Advanced Television

Piracy

Murdoch in China movie piracy warning

Rupert Murdoch has warned that China will encourage piracy and limit opportunities for its own movie market if it does not open up to foreign films. Delivering a speech on ‘Film Dream in the Era of Capital’ at the Shanghai International Film Festival, the News Corp. chairman praised China’s optimism, global aspirations and creativity, saying […]

June 13, 2011By Colin Mann

Video revenue vital for film, TV production

New films and high quality TV dramas are becoming increasingly reliant on projected video entertainment sales revenue in order to be green-lighted for production, according to an independent survey conducted by Oxford Economics. The study, commissioned by the British Video Association, shows that video revenues account for 47 per cent of revenues of feature films […]

June 13, 2011By Colin Mann

Spain: 3 arrested for Sony hack

The Spanish police have arrested three suspected computer hackers in connection with recent cyber-attacks on Sony’s PlayStation network as well as corporate and government websites around the world. The police said that with the arrests, they had dismantled the local leadership of Anonymous, the shadowy international network of computer hackers. According to the statement, Anonymous […]

June 10, 2011

‘Informal’ signal theft still a problem

Broadcasters have complained bitterly for years about understated subscriber numbers, hence their enthusiasm for digital transmission and secure cable distribution. But some parts of the world, including the Middle East, India, Asia and South America, still suffer unashamed signal theft and piracy of content. Bolivia, in South America, is one such problem area where Cotel, […]

June 9, 2011By Chris Forrester

StreamMark from Verimatrix

Multi-screen digital TV service revenue security specialist Verimatrix has unveiled its latest innovation in user-specific forensic watermarking, StreamMark. The patent-pending solution uses a highly-efficient server-side embedding process to uniquely mark compressed video files during delivery, even if the video files are encrypted. Verimatrix says that mass delivery of uniquely marked content offers a valuable tool […]

June 7, 2011

UN: Anti-piracy laws ‘breach human rights’

A UN expert has suggested that provisions of the UK’s Digital Economy Act and similar legislation in France that could see music and film pirates cut off from the Internet are disproportionate. The comments came in a report produced for the UN Human Rights Council on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom […]

June 6, 2011By Colin Mann

Sony hacked again

Lulz Security, a hacker group, has claimed it has attacked the SonyPictures.com network and stolen more than one million passwords, e-mail addresses and other information. Sony said it was aware of Lulz Security’s statement and was investigating the claims. Sony had to apologise in April after its PlayStation Network was attacked and hackers stole data […]

June 3, 2011

Streaming often escapes piracy laws

People who illegally stream copyrighted movies, music, and TV shows online should face stricter punishment, the US register of copyrights and industry representatives told a House subcommittee. Current laws are insufficient to successfully prosecute some online copyright infringement, said Maria Pallante, the acting registra. Laws often target those who download or copy content, and websites […]

June 2, 2011

PROTECT IP Act progress halted

Although the US Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, or PROTECT IP Act on May 26, its progress was halted within hours after Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, put a hold on the bill preventing it from going to the […]

May 31, 2011By Colin Mann

Anti-piracy success for French police

Police have closed down one of France’s most popular websites for downloading pirated content and arrested three men who ran it. Liberty Land, set up in September 2009, was one of the most visited sites in France, claiming 800,000 users accessing and sharing pirated music, films and software. Jean-Philippe Vidal, chief of the Rennes gendarmerie […]

May 31, 2011By Colin Mann