Being a nascent industry, Indian animation companies were betting big on outsourcing of projects by global production houses due to cost arbitrage. Slowly moving up, companies have come up with films (2D, 3D) like Hanuman Returns, Roadside Romeo and Bal Ganesha that appealed only to the domestic audience. But creating intellectual property (IP) was not easy due to a lack of understanding the value of intellectual property rights. With the revival in the industry, animation companies are now making a beeline to create IP for the graphics of the animated characters and is felt as the need of the hour.
These companies have started focusing on building original IP to rake in new businesses such as merchandising. About 28 animation movies, based on local content are under production and these companies are in fact betting big on the total ownership of the content as it would help them to cash in on it through merchandising. As such, IP in the animation and gaming industry are legal rights over creations and these are protected by copyrights for making better margins. For instance, graphic representations of brand Mickey Mouse, Mr Donald Duck, Ben 10 or Mr Bean and many more have universal protection.
According to available statistics, there are copyrights to over 1,000 characters in India which include animated mythology characters such as Krishna, Chhota Bheem, Moghli, Lava Kusha, Bal Ganesh or Balram etc. So is the case with Tenali Raman or Harishchandra or Birbal tales. On an average globally, countries like Japan and China file more copyrights compared to the Indian creators. Despite having a cultural heritage, fund constraints continue to reflect on lesser IP creation among the domestic players.
No wonder, companies are rather bullish on the IPR cover. Though the industry is still nascent, the demand for animated characters is opening up from many cross-sectors. While IP can also increase the business revenues, it facilitates to work more on local animated content as well. A Nasscom-E&Y report says that there is a shift from mythological route to contemporary themes like Roadside Romeo, Toonpur ka Superhero and Sultan the warrior.
Nasscom has said that the global animation market was $68 billion in 2008 and may touch $100 billion by 2012. In India, it was $494 million in 2008 and is expected to touch $1 billion by 2012. Analysts feel that majority of the animated content in television is adapted to foreign animation leading to low uptake of domestic characters.
While IP can also increase the business revenues, it facilitates to work more on local animated content. Green Gold Animation, which provides animation content to kids channels with its animation series such as Krishna and Balaram, Chhota Bheem, is creating its own IP in the form of designing and giving life to its characters in its animation productions. Incidentally, while most of the animation companies focus on executing outsourced projects, Rajiv Chilaka, founder of Green Gold Animation, believes in designing, creating and owning a character that has significant potential. ?We want to create Indian animated characters for the global market. The company has created 801 characters in the last six years,?? he says.
DQ Entertainment CMD Tapaas Chakravarti informs that his firm has tied up with Disney, the owners of arguably some of the most prized intellectual property in the world. ?Disney has rights over its own Jungle Book movies, but we have separate characters and different scripts,? says Chakravarti. DQ has copyrights over 500 characters. ?There is an immediate need to have an IP fund for the industry as the cost of production is escalating coupled with different tax structures.?
While patents is a long-drawn process for animated characters, copyrights for a style of graphics is alone possible which is valid for 50 years. As Tapas points out, the industry has been demanding a film development fund, with a corpus of $100 million, which can handhold small and medium-sized companies for IP creation.
L Maruti Shankar, CMD, 7Seas Technologies informs that in recent times Indian animation companies and studios have been moving up the value chain to create their own intellectual property rights with Hanuman, Roadside Romeo, etc and partnering with international studios to produce animated properties for the global audience. ?IPR protection is an integral part of back-end support. Most of the bigger studios are now slowly moving towards creating original products and establishing their IPR. India has several advantages, not only over China but the rest of the world with its rich history and culture of storytelling along with high quality artistic capability,? says Shankar.
