Mumbai: It is the responsibility of everyone in the media and entertainment (M&E) industry to ensure self-classification of content happens in the “right spirit” under the Digital Media Ethics Code, said the ministry of information and broadcasting joint secretary Vikram Sahay on Tuesday.

Sahay was addressing the Pixels digital entertainment conference organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

“Consumers are curious whether the self-classification rule will be able to maintain the level of seriousness and discipline in content creation,” said Sahay. “We are of the view that the content creators and producers are mature enough and have accepted it in the right spirit. There should not be any cause of grievances on account of the fact that it is self-classification rather than pre-certification.”

“We are in consultation with IAMAI for quite long, essentially in the area of content regulation and IAMAI has played a very important role in putting all the OTT players together and trying to develop a commonality of ideas and interests and that has helped us in trying to come out with Digital Media Ethics Code which was notified in February this year,” he further added.

The Digital Media Ethics Code was notified in the month of February this year. The rules prescribed a framework to empower consumers to make informed viewing choices and also put in place a tiered grievance redressal mechanism.

Sahay observed that the digital entertainment sector has witnessed phenomenal growth and has been a source of direct and indirect employment.

The virtual conference Pixels deliberates upon the business and technology side of the digital entertainment sector with respect to OTT platforms, production houses, and content distributors.