|
MUMBAI: National broadcaster Doordarshan has taken the lead on
a trial basis to apply technology to strengthen worldwide efforts
to identify video pirates.
The trial with Doordarshan was initiated by First Serve Entertainment,
which represents USA Video Interactive Corp, and exclusively markets
and sells MediaSentinel technology in Asia-Pacific and the Middle
East and non- exclusively in other parts of the world.
According to First Serve Entertainment Inc. COO Munish Gupta, Doordarshan's
recent decision to deploy digital watermarking in a three-month trial
puts the world on notice that India isn't among nations content to
simply wring their hands and do little more than decry the theft and
unauthorized reproduction of movies, television broadcasts and similar
digital products.
Prasar Bharati CEO K S Sarma says, MediaSentinel's digital watermarking
technology will provide Indian and international law enforcement
officials an effective means of tracing and catching pirates.
"Prasar Bharati's initiative to watermark media broadcast on
Doordarshan should stimulate a wave of interest, not only across
China and the rest of Asia, where piracy is believed to cause billions
of dollars of losses, but also in the US, which suffers many of
those losses," Sarma said. "We are pleased to have this
trial period underway to demonstrate the value of this technology
to media producers everywhere."
"Hollywood and the world's other media centers have basically
been sitting back and complaining that something needs to be done,"
Gupta says.
"Doordarshan is first among the world's large networks and the
only nationally run public broadcaster that's stepped up to the plate
to respond to the challenges of media piracy with robust technology
that places a unique digital watermark on every single frame of a
movie or television broadcast. The message they're sending to the
world by implementing MediaSentinel, an anti-piracy workstation developed
by USVO, is 'we hear you and help is on the way!'"
India has long been on the US Trade Representative's Special 301
Priority Watch List, as a result of generally weak enforcement of
intellectual property laws.
According to a 2005 Watch List report, piracy of motion pictures
and other intellectual property in India cost the US media producers
alone more than $500 million in 2004.
India is the second most populous country in the world, with a
population of over one point one billion. The Indian film industry's
output is the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced
and in number of tickets sold.
"Bollywood," the informal name for the popular Mumbai-based
film industry in India, is a strong part of popular culture in India
and the rest of the Indian subcontinent, as well as the Middle East,
parts of Africa, parts of Southeast Asia, and among South Asians
worldwide.
During the last 10 years, the Indian government has deregulated
electronic media by allowing private and even limited foreign investments
stimulating the launch of nearly 100 television channels.
These new channels uplink from India and are beamed via satellite
into the country and carried via cable and Direct To Home (DTH)
systems. Also, India's film industry today enjoys growing investment
by foreign financiers, foreign co-productions and significant revenues
from overseas exploitation of films.
Information and Broadcasting ministry is planning to set up three
high powered expert committees to prevent the growing menace of
video piracy of feature films.
"We are pleased that the government-owned Doordarshan network,
one of the most important broadcasters in the world, has stepped
to the forefront to make India a leader in watermarking as forensic
tool for anti-piracy efforts," said USVO CEO Edwin Molina.
"This is an important move that will likely spur Hollywood
and the movie and video products industries in other nations to
replicate as a means of furthering worldwide intellectual property
rights enforcement in the near future, adds Molina.
| 
