The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has welcomed an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) move to allow governments to take “necessary actions” when foreign powers deliberately interfere with satellite transmissions. Member states approved a revision of the ITU regulations that will give governments greater powers to counter the practice. The decision was taken at this year’s ITU […]
Social networking websites cannot be forced to install anti-piracy software in a bid to stop members illegally file-sharing. The ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is in a case between Belgian-based social network Netlog and SABAM, a music royalities collection firm also based in Belgium. “The owner of an online social network cannot […]
Sky is signaling a new hardline approach to pubs using foreign satellite services for Premier League football with ads in the licensing trade press warning of a campaign of prosecutions. The approach follows a court judgment earlier this month in which said use of foreign decoders to show Premier League games does breach Sky’s copyright […]
TV Azteca, a popular network broadcaster and owned by Mexico’s Grupo Salinas, has been removed from most of the country’s cable operators. As at 2011 it was the nation’s second-most important broadcaster. However, Grupo Salinas wants to charge cable operators for its content. There is no ‘must carry’ obligation in Mexico. Azteca has lost around […]
Australian national public broadcaster ABC is seeking separate funding from the federal government for its iview online television catch-up service. In its response to the federal Convergence Review’s interim report published December 15 2011 – which expressed a need to ensure sufficient Australian-made programming is available online – the ABC said that the costs of […]
European Broadcasting Union (EBU) members have warned that the Radio Spectrum Policy Programme’s (RSPP) balanced approach in spectrum management might be put at risk at this year’s World Radio Conference (WRC-12) which is currently taking place in Geneva. The RSPP – to be approved this week by the European Parliament – is Europe’s five-year policy […]
Multichoice’s DStv is by any measure the largest supplier of premium sports, movies and TV content over Africa. Now Kenya’s competition regulator is to investigate DStv’s market dominance following on from the collapse of Smart TV last week. Smart TV wasn’t alone: Gateway’s GTV went bust in 2009, and while there there are other players […]
Netflix has paid $9 million dollars to settle a privacy-related legal action, a financial filing has revealed. The company, which made no admission of wrongdoing, said the settlement related to compliance with the Video Protection Privacy Act. The 1998 US law prohibits the disclosure of video rental histories and it is reported that the legal […]
US copyright-based industries private sector coalition the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has submitted recommendations to the US Trade Representative (USTR) in its annual ‘Special 301’ review. The IIPA report documents rampant online and physical piracy of copyrighted works and severe market access barriers, surveys problems and developments in 41 countries/territories, and recommends that 32 […]
KT, South Korea’s biggest Internet provider is to limit access to certain TV applications that slow down overall network speed in a move that may cause a clash with major television manufacturers aggressively marketing Internet-enabled TVs. “Internet-enabled TVs increase network traffic by up to 15 times compared to conventional IPTVs. At the current growth rate […]