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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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| Among other issues, at this year’s CASBAA Convention, Nov.6-8th. We’ll be talking about the problem of malware embedded in piracy sites. In the last week, a new angle has gotten attention: it seems that piracy websites, including the notorious Pirate Bay, are embedding javascript programs called “miners” in their pages, which hijack the user’s computing power to make it part of a botnet mining for cryptocurrency. (The user isn’t told, and any currency that is actually “unearthed” is kept by the pirate site.) Cloudflare booted at least one pirate site off its network, stating that it regards miners as malware, plain and simple. Such criticism doesn’t erase the greed of the Pirate Bay boys, though; they’re still doing it. (C’mon Cloudfare – boot PB too!) |
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Clare Bloomfield
Director, Policy & Research
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| The growing focus of the industry on Infringing Website Lists (IWL) in Asia gained another entry this week from Malaysia who followed the earlier examples in Vietnam and Hong Kong. Indonesia is also getting ready to publish their version, a sign of the growing concern by the industry that governments aren’t doing enough to tackle the increasing issue. |
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President
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| ….And talking of copyright infringement and all things bad, some of China’s broadcasters seem hell bent on blatantly plagiarising Korean programming and content. This is nothing new but it seemed the situation was getting better after crackdowns by authorities when the Seoul-Beijing relationship was good. But when it’s on bad terms (currently because of the THAAD anti-missile dispute), the problem relapses and regulators become helpless. This means that China’s content plagiarism is not a sheer matter of business, but a willful byproduct of political dynamics between the two countries. This week Korean officials cited 29 confirmed cases of plagiarism by Chinese broadcasters using data from the Korean Communications Commission. |
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Mark Lay
Vice President, Singapore
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| OTT, Internet TV, Streaming Video, call it what you like…here are some of the interesting stories for the week. Janice Lee of PCCW had a sit-down with ScreenDaily to talk about their Asian content-focused streaming strategy. Turner’s David Levy Talks New OTT Platform, Consumption Habits, Access…“the greatest time to be in the media business, but it’s also the scariest time to be in the media business”. No arguments here. The latest edition of the Ericsson ConsumerLab and Media study has identified two major tipping points for TV viewing in three years’ time with linear and VOD viewing almost equal, and half of all viewing being done on a mobile screen. Warner Bros., Universal, Sony Pictures, and Twentieth Century Fox have all signed on to Disney’s Movies Anywhere. It’s both a cloud-based digital locker and a one stop-shop app, connecting to iTunes, Amazon Video, Google Play, or Vudu accounts. Slick. And if you didn’t know it already, AI is changing how you watch TV. More OTT stories at CASBAA OTT Group NewsFeed. |
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Clare Bloomfield
Director, Policy & Research
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| The debate on how OTT vs Pay-TV should be regulated continues with much of the industry keen to get restrictions on Pay-TV lifted rather than OTT more heavily regulated. CASBAA is currently updating our regional comparison which will be published next year, so watch this space. |
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Kevin Jennings
Vice President
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| In Bangladesh the High Court is wading into the Pay-TV arena and has asked the government to explain why the courts should not take action to stop TV Commercials being shown for Bangladeshi viewers on foreign television channels. In the public interest litigation (PIL), court officials said that broadcasting advertisements for Bangladeshi viewers on foreign TV channels in the country is prohibited under the Cable TV Network Operation Act 2006. Officials also claimed that some unscrupulous local operators are airing commercials on foreign TV channels illegally which is hurting the domestic industry as well as denying the country of revenue. More to come on this as we wait for the government’s response. |
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John Medeiros
Chief Policy Officer
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| In the USA, TVB, CCTV and Dish TV won another case against an ISD reseller for the TVpad box. The guy (named Bhalla), in central Florida, lost a previous judgement in 2016 and tried to hide through bankruptcy. No way, said the court; you were willful and malicious and cannot use bankruptcy to hide. “Bhalla knew that the TVpads and the infringing apps would be used by customers to gain free access to CCTV and TVB’s channels and protected programs, the court said.” The dude now needs to pay US$4.4 million for copyright infringement! Unlike the TVPad masterminds in Shenzhen, this guy lives in the USA and may actually be forced to pay up. |
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Jane Buckthought
Advertising Consultant
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| Research from Childwise show a noticeable shift towards personal ownership of devices owned by young children. As ever-advanced devices come to market; when the time comes to upgrade, parents appear more willing to hand down older devices to their children, considering them a great way to keep small children entertained and provide a learning benefit. The findings also reflect the growing prevalence of on-demand services, with more than four out of five households now using services such as YouTube and Netflix to some extent. By age three to four, the majority of pre-schoolers are using video-on-demand services to access TV shows, with specialist YouTube channels for children now factoring in to the mix. |
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Cathryn Chase
Regulatory Assistant
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| Back in September, the Canadian Government approved a $400 million investment in Canadian content from Netflix. The announcement was met with criticism – many accused the American streaming giant for pursuing the deal as a result of valuable tax incentives, while others tied the transaction to the company’s recent hike in subscription fees. Netflix is now trying to set the record straight. According to the SVOD platform, no tax deals were part of the approval to launch their Canadian production unit. In fact, as a foreign company, Netflix is exempt from paying Canadian taxes. Compared to its Canadian competitors who face taxation and regulation, this gives Netflix a clear competitive advantage. But this issue is not unique to Canada — regulating OTT services, and bringing traditional broadcasting regulations up to date is something that countries around the world (including those in APAC) must grapple with as viewing habits continue to evolve. |
