CASBAA gave its latest views to the US Trade Representative, as USTR began its annual review of intellectual property policies and practices. Most of the situations in CASBAA’s Asian markets have not radically changed, though the rise of online piracy is a growing concern as the region’s broadband networks are built out. Read CASBAA’s submission here.
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CASBAA Puzzled Over Indonesian TV Regulations
In a letter to the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), CASBAA urged that the regulator return to its previous approach of having separate regulations for content on pay-TV, from those applied to FTA broadcast TV. Current regulations, while sometimes conflicting and confusing, clearly embody a number of different rules for pay-TV and FTA TV, and “treating the two as equivalent would be a major change.” Along the same lines, CASBAA also urged that country-specific content classification and labeling rules not be applied to international pay-TV channels, which cannot economically serve Indonesian (and other) consumers with regional feeds if local classification rules are too tight. “Excessive regulatory requirements will have the effect of increasing the price of pay-TV for Indonesian consumers,” said the Association.
CASBAA also protested that recent KPI exhortations to replace foreign ads in international advertising streams run counter to international practice (and indeed has not been implemented in any other country in the manner KPI seems to envision). Citing Thai practice up until 2008 as an example, CASBAA warned the regulators that “if a broadcaster receives less advertising income on its channels as a result of removal of Indonesia from its distribution base and rate card, it can only make up the shortfall by increasing the cost of its channels.” Again, over-regulation will only increase the costs to Indonesian consumers.
Download the English-language letter here.
Download the Bahasa Indonesia translation here.
Creating a Front Line to Fight Battle for Intellectual Property
British Member of Parliament Mike Weatherley looks back on his stint as an IP adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron and outlines his three-pronged strategy in winning the war against infringements Mike Weatherley says the turning point in his campaign against intellectual property rights infringement was the moment the British government decided to take him seriously about two years ago.
“In the past two years the British government has made very welcoming progress,” says Weatherley. “Overall I would give the government a ‘B’. Not quite ‘A’ yet but getting there.”
The Conservative Party backbench parliamentarian – he was elected to his seat of Hove and Portslade on the southern coast only in 2010 – had previously been a businessman in the manufacturing and entertainment industries, two sectors that rely on a robust IP rights regime.
David Cameron, who led the Conservative- dominated government elected in 2010, appointed Weatherley as IP adviser to the Prime Minister, a new position. “This was an important historic step, enabling progress in many specific areas.”
In true parliamentary tradition, Weatherley decided what was necessary was a report to give Cameron and his colleagues. The result was Search Engines, a private discussion paper released in May 2014. He stressed that search engines are not the cause of online piracy, but that data showed that they play an important role in inadvertently guiding consumers towards illegal content and are well placed to be part of the solution.
“My first report recommended that the Internet search engines sit down with government and industry to thrash out problems and solutions, and the first such meeting took place, showing that the government was taking the report seriously.”
Search Engines was the first of a trilogy of reports. Emboldened by support from Cameron and Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Weatherley published Follow the Money, which addresses the impact of illegal websites profiting from advertising, and Copyright Education and Awareness, which examines IP education and aims to help reinforce the importance of respecting IP and paying a fair price for content.
Weatherley says his business background explains his interest in IP. “As the owner of a company exporting customised products around the world, I built up a knowledge of patents and trade marks. And then I worked in the music and film industries around licensing and rights holders,” Weatherley says. “It became a logical step to use this expertise in Parliament.”
One of the shortcomings in the prosecution of IP infringement cases was the absence of a coordinated response by the authorities. Weatherley campaigned for the creation of the national Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), which was set up in September 2012.
“Setting up PIPCU signalled a change in tactics that infringers would be tracked down and prosecuted by a specialist team,” Weatherley says. “It has brought in other and more specialists as well. It basically just got more serious.”
The support of senior politicians also galvanised the bureaucracy. “The Intellectual Property Office has restructured to become much more focused on delivering a robust programme,” Weatherley says of Britain’s government body responsible for IP policy, educating businesses and consumers about IP rights and responsibilities and supporting IP enforcement as well as granting patents, trade marks and design rights throughout the U.K.
Weatherley says his reports were received by the IPO with some trepidation, as he urged that the IPO coordinate cross-sector IP working groups and awareness programmes reach out to the wider public and set out a strategic outreach plan by the first quarter of 2015, with a cross-industry working group convening quarterly to review its progress. “I think they were a little nervous to start with but now see that [the reports] are there to be constructive and support them.”
Weatherley recommends that every country develop a coordinated structure that defends IP rights and prosecutes infringements. “With a variety of agencies all with their own part to play – the IPO, PIPCU, National Crime Agency, the various trading standards organisations and legislators – the task seems almost too daunting,” he observes. The solution, he adds, is a “dedicated IP tsar” or coordinator. “Without one, coordination is almost impossible. I would recommend every nation appoint one as soon as possible.”
