The panel, ‘Innovation Trilogy: IP creation, protection and development‘ held on the 1st day of FICCI Frames 2009 was moderated by BIG Animation CEO, Ashish Kulkarni with panelists including King & Partridge Senior Partner T Suresh, Kahani World Co Founder and Eros International Executive Director Biren Ghose and Liquid Comics CoFounder Gotham Chopra.
The panel was remarkably free-ranging and the diversity of topics covered by the presenters was immense. It was also not restricted to animation alone.
“We are in a world where you can defend your IP and you cannot defend your IP, so you have to make sure your make the money from it fast.” began Biren, telling it like only he can.
Distribution, fast and wide is one of the most important factors in making money swiftly from the content. Biren‘s next few slides drew from Eros data and statistics which provided some interesting insights.
He shared that regional niches as well as new media revenue for content were growing considerably and so were overseas markets. “On the new media front, we have seen 27 million dollars revenue for Eros from its owned content. The Youtube site for Eros has 42 million hits which is more than what the youtube channels of American news networks like CBS get.”
He said that in the last year itself, Eros alone had opened up 5-6 new markets for Hindi films including Poland, Russia, Kuwait and Holland.
Revenue streams from new media which does not have geographical limitations and from overseas markets means that the content created has to fresh, original and universally appealing. This required a very creative and well researched approach, but at the same time there were other parameters too.
“The story telling challenge for all of us is to balance between creativity and the management of risk. One part of us tells our visualizers and creative people to go and make new things and then our producer says make sure its done in the budget.” Shared Biren.
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The topic of creativity but with an eye on budgets as well, led to the discussion on Comic books as the most cost effective alternative to begin creating IP. Enter Gotham Chopra of Liquid Comics. “A comic book has its own language and style. At the same time, it also is the best way to make movies on paper first. You can have different universes, blasts, action, super heroes, everything and for the readers, it is more interactive than watching films is. It also helps establish IP”
Giving an example about how a comic book can serve as a pre prod exercise for movie development and can also serve as a ‘Bible‘ or ‘Pitch‘, Gotham narrated an incident when Tom Cruise got interested in Ramayana 3392 AD, one of Gotham‘s properties, through a comic book on the same. “Tom was all curious to know more about the characters. And he asked me a ton of very relevant but detail related questions”
Talking about content, whether content that is being created or ready content, its copyrights protection is a very important process.
Drawing in from his immense experience in IP Law and protection, T Suresh of King and Partridge gave some guidelines and simplified some terms.
“Not content, but innovative content is King”, shared T Suresh, adding, “In the context of animation, it is the creation of fine artistic work including characters and story. Being a creation of the mind then put down on paper and digital, animation is an intellectual property.”
He shared that IP broadly refers to all creations and that the rights to exploit IP for a limited time period and geography could be assigned by the creator to anyone, gratis or for a fee.
“The creator is the owner of the IP. The Producer is the owner of the IP when the creator is paid to create the IP. Ownership can also exist when the IP is assigned.” He said about some of the different ownerships of IP that can exist
He also pointed out that in view of the increasing capital that is pouring in for creation of IP, there is an increasing demand for protection of IP.
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Defining what could qualify as IP in animation, Suresh shared, that all the processes right from the first to the last had unique creative inputs which could be copyrighted. Some of these include; Penning a Story, Creation of a Storyboard, sketches of character, drawings, clay model, animation. and so on. In the case of public domain characters, the unique treatment, interpretation and design could be copyrighted and protected he shared.
He also added that copyright is a strong law in India as it is in the US. The owner has the right to display or distribute copies. It also includes moral rights. That is the content can‘t be changed even if one sells it later.
Giving guidelines for a very affordable but yet effective way of safeguarding work, Suresh shared, “Sign and date your work print out with dated copies of your manuscript and send it by a registered post to yourself. Store the envelope and do not open it. When you have a sealed cover with your name and address containing your IP which has been posted to you, it counts as proof and evidence of your copyright”