Spanish financial regulators have fined four football clubs, including Real Madrid and Barcelona, as well as a television producer millions of euros for allegedly breaking the rules on the sale of TV rights. The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) handed out fines totaling €15 million for “a very serious infraction” of the rules on […]
A grouping of French movie industry interests has won what is being described as a landmark case against French ISPs. The Superior Court of Paris (Tribunal de Grande Instance) has ordered several French ISPs to block access to illegal streaming sites for their customers. Furthermore, the court ordered several search engines to take measures to […]
The closure of the Regional pubcaster RTVV, in Valencia has been carried out with the switch-off of its signal, putting an end to its 24 years of history and paving the way for other regional TV stations, such as Telemadrid, to follow suit. This unprecedented move will bring the dismissal of all RTVV 1,660 workers […]
A successful joint action by members of the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) has resulted in criminal court convictions in Belgium. On November 14th 2013, the criminal court of Dinant, Belgium, convicted the operator of a card sharing network hosting 400 users and his accomplice and awarded damages to injured parties. The operator of the card […]
Australian pay-TV operator Foxtel is to lobby the federal government for a number of top sporting fixtures not played on Australian soil to be taken off a list of events which protects live broadcasts of major sporting events on free-to-air TV, seeking a shake-up of the government’s approach to future sports rights deals. Such events […]
Internet TV streaming service FilmOn is suing Chicago-based WWCI, licensee of PBS station WTTW which on November 12th accused the operation of copyright infringement. FilmOn contends that Congress and the courts have always protected an individual’s right to privately perform copyrighted audiovisual works, noting that this right has been challenged countless times by copyright holders […]
Disney-owned network ABC is still arguing that Dish Network should shut down its ad-skipping ‘Hopper’ technology. ABC has already lost an initial argument at a lower court in September that Dish is breaching its copyright in broadcasting ABC’s shows while allowing viewers to ‘hop’ through the commercials. ABC is also arguing that Dish is in […]
Piracy of content in Australia is a serious issue that can be fixed with the right legislative framework, according to Foxtel CEO Richard Freudenstein. Participating in a one-to-one ‘In Conversation’ session at the Screen Forever conference in Victoria, Freudenstein revealed that Australians were the biggest downloaders of the final episode of US series Breaking Bad, […]
Star Sports, the Rupert Murdoch-backed South Asian broadcaster, has hit India’s cable giant SitiCable with a legal action alleging that the cable MSO has “illegally transmitted” Star’s signals, and in contravention of its own agreements and India’s transmission and re-transmission regulations. A similar allegation has been filed against Gujarat Telelink, another cable MSO. Star has […]
Iran’s IRIB state broadcaster is in talks with Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar satellite’s owners in an attempt to get Iranian channels back on air internationally. IRIB wants carriage for its Spanish-language version of Press TV (Hispan-TV). Hispan TV, launched in December 2011, has since been dropped by most European and US satellite operators because of United […]