Do you know about India’s first NFT film market?

Annually, India produces more than 2,000 films, and the market for film rights is incredibly disorganized. Despite the huge number of movies on the market, not many people want to buy them. India’s first NFT film marketplace, Producer Bazaar, aims to bridge this gap, along with increasing industry knowledge and providing a safe place to buy and sell content.

“Currently, there is no central agency that keeps track of film rights. Outdated paper contracts are the norm and creators are not well versed in the legal fine print, remain ill-informed about their rights and are ignorant of how the system works. Our platform aims to change the cinema industry from an unorganized to an organized sector and increase the level of transparency. We feel creators deserve to have a regular income and to be in control of the rights they want to license for a specific period of time,” GK Tirunavukarasu, Director & Co-Founder, ProducerBazaar .com, told us.

The idea for Producer Bazaar arose during the pandemic, when Tirunavukarasu and Senthilnayagam met during the challenging months of COVID-19 and decided to combine their skills to develop a new business model that would leverage blockchain technology and streamline the rather unstructured and outdated methods of Indian film industry. They created ProducerBazaar.com, as India’s first-of-its-kind marketplace for media and entertainment intellectual property rights for movies, web series and TV shows in multiple languages. Their goal is to establish a sustainable creative economy that leverages blockchain technology, facilitate seamless film commerce, and address the real challenges Indian filmmakers face in monetizing, protecting, and maximizing their intellectual property rights.

The company had received seed funding from the Indian government after being recognized by Startup India in March last year.

But how will they achieve the seemingly difficult goal of increasing transparency in the buying and selling of film rights business?

“The process is very clearly structured and we have a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for the producers. Once the content is copyrighted, and legally verified, it is transparently and credibly listed on our platform. Credibility is crucial for the buyer and once they are satisfied with the fine print, we discuss their needs and connect them to the content they want. The entire contract will then be converted using NFTs, to make tracking easy. We will also segregate all IPRs, including theatrical , audio and digital rights and facilitate access to them,” explains Tirunavukarasu.

Another goal that they want to achieve at the same time is to expand the market of regional language films to the subcontinent audience and Indian films to non-Indians worldwide. They plan to expand the regional cinema market worldwide through dubbing, subtitling and adequate promotions. They are also in discussions with manufacturers from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

The author can be reached at [email protected] and Instagram.com/kabirsinghbhandari