People: Green flag for Jolly Roger 

Pirated productions are costing Bollywood more than Hollywood and could provide glittering possibilities for film industry software specialist Zoo Digital, suggests the company’s chief executive officer, Stuart Green.

The Sheffield-based company supplies film studios and others with software and other services to help find fresh commercialisation outlets for their production and made a healthy $647,000 half-year operating profit before its switch to dollar accounting turned that into a $233,000 loss.

Green, at 43 the previous founder of Kazoo3D and Lightwork Design, says AIM-quoted Zoo’s software, which helps studios automate and accelerate commercialisation, has hitherto made few inroads into India’s massive film industry because Asian labour costs have been low enough to make Zoo’s savings insignificant. Now, however, the piracy issue could be refocusing the Mumbai moguls’ attention on Zoo’s patented technology, which Green says can cut the time it takes to bring studios’ products from one outlet, say cinemas, to another, say home entertainment – which is when pirates have their chance – by 90 per cent.