Entertainment convention to focus on piracy, law, tax
New Delhi : The 2007 edition of FICCI-FRAMES, a global convention on the entertainment industry to be held in Mumbai this month, will focus on legal status of the business and ways to deal with the menace of piracy.
The three-day meet beginning March 26 will see the release of FICCI-Amarchand Mangaldas Entertainment Law Book, proposing a legal framework for the industry. A draft framework of Optical Disk Law, essentially to counter piracy, will also be released.
"We are focusing completely and thoroughly on piracy. We have found that there are specific companies that specialise in piracy. We have identified 15 such companies," Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) secretary general Amit Mitra told a press conference here Monday.
"We have a brand protection committee of FICCI, which does raids. In one particular raid we found a Chinese machine, which reproduces holograms of every kind, and that machine was worth a crore-and-a-half (Rs.15 million). So, it is not the industry, which is involved in piracy but there is piracy industry," he added.
"We are presenting Optical Disk Law at the FRAMES event which is an indication of the anti-piracy movement. There is a separate session in FRAMES called 'Defending Your Intellectual Property'."
The need for uniformity of entertainment tax will also come up for discussion at the meet.
"We will talk about rationalisation of entertainment tax. In some states the entertainment tax is zero which puts pressure on other states. We are putting pressures on all the states through our own networks to rationalise entertainment tax," said Mitra.
Italy is the partner country for FICCI-FRAMES 2007 and Paolo Gentiloni Silveri, minister of communications, Italy, will attend it along with an 80-member delegation. Italian actors Giancarlo Giannini and Anna Galiena will also grace the event.
A special feature of the convention this year is the X Media Lab, which will bring leading digital media practitioners and innovators from around the world in a unique creative environment that mentors companies to improve their own creative digital media ideas, get their products to market and achieve commercial success.
Also, Kamal Hassan and Rekha will be honoured with FICCI's Living Legend in Entertainment Awards for excellence in cinema.
Sony Entertainment Television will be the convention partner, while other sponsors of the event include IBM, STAR, ZEE, Moserbaer, Yahoo, Adlabs, INOX and Radio Mirchi.
