Beat the copy-cats at their own game

TECHNOLOGY: Pirates won't have it easy any more as the organised market gets savvy.

Moser Baer India, the Rs 2,000-crore optical-disc manufacturer, believes the recently-announced draft policy on the Optical Disc Law will not help curb piracy in the DVD market.

The policy was drafted by a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry committee and presented to the Union minister for information and broadcasting, Priya Ranjan Das Munshi.

According to industry estimates, India produces 350 crore discs and CD-drivers annually, to produce music CDs, film DVDs and video CDs. The Rs 1,500-crore disc-production market is expected to reach Rs 6,000 crore by 2010.

The draft policy has a perspective on all players "" the film industry, music industry, software industry, manufacturers of optical-media hardware and regulators. Puri says that tracking the disc from the retailer is going to be a tough challenge. "How will you find out why a particular person is buying the pack of discs?"

"Nowhere in the world is a blank optical media subject to identification numbers. Besides, the scale of operation among the large players makes it impossible to track," Puri adds. Even if a manufacturer manages to number the discs, there are chances that the sequence might break owing to defects or other technical issues.

Puri feels some of the measures his company has taken will go a long way in curbing piracy. For example, "The price range is almost 30-40 per cent lower than pirated copies."

Moser Baer is offering older films at Rs 34 for a DVD and Rs 28 for a VCD and promises the same with new titles too. It has acquired 1,500 Hindi film titles and is on course to acquire another 1,000 as it eyes a 50 per cent share of the market. It has 7,000 titles in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi.

Moser Baer India plans to adopt the FMCG model for distribution of DVDs. "Today the customer does not have enough options to buy DVDs." The company plans to have DVDs in almost 1,00,000 outlets "" stationery shops and telecom outlets, besides regular audio and video outlets.

With price points as low as Rs 28-34, the company is confident of taking on competition from the likes of Reliance and Nimbus.

"Reliance has the advantage of reach but it cannot match our price points. Besides, we are already in it both in terms of outlets and patented technology. By the time they come in, we will have almost 150-200 outlets," adds Puri.