Once coordinated, IP protection can be a basically three-pronged approach, Weatherley recommends. “There is no one solution to piracy – it involves a combination of education, carrot and stick,” he says, “and then on top of that there are further disruption measures such as search engine support and follow-the-money initiatives.”
However, Weatherley acknowledges that education and awareness campaigns have had very limited impact. “The big challenge of the future is in how we deliver a meaningful message on respect for IP,” he says. “It’s a huge task with little immediate tangible gain.”
The carrots, he says, involve creative industries changing the way they make products available to ensure that consumers can easily access content legally. “Proponents of piracy say downloading content legally is too complicated,” says Weatherley. “Industry, therefore, needs to find innovative ways to ensure that content is easily available and in so doing make piracy a less attractive option.” New, workable solutions that Weatherley welcomes include the film industry’s multi-format licence option for home use. “Industry must step up and provide alternatives that are attractive to consumers – they can’t just keep insisting on getting the stick out,” he says. “We need to start embracing solutions like Spotify and Bloom.fm, both of which have a one-off licensing model, which is proving popular,” he says.
When the sticks are deployed, Weatherley says, they should be used proportionately. They can be directed partially at end-user infringers, but much of the heavy artillery should be aimed at upstream providers of infringing content. “Before any punitive action can be taken, we do need society to be on the side that piracy is wrong as a general concept,” he says. “Only then can we think about punishment for offenders.”
Weatherley stepped down as Cameron’s IP adviser in October 2014 and is not seeking reelection to parliament next year. However, he hopes he will continue the IP rights fight outside the House of Commons. “I remain available to advise and support in any capacity industry or government would like me to,” he says. “The difference will be that I will need to be asked formally to be involved in projects, rather than initiate debate as I do now.”
Indonesian Satellite List
Thursday, 11 December 2014
List of foreign satellites which can be used in Indonesia (meet the “Landing Rights” requirements)
Japan Business Groups Focus on TV Audience Measurement
CASBAA Chief Policy Officer John Medeiros presented a brief on problems with Japan’s pay-TV audience measurement system to a joint meeting of the Japan-US Business Council and the US-Japan Business Council in Tokyo on November 13.
He underlined that Japan is way behind other global and regional comparators in pay-TV audience measurement. Small panel size, infrequent measurement and late data delivery all inhibit players in the advertising market from making rational decisions.
The parties hurt by this are largely Japanese companies – both advertisers and Japanese pay-TV channels, he said, but foreign channels would also benefit if better data were to permit stronger growth in Japan’s pay-TV industry. Download a copy of Medeiros’ presentation here.
The full text of a CASBAA-sponsored report on the Japanese Television Audience Measurement (TAM) system is here:
CASBAA Urges Singapore to Avoid Risky “Bespoke” Regulatory Solutions
In a submission to Singapore’s Media Development Authority, CASBAA urged reliance on a combination of better information and self-regulation to meet consumer concerns about occasional removal of channels from pay-TV bouquets. MDA’s public consultation on this question included ideas for approaches that would “go farther in the direction of placing burdensome obligations on pay-TV providers than those in place in any other Asian or Australasian economy,” CASBAA said. This type of “bespoke” regulation to meet common problems carried large risks, CASBAA said, and should be avoided. CASBAA particularly objected to the concept of allowing consumers to terminate pay-TV contracts whenever there was a “material change” (not further specified) in content provided by pay-TV channels.
Discussion Papers by Mike Weatherley, MP
During the CASBAA Convention 2014, Mike Weatherley MP, Conservative MP for Hove and Portslade, UK Parliament and Former Intellectual Property Advisor to the Prime Minister was featured in an In Conversation session discussing copyright protection. As the Intellectual Property Adviser to the UK Prime Minister, Weatherley is charged with leading the British government’s efforts at fighting piracy and raising awareness of IPR. Formerly the Vice President (Europe) for the Motion Picture Licensing Company, Weatherley is bringing his media industry experience to bear on the piracy problem, raising awareness in innovative ways. To find out more about his viewpoints and recommendations, download a series of discussion papers drafted by Weatherly.
Read an article on Weatherley’s appearance “Creating a Front Line to Fight Battle for Intellectual Property”
Download ‘Follow The Money’: Financial Options To Assist In The Battle Against Online IP Piracy
Download Search engines and Piracy
Download Copyright Education and Awareness
Stark Messages for Hong Kong: You Are Losing Jobs to Piracy; Copyright Law Badly Needs Fixing
The local and international television industries united this week in delivering a stark message to Hong Kong’s Legislature: the rise of online piracy is already damaging jobs and investment in one of Asia’s leading media hubs, and urgent legal and enforcement action is needed to restore some level of balance in a Copyright environment that has badly deteriorated.
The messages came in a series of TV industry submissions to a legislative panel considering improvements to Hong Kong’s Copyright Ordinance. The law has never been updated to take account of legal and illegal digital distribution of copyrighted materials, including individual programs, linear channel streams, and entire packages of pay-TV programming. CASBAA, in its submission, noted “The 10 years of delay in formulating…these amendments mean that online piracy problems have grown and changed far beyond the expectations of those who began this process, including both government and industry.”
