Film bodies slug it out over rights

Release time, TV rights sale the primary areas of concern.

Technicolour reality in the world of cinema is all set to be marred by legal wrangles as the Film Producers Guild of India and the Film Distributors Council lock horns over the time period of a film's commercial release and the subsequent sale of its satellite rights.

In 1996, two organisations under the erstwhile Film Makers Combine (FMC), the Association of Motion Pictures and Television Programme Producers, Film Producers Guild of India and the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association had jointly and separately entered into an agreement with the Film Distributors Council to sell the satellite rights of a film five years after its commercial release, informed Bijoy Khemka, president of the Council.

"We understand that now the times have changed with shrinking theatrical windows and multiplexes progressively reducing the time span of films and, therefore, the five-year time period might not be applicable to contemporary times," Khemka added.

A case was filed in the Delhi High Court, which according to the Guild secretary Supran Sen, was about the producers honouring the prior agreement entered into with the distributor and vice versa, and also a letter withdrawing the initial agreement by the Film Makers Combine was presented.

However, the Distributors Council president pointed out that a time period of three months after the commercial release to sell the satellite rights, which the Guild had been advocating, is totally unjustified and would eat into the business of film distribution.

The Council had also started to penalise the producers who went against the initial agreement which the Guild maintains is no longer applicable as the Guild was no longer under the FMC jurisdiction and the FMC had withdrawn from the agreement formally, Sen said.

The distribution business is usually conducted through advanced commission or minimum guarantee depending on the commercial potential of the film with the successful ones opting for the minimum guarantee while due to the shrinking lifecycle of celluloid works, the advanced commission is preferable wherein money is advanced by the distributors for a particular territory, the time period for both begin around 10 years.

The distributors feel that if the timeframe were to be reduced to three months or lower, the distributors should be reimbursed accordingly by taking a share of revenue from the satellite rights sold by 50 per cent or take a percentage of the commission.

Satellite channels like Star Gold, which recently bought the rights for the film Shikhar, also organised selective premiere screenings besides showing footage lasting anywhere from 10-20 minutes as part of the making of the film series.

The channel stated that the rights do not involve the screening of the film currently but are mostly based on marketing activities and selective screenings, which though are over and above what distributors do add to the film's exposure, said Ajay Vidyasagar, executive vice-president, marketing and communication, Star India.

The distributor camp opined that it is an age of shrinking theatrical windows and film lifespan involving such activities could result in an overkill and a duplication of efforts with an additional hazard of being screened within three-six months or latest one year.