Licensing video for online streaming

I've been in the music and entertainment industry for the past 10 years, worked through physical, digital, and all sorts of entertainment forms, and in which I still am by the way. The hardest thing in this universe is to finalize an agreement related to any digital content. I'm going to give you 2 scenarios:

1. Western websites, such as Hulu, iTunes, and Netflix, in the MENA region: International content owners are always reluctant to give worldwide rights for their content. As a consumer as well, I really feel discriminated against when I see myself not being able to download a song from iTunes just because I live in the UAE. I mean if I'm a paying customer, why keep the content away from me? From the stores point of view, they always want to do this the right way, if iTunes wanted to come to the Middle East, they would want to have a local office, or a local licensee at least, an entity who can fully represent them and handle local operations. Note that the MENA share from international sales does not exceed 2% from their total revenue.

2. Arabic content, or local websites: Local content is a bit tricky, if we want to talk about TV series for example, TV stations are rarely the producers. What happens is that company "A" produces the TV series, and then sells it to an interested TV station. In some cases, digital rights owners are totally different than producers, or the TV station, so that's another hurdle. Right holders can be production houses, TV stations, or sometimes a format owner from abroad. If you want to talk about music, that's even more complicated. Most of the deals usually take a year to be done.

The main issue is how would such a website make money. Ad revenue in this region hasn't matured yet, and on the other hand, piracy is rampant.

If you want further details on this, I'd be more than happy to help.

Hi there,

I've been thoroughly working on the issue myself for the past year. The thing in the MENA region is that it's a case by case scenario, where you have to dig for information and chase the content owners one by one. Europe and the US actually gather all their content under distribution companies, which makes it extremely to purchase licensing in standard form. In the MENA region, the near absence of such companies make it harder to track down titles, but once you do, the margin of negotiation is much larger and flexible, for online distribution is still unchartered territory.

I'd be glad to discuss this with you further and share some details. Feel free to get in touch. ksafiedine@gmail.com

Take Care,

Karim