Filmbankmedia picks Fincons AllRights for rights overhaul

Filmbankmedia has selected Fincons Group's AllRights as its new rights management platform, as part of a multi-year digital transformation programme.

Filmbankmedia, a joint venture between Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony Pictures and NT Digital, specialises in non-theatrical film and television licensing and distribution. The move comes as it manages studio content under licensing agreements that vary by title, customer type and territory.

As its distribution expands across more platforms and markets, the business needs to track, govern and enforce rights terms with greater accuracy. Once implemented, AllRights is expected to serve as a single source of rights information across those processes, with the aim of simplifying operations and improving copyright governance.

The decision extends an existing relationship between the two companies. Fincons has already supported earlier stages of Filmbankmedia's digital overhaul, which began with work on a next-generation OTT platform designed to provision content catalogues to different clients under a B2B2C model.

The programme later expanded to include a digital storefront that adjusts content visibility by geography, a catalogue management system for media assets and a middleware layer linking the catalogue to core business systems, including enterprise resource planning software and rights management tools.

Rights complexity

Rights administration has become more demanding for distributors as film and television libraries move across a wider mix of territories, languages and release models. For Filmbankmedia, that complexity is tied to its role supplying content to a broad range of non-theatrical customers, including outdoor cinemas, film clubs, community cinemas, transport operators, healthcare providers, maritime users, education and hotels.

Its choice of platform was shaped by the need for a system that could work with its existing technology environment while supporting continued expansion. Andrea Cavalieri outlined that rationale in comments accompanying the announcement.

"Rights management has become significantly more complex, with more territories, languages, platforms and business models to manage," said Andrea Cavalieri, Chief Technology Officer at Filmbankmedia. "We needed a flexible and configurable solution that could integrate with our existing systems, strengthen rights governance and support our future growth. AllRights met those requirements, and our long-standing relationship with Fincons gives us confidence that they understand both our business and our technology environment."

For Fincons, the deal adds to its presence in media technology services and software. AllRights is already used by international media and entertainment companies and is designed to cover rights-in and rights-out processes, including negotiation, contract workflow, catalogue management, elemental rights and availability analysis.

Fincons employs 2,800 staff and has offices in Italy, Switzerland, the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, the United States and India. Its media work spans the content chain from rights management and programming to metadata, asset management, advertising, OTT and artificial intelligence-based tools.

Long partnership

The latest agreement also reflects the operational advantages of continuity in large transformation projects, where suppliers that have already built core systems may find it easier to connect new tools into existing workflows. In this case, Fincons is not only providing the rights platform but also handling implementation, configuration and integration.

That existing knowledge of Filmbankmedia's systems helped underpin the extension of the partnership. Francesco Moretti said the selection endorsed the software group's approach to rights management.

"We are proud that Filmbankmedia has chosen Fincons to support this next step in its digital evolution," said Francesco Moretti, Group Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Executive Officer International at Fincons Group. "Over the years, we have invested significantly in developing proprietary solutions, with the aim of supporting our clients on their growth and transformation journeys. AllRights is one of the most important assets of this strategy and has been designed to adapt easily to the needs of media companies with different business models. Filmbankmedia's choice confirms the value of our modern approach to rights management."