SiTV secures a copyright coup

Shanghai Interactive Television Co, one of China's largest digital-TV content providers, has entered agreements with copyright holders of more than 1,000 movies.

The aim is to distribute their movies on air to draw audiences to the networks and away from pirated DVD and Internet downloads.

Among the copyright holders are major United States studios like Time Warner and Disney, to which SiTV has paid tens of millions of yuan in loyalty fees to gain the airing rights on a multi-year basis, SiTV officials said yesterday.

"It's a win-win situation for both parties," said Gao Yue, president of SiTV, which covers 10 million of China's 25 million digital TV users.

"Our audience can get access to the best movies, while the studios get a chance to promote their releases."

Many of the movies will be in high-definition format, including latest releases.

They will be aired on SiTV's paid movie & TV series channel from February 6, and will also be available for on-demand playing.

Some new releases will be available for VOD (video on demand) services at the same time as their DVD distribution.

There's no revenue-sharing program for the on-demand playing, as the payment for the copyright is already cleared, said Gao.

A new study by the Motion Picture Association estimated that its members lost US$6.1 billion to piracy, if the Internet is taken into account.