Tag: Online piracy

Viacom18 & govt announce anti-piracy partnership

NEW DELHI: In a step highlighting seriousness of stakeholders, Viacom18 has forged a partnership with the Cell for IPR Promotion and Management or CIPAM, a professional body under the Commerce Ministry, to launch an anti-piracy awareness campaign laying stress on the importance of IPRs.

“A possible solution to the problem of piracy lies in creating awareness about intellectual property rights (IPRs) among the masses. It is pertinent that one of the main objectives enshrined in the national IPR policy is creating awareness about IPRs to build a healthy IP ecosystem in the country,” Commerce Ministry’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) joint secretary Rajiv Aggarwal said.

Aggarwal, speaking on the partnership that was announced during an ongoing three-day national workshop on enforcement of IPRs, lauded the industry’s contribution in taking a lead to rally around the cause of IPR protection.

According to Viacom 18 Media group general counsel and company secretary Sujeet Jain, “When it comes to consumption and circulation of pirated content, there is limited knowledge about its economic and social impact. Through this partnership with CIPAM, we hope to raise awareness amongst youth and children about the perils of piracy and the need for the protection of IPRs.”

Content piracy, especially online, is a menace that has started to cause serious dent to revenues of content owners and also the Indian government in terms of taxes. And, it is high time that the industry and the government collaborated on a war-footing to create awareness about IPRs and anti-piracy measures being undertaken.

As part of the association with CIPAM, Viacom18 has created a behavior change awareness videos, involving popular animated characters of its flagship kids’ channel Nickelodeon and Sonic (Motu-Patlu and Shiva, respectively), spreading the message that content piracy was equivalent to stealing.

The campaign will see CIPAM and Viacom18 airing these videos across schools, colleges and various educational institutions, in addition to the network’s kids channels.

Because IPRs are increasingly becoming crucial drivers of social and economic growth in the 21st century DIPP has organized a meet here, which was inaugurated by Home Minister Rajnath Singh in the presence of Minister of Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman and Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju. Sessions on various aspects of IPR, its protection, existing laws and anti-piracy measures are scheduled to be discussed by industry and government representatives.

Singh said that counterfeiting and piracy activities give rise to serious organized crimes and police officials should be equipped with proper knowledge and training so as to curb and restrain IPR breaches.

The workshop is designed to help police officials and prosecutors to understand their role in effective enforcement of IPRs. It will also provide an opportunity to the officials to share their experiences, exchange best practices and coordinate effectively with each other.

Sitharaman, while emphasizing that people need to understand ways to create and protect their intellectual property for a secure future, said the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in collaboration with CIPAM, was setting up two technology and innovation support centres in Punjab and Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, a statement from Viacom18 added that it was not the first time that Viacom18 was championing the cause of IPR protection. Earlier this year, along with the Bombay High Court, the media group conducted a crack-down on counterfeit merchandise of their licensed character Dora the Explorer.

This initiative was primarily targeted to protect children from hazards of using inferior quality products under the impression of them being original Viacom18 merchandise. The company, which also owns film production unit Viacom18 Motion Pictures, had previously led a campaign against film piracy too.

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

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

August 23, 2017
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.

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Online pirates beware, Copyright Force on way

August 22, 2017
Google, MS agree to crack down on online content piracy site

NEW DELHI: A global war on content piracy, including in India, just got a leg up. For the first time, global tech giants Google and Microsoft have agreed to tighten up their search engines as part of a crackdown on content piracy websites illegally streaming events and films with the UK regulator Ofcom backing it.

Google and Microsoft’s search engine Bing have signed up to a voluntary code of practice and will ensure offending websites are demoted in their search results, according to a PTI report from London, which goes on to state that he entertainment industry reached the agreement with the tech giants after talks brokered by the UK government.

The initiative will run in parallel with existing anti-piracy measures, which includes initiatives by PIPCU or the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), which is a specialist national police unit dedicated to protecting the UK industries that produce legitimate, high quality, physical goods and online and digital content from intellectual property crime.

PIPCU operationally independent and launched in September 2013 with £2.56million funding from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) of the UK until June 2015, got additional funding from the IPO in October 2014 till 2017. The unit is dedicated to tackling serious and organized intellectual property crime (counterfeit and piracy) affecting physical and digital goods (with the exception of pharmaceutical goods) with a focus on offences committed using an online platform.

The PTI report, quoting BBC and dwelling on Google and MS moves, stated that the code said to be the first of its kind in the world is expected to be in operation by the middle of this year.

Jo Johnson, the UK’s minister for universities, science, research and innovation, was quoted in the report as saying that the search engines’ “relationships with our world leading creative industries needs to be collaborative”. He added: “It is essential that (consumers) are presented with links to legitimate websites and services, not provided with links to pirate sites.”

Google has indicated that the effort would provide a way to check that its existing anti-piracy efforts were effective, rather than committing it to adding new measures. “Google has been an active partner for many years in the fight against piracy online. We remain committed to tackling this issue and look forward to further partnership with rights holders,” a Google spokesperson was quoted by PTI as saying.

The UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) led the discussions, with the assistance of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Britain’s communications watchdog, Ofcom, supported the talks by exploring techniques that could be used to ensure internet users avoid coming across illegal content.

