Action against the illegal downloading of content is now an “absolute priority” in order to protect the development of the audiovisual sector in Italy, according to the vice president of Sky Italia, Eric Gerritsen.

In his speech to the Public Affairs Forum in Rome, he stressed that the “protection of copyright and intellectual property must be an absolute priority for the legislator and regulator.”

Gerritsen also highlighted the existence of “strong regulatory asymmetries” between the public and private TV broadcasters and the new content distributors via IP technologies, i.e. the “over the top” operators. The later are able to compete with the former to attract the same audience, but are not bound by the rules and obligations for traditional broadcasters, particularly in terms of licenses, investment and production quotas, protection of minors, and advertising limits.

As a result of these different constraints, according to Gerritsen, competition appears to be strongly biased in favor of newcomers, often represented by multinationals with strong market penetration capacity and unwillingness to comply with local tax regulations.

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