Anti film-piracy fight gets leg-up thanks to EggUp

25 May 2011

HONOLULU, HAWAII, US/STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN: EggUp.com, a local tech company, submitted their anti film-piracy platform to win the prestigious award in the category of Sustainable Initiative on Intellectual Property Protection in the Living Labs Global Awards. Film piracy is a worldwide problem and a focus of the awards.

The Living Labs Global Awards ceremony, held on 12 May 2011 in Stockholm Sweden, presented awards for eight categories that were in partnership with cities that seek to identify the best solutions to meet their strategic challenges. Over 245 submissions were submitted from companies in 127 cities in 30 countries, and 40 of those submissions - including EggUp's, were shortlisted as category finalists.

'Nollywood' under threat

The growing threat that film piracy poses for Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria, has led to a search for solutions to fight film piracy. The number of productions from Nigeria has led to that country being nicknamed "Nollywood"; and the industry is the second largest film industry in the world next to India. Forbes.com stated "Nollywood will be the next big thing in world cinema". It is now a US$800 million industry (about R5.6 billion), and growing.

Jon Yamashita and Chris Lucero from EggUp.com attended the award ceremony in Stockholm:

"Fo' sho', we are honoured and no doubt looking forward to collaborating directly with the city of Lagos," said Yamashita. Lucero was equally enthusiastic: "Yeah, it's amazing to receive this international recognition. It's not just about preventing piracy, it's about sustaining a country's local economy by pushing entrepreneurship to reach a global market".

Eggup.com is a DIY distribution platform to sell films securely and is claimed to be on the tip of being the next big thing to becoming industry standards in several countries in the tech and film world.