Trade body Alliance for Intellectual Property director-general Eddy Leviten told the BBC, according to the PTI report, “Sometimes people will search for something and they will end up unwittingly being taken to a pirated piece of content. What we want to ensure is that the results at the top of the search engines are the genuine ones. It is about protecting people who use the internet, but also protecting the creators of that material too.”

Besides demoting copyright infringing sites, search engine auto-complete functions, a time-saving feature that suggests what users may be looking for, are also expected to remove terms that may lead to pirated websites. Compliance with the code will be monitored by the IPO over the next few months.

February 21, 2017
Global online content piracy on rise; US, France, UK in top 10 list

NEW DELHI: Online piracy is on the rise and could be outpacing regulatory and policing regimes as global piracy trends show a change indicating emerging threats.

MUSO, a leading content protection, data-analytics and piracy audience reconnection solutions provider, has said nearly three-quarter of all visits to film & TV specific piracy sites in 2015 used web streaming as their method of consuming illegal content, highlighting a clear piracy audience trend change away from content ‘ownership’ using P2P/Torrents or web downloads.

According to MUSO’s Global Film & TV Piracy Market Insight Report 2016, released late July 2016, out of a total 78.49 billion film and television piracy site visits, 73.69 per cent (57.84bn) were visits to streaming sites, with 72.07 per cent of visits via desktop devices, indicating consumption of infringing video content via mobile devices remains low.

With over 12 per cent (9.86bn visits) of that global piracy audience from the United States, and with France, Germany and the UK all present in the top 10 countries globally by visits, the report highlights a piracy industry in transition, with strongly varying audience trends across different countries highlighting key opportunities, as well as emerging threats. India too figures in the surveyed list.

The MUSO report data is available for over 226 countries and dependent regions, which saw the company analyse global traffic from 14,000 of the largest global piracy websites, comprising over 141 billion visits to these sites, and across 200m measured devices.

MUSO’s annual report found that the second most popular piracy delivery type was torrents, capturing 17.24 per cent of audience visits. Despite this high activity, torrents have seen an overall decrease by 18.98 per cent from the first 6 months visits to the last 6 months visits in 2015.

Torrent activity that has heavily relied on desktop users (77.1 per cent) has seen a trend change throughout 2015 of -18.96 per cent. Mobile activity has seen a similar decrease by 19.02 per cent.

The usage of downloads has been relatively low, compared to torrents and streaming traffic, accounting for 8.38 per cent of piracy visits. 2015 saw only a minor increase in download activity, with a growth of 0.21 per cent from the first six to last six months of the year, the report stated.

MUSO added that its Global Piracy Market Insights Reports published for both music and film & TV markets, and the specific country-level insight reports, are firmly established as the industry standard in global piracy audience trends.

It’s no wonder that the Indian content industry too has woken up to the online piracy threat and is attempting to put together an industry coalition, along with the government, to fight the menace. The proposed piracy measure has been tentatively titled Copyrights Force.

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Online pirates beware, Copyright Force on way

August 16, 2016
Global online content piracy on rise; US, France, UK in top 10 list

NEW DELHI: Online piracy is on the rise and could be outpacing regulatory and policing regimes as global piracy trends show a change indicating emerging threats.

MUSO, a leading content protection, data-analytics and piracy audience reconnection solutions provider, has said nearly three-quarter of all visits to film & TV specific piracy sites in 2015 used web streaming as their method of consuming illegal content, highlighting a clear piracy audience trend change away from content ‘ownership’ using P2P/Torrents or web downloads.

According to MUSO’s Global Film & TV Piracy Market Insight Report 2016, released late July 2016, out of a total 78.49 billion film and television piracy site visits, 73.69 per cent (57.84bn) were visits to streaming sites, with 72.07 per cent of visits via desktop devices, indicating consumption of infringing video content via mobile devices remains low.

With over 12 per cent (9.86bn visits) of that global piracy audience from the United States, and with France, Germany and the UK all present in the top 10 countries globally by visits, the report highlights a piracy industry in transition, with strongly varying audience trends across different countries highlighting key opportunities, as well as emerging threats. India too figures in the surveyed list.

The MUSO report data is available for over 226 countries and dependent regions, which saw the company analyse global traffic from 14,000 of the largest global piracy websites, comprising over 141 billion visits to these sites, and across 200m measured devices.

MUSO’s annual report found that the second most popular piracy delivery type was torrents, capturing 17.24 per cent of audience visits. Despite this high activity, torrents have seen an overall decrease by 18.98 per cent from the first 6 months visits to the last 6 months visits in 2015.

Torrent activity that has heavily relied on desktop users (77.1 per cent) has seen a trend change throughout 2015 of -18.96 per cent. Mobile activity has seen a similar decrease by 19.02 per cent.

The usage of downloads has been relatively low, compared to torrents and streaming traffic, accounting for 8.38 per cent of piracy visits. 2015 saw only a minor increase in download activity, with a growth of 0.21 per cent from the first six to last six months of the year, the report stated.

MUSO added that its Global Piracy Market Insights Reports published for both music and film & TV markets, and the specific country-level insight reports, are firmly established as the industry standard in global piracy audience trends.

It’s no wonder that the Indian content industry too has woken up to the online piracy threat and is attempting to put together an industry coalition, along with the government, to fight the menace. The proposed piracy measure has been tentatively titled Copyrights Force.

ALSO READ:

Online pirates beware, Copyright Force on way

August 16, 2016