Cloud-based marketplace DFCN launches

The platform emerges from two years of development and is a free-to-access rights trading platform whose backers promise to disrupt the way rights are bought and sold.

Sellers pay a 6% transaction fee on receipt of payment from the buyer for the rights they license.

“The motion picture industry’s adoption of open standards-based, government-grade, secure technologies for digital film packaging, rights licensing and distribution coupled with the growing cultural acceptance of online marketplaces introduces the disruptive forces necessary to greatly improve and streamline how film rights licenses are transacted,” said Bell (pictured, at left), who has previously served at Oracle and Cisco.

“The industry is ready for this advance in technology to make their lives easier and we are excited to be launching this brand new company at AFM.”

DFCN’s programme is centred on a secure online document known as The Film Book, where participants list all assets available for a film.

Details will include synopsis, talent information, images, trailers, screenplay, distribution agreements and secure screening of completed films.

Since its soft beta launch at Cannes, Bell said DFCN has amassed more than 6,000 non-exclusive features on its database.

Bell, COO Alfredo Guilbert (pictured, at right) and CMO Mike Warsinske have assembled a management team including media and entertainment executive Hal Sadoff, veteran producer Hawk Koch and Cinemark Holdings director and Century Theatres CEO Ray Syufy.

“DFCN has real potential to be a truly disruptive force within the film industry,” said Sadoff. “Essentially sales agents and distributors can make licensing rights available in a non-exclusive way, enabling ancillary revenues to be tapped in a highly cost effective and efficient manner.”