Hungama, Friend Media join forces to fight against piracy

Hungama.com has joined hands with the UK-based Friend Media Technology Systems (FMTS) to provide solutions to curb piracy.

Hungama will provide the offering to the media players under its digital services segment, while simultaneously availing Friend's services to curb piracy on its site.

The Indian entertainment and media industry, which is currently estimated at Rs 43,700 crore, is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18 per cent over the next five years.

However, segments such as music and video are fighting a tough battle against piracy, which is increasingly affecting their bottom lines. While the number of raids and seizures have been steadily rising over the past few years, piracy continues to be rampant.

Friend Media provides companies with a unique data analysis algorithm solution that monitors a vast array of sources on the internet "" from peer-to-peer networks to discussion forums and newsgroups. The solution works at three levels.

Firstly, FMTS provides monitoring services and identifies the seeding point (starting point). Secondly, it removes content from the site and sends infringement notices to the people concerned and lastly uses the data in a positive way to understand how specific content is accepted.

"We are not providing a counter measure service for piracy. What we are making available is a targeted service, especially for those seeding the content," said Jonathan Friend, director, engineering, FMTS.

The company claims to monitor and identify the content source, people who are responsible for the content and those who download the same. It monitors blog sites, chat rooms and popular sites.

According to Neeraj Roy, CEO, Hungama.com, the Indian industry, especially players such as themselves with a large repository of original content and exclusive tie-ups for content sharing in the web world, is ready for such a mechanism. Roy stated that 50 per cent of the market should be using this service within a year.

The services will be targeted at studios and broadcasters. Roy feels the India broadcasting community will be a big segment for these services. With new channels targeting all possible platforms, tracking the content's path and users will be crucial.

Hungama will provide the services in phases. "The first phase will cover the music and video segment," said Roy. There are also plans to take the services to the mobile platform.

"This will only cover the online segment initially. The mobile segment, however, is not far off. Nearly 45 million people are using the internet on mobiles. As we move ahead, we will also target other platforms," added Roy.