A series of submissions from international media groups using Hong Kong as their Asian headquarters, as well as Hong Kong’s major indigenous TV producer TVB and leading telecommunications network provider PCCW, offered similar messages. Here is a selection (in alphabetical order) of key quotes:
CNN“…legitimate content distributors face unfair competition from platforms and online services that provide and facilitate access to pirated content with little or no investment in content or infrastructure. Declining revenue puts increasing pressure on CNN International’s ability to cover and report big news stories in the way consumers demand.”
DISCOVERY NETWORKS ASIA-PACIFIC“The current Copyright Ordinance, last amended in July 2001, is outdated and does not provide an effective legal framework to tackle infringements in the changing new media landscape. At present, the balance is heavily tilted away from a comprehensive protection of copyrights.”
FOX INTERNATIONAL CHANNELS” We strongly urge the Legislative Council to initiate further reform of the Copyright Ordinance to protect legitimate rights holders and industry participants who invest significant amounts of money in the local film and television industry to produce and acquire content, providing employment to many people in Hong Kong, only to have such content stolen by unscrupulous illegitimate operators who do not contribute anything in return.”
HBO“…we are witnessing a decreased willingness of consumers to pay a fair price for programming….subscription revenue in the pay-TV industry is declining, and jobs are already being affected.”
PCCW/NOWTV“We urge the Government not to be sidetracked….With every day of delay, more jobs are at risk, investment goes elsewhere and Hong Kong’s standing as a media hub is diminished.”
Download PCCW Media Submission
TELEVISION BROADCASTS LTD (TVB)“TVB has been suffering huge losses due to the online piracy problem. We are cutting jobs to keep our business, especially our overseas pay-TV operations, going. There is really no time to lose in implementing solutions.”
TIME WARNER“While online piracy is undoubtedly a global challenge, as a result of Hong Kong’s inadequate copyright laws which have not kept up with the growth of both the digital content and digital transmission industries, the problem of online piracy is exacerbated in Hong Kong.”
Download Time Warner Submission
TURNER BROADCASTING“…it is notable that Hong Kong is increasingly falling behind nations that were formerly its peers in creating a positive environment for intellectual property. Other governments (such as in the UK, Korea, and Singapore) have sought, and implemented, creative approaches to deal with streaming piracy.”
TWENTY FIRST CENTURY FOX“…the ten-year delay in formulating amendments to Hong Kong’s copyright laws has been troubling both for us and the local Hong Kong creative community that we work with and support. It has allowed online piracy to metastasize to the point that it directly threatens creative content companies…”
And the television industry is not alone – other creative industries are also pleading for relief. The Hong Kong Copyright Alliance (an umbrella group of companies and associations in the film, music, television, publishing, software, and electronic games industries) told the Legco “Failure to introduce an updated copyright legislation would stifle Hong Kong’s creative industries, ultimately hurting consumers.”
Satellite C-Band Frequencies are Essential to Indian Consumers
In a submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), CASBAA pointed out that satellite C-band frequencies support television services to 149 million Indian homes, as well as VSAT networks and other critical communications services. Said CASBAA: “the wide use currently being made of this spectrum for the benefit of the Indian population is a convincing reason for the Indian government to oppose “harmonized” designation of the C-band frequencies for IMT.”
The submission rebutted “fallacies and misinformation” provided to the TRAI in a submission by the mobile industry, some parts of which were “manifestly untrue.” The mobile industry is seeking to have the ITU’s next World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) divert C-band frequencies for mobile use. This strategy, said the CASBAA submission, seeks to lower mobile investment costs by acquiring additional spectrum which is providing television and other services to Indian consumers. “The cheapest option that allows this wealthy industry to avoid investing money into their networks is to ask for more spectrum. Taking spectrum used by other industries such as satellite costs mobile operators nothing but has a massive knock-on cost to society in terms of services lost.”
Download the CASBAA Submission Here
Download the ITU’s Latest Report on Non-compatibility (Appendix One) Here
Download a Consultant’s Analysis of World-Wide Availability of Spectrum for Mobile IMT Services (Appendix Two) Here
Download a Comparison of Indian Spectrum Projections (Appendix Three)Here
Download a Review of the “Speculator” Model Used by a Mobile-Industry-Led ITU Study Group (Appendix Four) Here
Hundreds of Millions Rely on C-Band: Euroconsult’s Authoritative Assessment of Usage
CASBAA commissioned a detailed study by Paris-based technology consultancy Euroconsult, to examine the situation on-the-ground in three markets representative of the diverse economies of southern Asia and the Pacific. The study found that – in addition to the hundreds of millions of consumers who rely on C-band television streams – the banking and finance, energy production, and government sectors were particularly dependent on satellite networks using C-band spectrum, which is prized for its reliability and scope of coverage.