Content Security | Page 3

flannel_flannel 03/10/2014 03:04 Page 1 EUROMEDIA ContentSecurity PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Nick Snow [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Colin Mann [email protected] CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Chris Forrester [email protected] PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Nik Roseveare [email protected] ART EDITOR Steve Overbury [email protected] COLUMNISTS Vivek Couto Larry Gerbrandt Steve Gold CONTRIBUTORS Robert Briel - Amsterdam Dieter Brockmeyer - Frankfurt Gail Chiasson - Toronto David del Valle - Madrid Chris Dziadul Pascale Paoli-Lebailly - Paris Philip Hunter Joe O’Halloran Farah Jifri Branislav Pekic - Rome SALES DIRECTOR Sanjeev Bhavnani [email protected] PUBLISHED BY Advanced Television Limited Bondway Commercial Centre 4th Floor, Unit 4.01 71 Bondway London SW8 1SQ Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] www.advanced-television.com PRINTED BY Headley Brothers Ltd The Invicta Press Queens Road Ashford Kent TN24 8HH, UK Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] [email protected] © Advanced Television Limited 2014. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. ISSN 1477-8092 ne of the most disappointing and frustrating aspects of my work at the moment is related to solving issues related to Online Piracy. The newest and most pervasive of this is live streaming of illegal content coming into Hong Kong homes from overseas websites. Viewership of this unauthorised content is exploding across the Internet with use made so much easier recently by the availability of small, inexpensive 'black box' set top boxes that connect to the TV and the Internet with simple navigation via a TV remote control. Customs and Excise authorities cannot intercept these boxes upon import as they are just 'dumb PCs' with none of the offending software until installed and powered up, when they automatically go on line and download what they need. This problem transcends borders taking it out of the jurisdiction of local markets making existing local laws largely irrelevant. It is an international problem. We have seen this growing problem for years and have tried to work with stakeholders to reduce or eliminate these pirate sites where possible. However, most content providers at worst keep their heads in the sand and refuse to recognise the piracy issue. At best they pay lip service, but spend little on resources to tackle the problem. Law enforcement agencies also can do little as extra-territorial content piracy falls outside of “The the scope of current copyright regulators legislation. and The regulators and lawmakers lawmakers appear to be the appear to be biggest laggards in doing anything and seem to be the biggest ignorant of the damage that laggards” is being done to the creative industries. The copyright ordinance in Hong Kong has only just undergone a review for the first time in over 12 years. Currently, it barely contemplates the Internet and even has an exclusion for it. What makes it even worse is that streamed video is not covered because there is no “substantial copy” of the content to be found. There have been many previous arguments about reducing piracy through better education of the viewers or shortening the viewing window gaps between US release and local market release, but none of these arguments work for me. Unauthorised sessions of LIVE English Premier League soccer are streamed into Hong Kong from overseas sites. We monitor the ambient levels of the Internet traffic and watch them explode by some 30-40,000 views, just in Hong Kong, as a match starts, depriving our pay-TV business of the revenues to fund the outlays for the content, which in turn cascades up the value chain to those creating the entertainment the viewers crave. Timing is therefore not the issue and regardless of cost, if someone can get it for free and not get caught, they will get it. Lawmakers need to create a new legal framework that enables the authorities to police the digital borders as they do the physical borders. There is little difference now between the digital and the physical world in terms of tools to detect and block. Content Providers, Pay-TV Operators and regulatory authorities have to work together to solve this problem, and that can't happen too soon. Imagine the end game in a few years time when no-one will finance a multimillion dollar movie production, knowing that it will be available on-line, for free, for all, anywhere in the world, in less than a day of launch. We all must act and act now. O Paul Berriman, group chief technology officer, PCCW ContentSecurity 3