded legal recourse and high-pitch anti-awareness campaigns.

    In June this year, 30 global content creators and on-demand entertainment companies launched an industry coalition called Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) dedicated to protecting the dynamic legal market for creative content and reducing online piracy.The worldwide members of ACE include Amazon, AMC Networks, BBC Worldwide, Bell Canada and Bell Media, Canal+ Group, CBS Corporation, Foxtel, Grupo Globo, HBO, Hulu, Lionsgate, MGM, Millennium Media, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Sky, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Studio Babelsberg, STX Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Univision Communications Inc., Village Roadshow, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros Entertainment Inc with Star India being the lone Indian member.

    A spokesperson of ACE told indiantelevision.com that though it’d welcome more Indian companies (apart from Star), it has no India-specific initiative on its agenda at the moment. One wonders why not? Certainly ACE with its money and influencing power – some of its supporters do have large business exposure in the Indian market – can contribute a lot in terms of international practices that could help the Commerce Ministry in framing and pushing more effective anti-piracy measures; the existence and contribution of TIPCU or Telengana Intellectual Property Crime Unit or Maharashtra’s online Cyber  crime division, notwithstanding.

    If, according to MPA, India, Japan, Australia, Korea and Taiwan will emerge as the markets (apart from market leader China) with the most scale in online video revenues and distribution, can the pirates be far behind back home?

    Jain conservatively estimated large and medium sized pirate networks in India can generate between $2-6 million per annum, but another Indian M&E industry exec said the loss due to piracy could be in high double digit millions of dollars. Incidentally, the Indian government doesn’t have a figure of revenue losses due to online piracy. If it has, that figure hasn’t been made public.

    So, if there’s one war that the Indian M&E industry and the government need to take cognizance of – it’s already here – it could very well be the fight against online piracy.

    Certainly, piracy cannot be bandied as an achievement of the government’s much touted Make In India and/or Made In India programmes.

    ALSO READ :

    Indian online video to grow to US 1.6 bn at 35 percent CAGR by 2022

    MPA forecasts Asia Pacific online video opportunity at US$35 billion by 2021

    FICCI Frames ’17: Maharashtra to form IP crime unit to fight online piracy

    Online pirates beware, Copyright Force on way