Over the Top Media and Regulations Aditya Baslas274, Priyanka Deb275, Nabeela Tareen276, Shilpi Ghosh277, Shweta Tated278
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Legal Desire International Journal on Law November 2020 / Part B ISSN: 2347-3525 Over the Top Media and Regulations Aditya Baslas274, Priyanka Deb275, Nabeela Tareen276, Shilpi Ghosh277, Shweta Tated278 DISCLAIMER: This research paper was written before the Indian Govt, move to regulate OTT Platform under Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt of India. Introduction The term ‘OTT’ generally stands for ‘Over the top services’. It refers to the content or service which is conveyed on an infrastructure of internet driven technology (mobile, tablets etc.). The striking feature of this service is that it is beyond the administrative control of the service provider which led it to free from restrictions. In other words, it refers to the delivery of films, TV series, short documentary and other content which is not done through the conventional cable operating service or satellite service but is provided through the internet. Initially the scope of OTT services was restricted to audios, text messaging and videos but with the advancement of technology, the scope has increased to include social media platforms and almost all kinds of services available on the internet. Certain examples of OTT that we use in our daily lives are Netflix, Amazon prime, Apple TV, whatsapp, Hike etc. Services which are directly provided by the service operators to their own subscribers do not amount to OTT. The OTT service has a vast scope. The term OTT came out as a result of more traditional telecom services coming under competition from content and service providers offering similar solutions using web services methods. Recently, over-the-top is wrongly used in the telecom world to describe any unmanaged service delivered over IP. If an operator offers an IP service (say IPTV), and that service is delivered over the operator’s infrastructure (whether mobile, fixed, or otherwise), it is not OTT. If that same operator, after building a content/service model, extends the service to any IP end point on another operator’s network, then it becomes OTT. Whether the operator decides to use Quality of Service (qos) for the service is irrelevant in the definition of OTT. In other words, an operator offering a service to its own subscribers is never OTT; rather if quality and bandwidth are enforced, it is a managed telecom service, and if not, it is an unmanaged telecom service. Only if it is extended beyond the boundaries of that telecom’s infrastructure is it ever correctly referred to as OTT. Traditional telecom services, specifically voice and SMS, have come under incredible pressure from OTT service providers that include voip, social networking, IPTV, and streaming audio. According to several projections, OTT messaging (by messages sent) is expected to surpass SMS messaging in 2013. As operators look to grow revenue in the face of declining voice and SMS, they are forced to turn to data service to supplement losses. As such, operators are investing considerable time and money investigating offering similar web services models for next generation voice and messaging. 274 L.L.B., Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar University, Agra 275 B.A.LL.B (Hons.), Assam University 276 B.A-L.L.B , Central University Of Kashmir 277 BA. LLB. (Hons.), Amity University Kolkata 278 L.L.B., DES.Shri Navalmal Firodia Law College,Pune 168 Legal Desire Media and Insights www.legaldesire.com Legal Desire International Journal on Law November 2020 / Part B ISSN: 2347-3525 According to Media Métrie, it was found that in 2017, 21% of web users subscribed to a SVOD platform and further it was found that 2.8 million households have all the necessary facilities to use OTT services. The statistics suggested that OTT services are one of the leading, fastest- growing markets in the world. Many reasons can be attributed to have caused the birth of OTT service. Desire for good original content from all over the world, easy availability for internet access with high speed lead to the popularity and birth of OTT, the easy use of such service anywhere regardless of the geography resulted in a paradigm shift from the traditional network which had a territorial boundary to a wireless network279. The scope of the OTT service has touched the whole world and India is no exception. With the right to the internet recognized by the Judiciary as a fundamental right in the case of faheemashirin R.K. vs State of Kerala and Others280. This approach has boosted the use of the internet in India. Further, the Free and cheaper schemes offered by the JIO network has resulted in a drastic increase of internet utility making India the 2nd biggest Internet user about 12% worldwide after China at 21%. The OTT trend is on the rise in India with popularity of national OTT service rather than of international OTT, with Hotstar as the most