Anti-piracy initiatives to be recognised at Music Awards

Mumbai, Oct 30 (IANS) A unique Best Anti-Piracy Initiative award will be given at the Chevrolet Global Indian Music Awards (GIMA) here to recognise those who have aided campaigns to curb piracy which plagues the film industry.

'Our industry is struck by piracy and initiatives to combat the menace need to be taken and hence recognised. There are opportunities to recognise this and the people who are aiding the campaigns both on the physical (CDs) and digital space (creating software programmes, running online crusades),' Indian Music Industry president Vijay Lazarus said.

'I applaud GIMA for taking a step in that direction. We hope to reach out to government bodies and influencers in our country, allowing us to work together to further curb piracy,' he said.

The awards will be presented Nov 10.

The advisory board comprising Vijay Lazarus, Bhushan Kumar, L. Subramanium, Shankar Mahadevan, Hariharan, Prasoon Joshi, Karan Johar, Mukesh Bhatt, Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra, Leslie Lewis, Usha Uthup, Resul Pookutty, Sulaiman Merchant, and Apurv Nagpal, among others, will review the entries and select the most impactful initiative.

GIMA received an outpouring of entries with a record 223 albums, comprising a total of 940 entries. Considered the highest number of entries for a music celebration, the film music album entries tallied 42 and non-film music entries totalled over 180 albums.