Prachar Communications Ltd., Time Multimedia Pvt. Ltd., Baba Films Ltd., and Gold Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. are four of the largest producers and distributors in the lucrative film world known as Bollywood. Together these four companies – two of which are public companies – control thousands of feature films that they produce, acquire the rights to, and distribute, including hundreds of hours of television content. They estimate that, in Bollywood, every year tens of thousands of dollars are lost to piracy.
The four companies, which control a large stake of the media coming out of Bollywood, the world’s largest film and entertainment industry, based in Mumbai, India, will begin using USA Video Interactive Corporation’s digital watermarking product, “MediaSentinel”, immediately to battle the costly problem of piracy. MediaSentinel digital watermarking technology has been successfully used to deter piracy of digital content by various companies, including Twentieth Century Fox.
CEO of USA Video Interactive, Edwin Molina, said that the company has been working hard to establish itself as a major player in the anti-piracy industry. He also added that, “We’re building momentum as this month we announced a deal with Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. And now through our relationship with PIO TV, we’re beginning to establish ourselves in Bollywood too, starting with these four production houses.”
The relationship is mutually beneficial for the companies involved, and with the lost revenue that will be saved by preventing piracy, perhaps the companies can reinvest in themselves to produce more and better shows and films. If USVO proves itself to the first four companies in Bollywood, perhaps more of the multibillion dollar market will see the upside to anti piracy services and attract more business.
Piracy is not only an issue internationally, but here in the U.S. as well. Deloitte named data/video and other forms media protection as one of 2008’s hottest tech trends. A recent IPI study shows that piracy is responsible for $5.5 billion in lost annual earnings among U.S workers, which translates to 141,030 jobs lost because of this problem. It costs the country $837 million in lost annual tax revenue and $20.5 billion in lost annual output to all U.S. industries. USVO is doing its part to help fight piracy, and if other companies take the same steps as Fox and its subsidiaries, one day we will virtually eliminate this epidemic plaguing the film industry.
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