Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
Row over satellite rights
SWEET SUCCESS: Reese Witherspoon in `Sweet Home Alabama'
'THE LEGEND of Bhagat Singh' and `Om Jai Jagdish' are being screened on TV within a few months of their release.
This has sparked off a serious debate within the industry.
Producers and distributors have often been at loggerheads over the time frame involved between the release of a film and the sale of its satellite rights. According to an agreement between the producers and distributors' associations, no producer can sell the satellite rights of his film until a year after its release.
Distributors feel that producers should strictly abide by the agreement; producers maintain that the distributors should come to terms with the changing business scenario, when most films are being written off in a week's time.
The pirated VCDs of films, which are out in the market the after a film's release, do not make things easier for them. Producers such as Ganesh Jain and Mehul Kumar have gone on record to justify the stand taken by the producers.
Mehul Kumar has asked for a modification of the rules in the agreement. He says, "As far as the stipulated time of one year is concerned, public memory about films is so short-lived today that people don't even remember the name of a film that was released a year ago. The business of a film is over and done away with in three or four weeks these days. Besides, there are the pirated cassettes, which are in circulation everywhere. If producers keep waiting for a year to sell their satellite rights, no channel will be willing to buy the rights for their films. Going by the current sustaining power of films, producers should be given the freedom to sell the satellite rights of their films three months after their release."
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
|
