The Hindu : National : New piracy law soon: Minister

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Friday, Nov 25, 2005

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National

New piracy law soon: Minister

Sudhish Kamath

It will cover aspects beyond the purview of the Copyright Act

PANAJI: To keep up with the rapid technological growth in the entertainment sector and to protect it from piracy, unauthorised digital reproduction and violation of digital intellectual property rights, the Central Government is drafting new legislation.

"We are working on a new law called the Optical Disk Restrictions Law," Union Minister for Culture and Urban Development Jaipal Reddy said on Thursday at the "India — The Big Picture" conference, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

"We have received new international texts on the subject and are working at covering aspects that are beyond the purview of the Copyright Act," Mr. Reddy said. "Piracy is the worst kind of theft."

While India was the second-fastest growing economy in the world, with about eight per cent growth per annum, the entertainment sector was growing at 18 per cent.

"The potential of the entertainment sector is vast. Some say that we could do as much in entertainment as [in] information technology. Fortunately, these two sectors are converging. Broadband is the way to the future," Mr. Reddy, who formerly held charge of the Information and Broadcasting portfolio, said.

While the Indian film industry made $2 billion a year through its 800 films, Hollywood was making $36 billion through just 450 films, he said.

Co-production treaties

To expand the scope of the industry, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, now under the charge of Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, would carry on the job of signing co-production treaties with other countries.

"We reached a co-production treaty with Italy recently. On December 5, the British Minister for Culture is likely to sign a treaty with our Minister. We are negotiating with Germany, China and Canada and [the talks] are at an advanced stage," Mr. Reddy said.

"The countries in Europe are enthused and eager to work with us. We are not interested in becoming a rival to Hollywood. We are prepared to work with them. We would like to provide India as a great place for shooting films," he said, listing out heritage sites of historic value. "We've liberalised [the] procedures for shooting. We have told the State Governments to do the same, and we have been able to increase our revenue by 100 per cent."

The Minister expressed his concern over multiplexes being an urban phenomenon.

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