popular OTT service. Followed by Amazon Prime, Sony Liv and Netflix. It can be observed that there are many reasons why Indian OTT are doing better when it comes to the Indian markets. Some of the national OTT services offered content free of cost attracting more and more audience, Availability of affordable data and good content etc. In 2017, OTT revenue in India was generated around Rs. 2,019 crores and It is anticipated that by 2022 Rs. 5,955 crores will be generated as OTT revenue. With 500 million internet users and growing, India is a flourishing market in relation to entertainment and media. It is predicted that Indian OTT market will outdo the global OTT market and will acquire a spot for itself among the top 10 by 2022 of the world281. Historyand background In the 1980s, the public internet started and has been growing ever since. Internet has facilitated its consumer’s commercial needs such as retail and redefined conventional marketplace. Besides, it also serves personalized services such as cab bookings which is just a click away. This growth has brought about a fundamental shift in other spheres including telecom and television282. In 2007, the video industry officials stepped into the digital world. First, netflix introduced consumers with the concept of video delivery on the internet and ott was born. Since then the world has seen a significant growth and development in the ott platform. Many digital platform companies started launching their own ott platforms in the fear of being left behind. Now that it has been operating for more than a decade, entertainment has never been so plentiful and flexible. The best known forms of ott are skype, viber, whatsapp, snapchat, instagram, amazon flipkart, ola, hotstar etc. These applications can be accessed online independent of the time and place using variety of internet connection used in the user’s device. The carriage is separated from content in 279http://www.cognacqjayimage.com/en/history-challenges-ott/ 280FaheemaShirin R.K. vs State of Kerala and Others (WP (C) No. 19716 of 2019 (L) 281https://www.startupstories.in/stories/the-rise-of-ott-platforms-in-india 282https://trai.gov.in/consultation-paper-regulatory-framework-over-top-ott-communication-services 169 Legal Desire Media and Insights www.legaldesire.com Legal Desire International Journal on Law November 2020 / Part B ISSN: 2347-3525 internet, enabling the ott content and application service providers to directly deal with the end users. In 2008, reliance entertainment introduced the first ever ott media platform in india named as “bigflix”283. And 8 years later us owned netflix and amazon started operating in india as well. Many other traditional broadcasters also started their own ott services meanwhile. By 2020, the ot market is supposed to grow up to 218 million dollars in india. Shibasishsarkar, chief operating officer, reliance entertainment said, “indians are moving to digital entertainment in a big way with consumption growing on daily basis. Notably, bigflix will fill in the void created by the decline of the home video market by digitally delivering movies.” With 3.9 million registrations, bigflix is already amongst the leading svod (subscription video on demand) provider. It offers video content in categories such as feature films, short films, devotional, and movie trailers. Amitkhanduja, ceo, reliance entertainment-digital, said, “globally the demand for video content has risen steeply, and the digital platform is witnessing a wider audience everywhere, including india. Bigflix will provide high-quality video content from some of the biggest banners including dharma, disney, viacom, phantom, telegu one and rajshri, among others.” The over-the-top (ott) market284 has been expected to grow with a significant rate by 17.1% over the next decade, and to reach approximately usd 3.49 billion by 2025 . Likewise, according to the international telecommunication union (itu) telecommunication trends report, with machine-to-machine communication, cloud systems, and ott services, the mobile traffic is expected to grow by a factor of 18 between 2011 and 2015. In 2015, telecom regulatory authority of india285 (trai) released a consultation paper on the regulation of ott services. But until september 2019, no consensus on a regulatory framework had been reached. When working on the amendment of the cinematograph act of 1952 in 2019, recommendations were taken from the mukulmudgal committee and shyam bengal committee which was set up why the mib, to find ways to improve the existing regulatory framework for cinema and propose new standards for content regulation. The ott media helped us to grow with :286 Easy access through mobile computer tablets etc. Customised content based on geographical, topical and personalized demographic information. In a few ott platforms, users may opt for premium subscription plans and skip ads and enjoy a break free experience. One subscription can be streamed on multiple devices, thus making it cost effective.