cover story_cover story 25/02/2016 18:37 Page 3
“The FIFA World Cup
2022 in Qatar and will
further boost UHD sales,
and will be broadcast in
UHD.”
- Ali Al Kuwari,
ES’HailSat
Barnett claimed that (as at October 2015)
there remained 64 channels which infringe
the Coalition’s rules, and this despite some
47 channels which were closed down
following anti-piracy action. His main
grumble is with a batch of so-called ‘virtual’
satellite operators, which lease capacity from
legitimate operators.
PIRACY. Fellow-panellist Dr Riyadh Najm,
until recently head of Saudi Arabia’s state
media authority (and a former President of
the Arab States Broadcasting Union), is
forthright, saying piracy in the region was,
in his view, the main reason why creativity
has been stymied. “It means cash that could
be going into original productions is not
available.”
Michel Azibert, Eutelsat’s deputy-CEO,
explained its position. “There is a group of
broadcasters and content owners, the AntiPiracy Coalition, and Eutelsat is a member
as are our service providers. The Coalition is
18 EUROMEDIA
rightfully nervous about the piracy that
exists in the MENA region. It should be
stopped, but there is some controversy as to
who might actually own the rights, and the
progress,” added Azibert.
“There is another problem in that many,
many of these channels are broadcasting
without a license from a recognised body.
infringements which have been identified.
Many of these infringements are coming
from a few of the channels on air, and it
seems to us that it is the same six or seven
channels which are the worst.”
One of the problems for established
operators is that switching off an infringing
channel without some sort of official order is
dangerous. Channels which are contained
within a multiplex are also
difficult to ban. “At IBC,
we had a special Coalition
session, where our legal
counsel was present, and
it was agreed that Eutelsat
would set up a process
where we received official
notice of an infringement.
We would then notify the
service provider that they
should stop transmitting.
One of the challenges is that we must not
create collateral damage by switching off
channels [from within a multiplex] which
are not involved in the piracy disputes,”
stated Azibert. “It is not in our interest to
carry pirated content. To start with it’s
illegal, and we cannot accept to carry illegal
material and this is not something that we
will do at 7 degrees West.”
CONSENSUS. “We are progressively
moving towards a consensus where there is
agreement. We can assure everyone that we
do not have any economic interest in
broadcasting pirated content, or the
channels that carry such content. Frankly,
we are optimistic that we are making
They are not uplinking from France but even
if they were there is no licensing of channels
in France which is an open market. We
cannot therefore police the situation. It is
the same in many other MENA countries,”
said Azibert.
OSN, not unsurprisingly, said: “TV piracy
is a serious issue that impacts all
stakeholders and causes heavy losses to the
industry and the economy.
OSN has been spearheading
anti-piracy efforts with the
support of all key industry
stakeholders. The
committed efforts of the
Anti-Piracy Coalition have
helped us in achieving
significant results with both
the cessation of illegal TV
services and raids
conducted in several
locations to stem the sales of illegal
platforms. We will continue to step up our
efforts against TV piracy.”
COPYRIGHT. Omar Shoter, CEO at
Noorsat, and remembered by many for his
time \