Ritesh Khosla at Multi Screen Media discusses the menace of piracy and his company’s battles to contain it. Interview by Vandana Chatlani
It is the media’s untamed beast. Piracy, with tentacles in every word, sound, image and scene we consume obsessively and compulsively. We are surrounded by it. It is the CDs and DVDs with illegal copies of our favourite songs, films and television dramas; the direct-to-home cable television boxes smuggled into our countries; the links, websites and torrents online that lure us in with the promise of entertainment anytime and anywhere at the click of a button.
“Piracy cannot be eliminated,” says Ritesh Khosla, the senior vice president of legal at Multi Screen Media (MSM), an Indian subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which owns and operates the Sony Entertainment network of television channels. “You have to fight it on a daily basis. It’s like the weed that grows alongside your rich cash crop. If you don’t remove it, it will affect the crop.”
Along with his team of four lawyers, Khosla handles legal matters relating to the English bouquet of channels at MSM, its sports business, the distribution of MSM channels within India and across more than 100 countries, trademarks and anti-piracy. In September, MSM signed a deal with the BBC to launch “Sony BBC Earth”, a factual television channel for Indian audiences. In October, it agreed to partner with ESPN to launch new co-branded sports channels and create a multisport website and app.
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