28 July, 2017

Welcome to News Views, CASBAA’s news round-up culled from sources across the industry for the week ending July 28th. Curated by CASBAA, News Views keeps you in the loop. We always value your feedback, so tell us what you think!

Christopher Slaughter CEO We talked last week about the Game of Thrones juggernaut; turns out the buzz around Season 7 has resulted in a quadrupling of downloads and tripling of in-app revenues for HBO Now in the US. But no good deed goes unpunished; anti-piracy research company Muso says the GoT premiere was viewed illegally more than 90 million times worldwide. Here in the region, hats off to Hotstar for turning piracy into promotion; their “Torrents Morghulis” (loosely translated from the High Valyrian as “All Torrents Must Die”) campaign might not have stopped the pirates dead, but it highlighted the fact that there are legitimate means of accessing the show online. Oh, and apropos of exactly nothing, it turns out Hot Pie is actually a baker in real life.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

The consumer risks of piracy were in focus this week. A gaggle of U.S. state attorneys general warned of malware on piracy sites, in a series of public service ads. Torrentfreak speculated on how a malicious actor might use Kodi add-ons to infect millions of ISDs. CASBAA’s warning about the same thing got picked up by the Malaysian press. In London, police seized a bunch of ISDs and warned they could have electrical flaws that might lead to home fires. And on the other side, Torrentfreak warned pirates that – at least in theory – they also face the risk of……getting caught.  

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

UK enforcement report: Site blocking against “Kodi” ISD networks will continue through the next soccer year. The Premier League won a High Court order allowing the experimental Kodi box blocks to continue (after the season resumes) through 2018. This involves a highly innovative process of cooperation between ISPs and rights owners which permits roving site blocks – when a new IP address with game transmissions pops up, it gets blocked. The PL has been very happy with the results – and millions of lads who want their pirate footy are depressed. Meanwhile, copyright federation FACT was busy: criticizing a magazine for brazenly promoting illegal Kodi uses which even the Kodi developers have denounced, and then working with Derbyshire police to close down an ISD network known as BulkyTV. (The promoter was arrested, and lamented that he was facing “time inside.”

Kevin Jennings Vice President

Embattled al Jazeera faced more censure this week after drawing the wrath of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netenyahu has accused the Qatar-based television news network of inciting recent violence in the city of Jerusalem and Temple Mount. The Prime Minister said he had spoken to law-enforcement authorities demanding the closure of al-Jazeera’s offices and if the closure wasn’t forthcoming he would introduce corresponding legislation to expel al-Jazeera from the country: a move that would also align Israel with the group of Arab states cracking down on Qatar.

Cathryn Chase Regulatory Assistant

Regulatory uncertainty looms in Thailand. The 6-year term of the 11 incumbent NBTC commissioners will come to an end on October 6th, upon which they will lose most of their authority to regulate broadcasting and telecommunications in Thailand. Under a new NBTC law, the government must select a new set of commissioners to replace the outgoing ones – a process that would likely take months. What has Thai broadcasters worried is that the government has yet to initiate the selection process. Without a new set of commissioners in place, there would be no regulators able to make or enforce decisions about important regulatory issues come October 6th. This has led some broadcasters to come forward and urge Prime Minister Gen. Prayut to use his ruling powers to appoint a new board of commissioners, or at least to allow the current regulators to retain their decision-making authority until their replacements have been identified. In all cases, the clock continues to tick.

John Medeiros Chief Policy Officer

Apart from the uncertainty over the regulators, there’s also a lot of uncertainty over the future of Thailand’s two dozen digital terrestrial TV operators. Competition is intense, and pundits are saying only 10 will survive. (Also buried in that article is an interesting gem:  According to Nielsen, Turner’s joint-venture Boomerang channel – carried on satellite, not DTT – is one of the top 10 digital channels in Thailand!)

Cathryn Chase Regulatory Assistant

In an effort to ramp up its anti-piracy initiative, Facebook recently purchased Source3, a startup focused on IP protection and management services. The acquisition has been viewed by many as part of Facebook’s effort to promote itself as a video sharing platform. For Facebook, this has typically been a hard sell to content producers — sites that deal with a lot of user-generated content, such as Facebook, are often prone to rampant copyright infringement. Without effective anti-piracy measures in place, content producers have less incentive to share their products on Facebook’s platform. So, how will Source3 help Facebook change this? Essentially, the startup has developed technology that can recognize branded IP in user-created content and online market places, which then allows content owners to either take action against infringers of their copyright, or simply monitor their online presence. This new technology will build on Facebook’s existing Rights Manager software, which it introduced last year. While Facebook’s problem with piracy is far from being resolved, this deal is certainly a step in the right direction.

Kevin Jennings Vice President

In a week where South Korea announced the successful deployment of its latest  broadcast & telecommunications satellite, plans have been revealed to launch a self-developed multifunctional satellite in 2021. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) will develop the rocket and Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) will develop the satellite, according to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning. The KAI’s CEO was quoted as saying “Our satellite technology has advanced to the level where we can stand shoulder to shoulder with major satellite-developing countries”.