A Federal appeals court has ruled that a previous $21 million patent award against EchoStar subsidiary Hughes Network Systems, and in favour of Israeli defence contractor Elbit Systems, is valid and can stand. Reportedly, the Court said there was substantial evidence to find the original Texas jury’s verdict in August 2017 that satellite-based high-speed Internet […]
Spanish OTT players such as Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime Video, Sky NOW and DAZN – among others – will soon be obliged by law to pay the so-called RTVE tax to finance the Spanish public broadcaster. The Spanish government is adapting into national legislation the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) which states as one of […]
The European findings of the 2019 Pay-TV Innovation Forum, a global research programme designed to explore the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the pay-TV and content industries, produced by content protection and multiscreen television solutions provider NAGRA in partnership with research and strategy consultancy MTM, highlights that pay-TV executives are becoming more optimistic about responding […]
The US Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC), in partnership with NERA Economic Consulting, has published a study, Impacts of Digital Video Piracy on the US Economy, detailing the economic impact digital video piracy has on the US economy. While the proliferation of streaming services provides consumers with unprecedented choice, content, and convenience, […]
Speaking at a special conference to mark 30 years of French media regulator the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe revealed that the government would publish its paper outlining how it intends to revise the country’s audiovisual sector by October 2019. Following the publication, there would be a ministerial council examination which would […]
South Africa’s media regulator ICASA is to hold a formal examination into the country’s ‘must carry’ rules. To date, they permit MultiChoice and other pay-TV operators to carry the nation’s SABC public channels without paying a fee. The rules have been in place since 2011. SABC wants this pattern to be changed, and to force […]
Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development has established guidelines for the provision of subsidies to buy TV sets and decoders compatible with the DVB-T2 HEVC/MPEG-4 standards. The total budget is €151 million and the pay-out should start from November 2019, after the end of an ongoing public consultation process. The guidelines propose that the €50 contribution […]
The blatant piracy of its content is having a very negative impact at Qatar’s beIN media and sports broadcaster. With its signals widely pirated by beoutQ, beIN says it has laid off around 18 per cent of its workforce, affecting more than 300 staffers. beIN says that the piracy is directly impacting its revenues, and […]
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has revealed that the Commission is to open up the 2.5 GHz band for 5G. In a blog post, Pai explained that this was the single largest band of contiguous spectrum below 3 GHz, but that much of this public resource had been unused for decades, partly because the technology that […]
The 2019 Europol Intellectual Property Crime conference in Malaga was the venue where the winner of the 2nd Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) award was announced. The award is given to an individual or team from the public sector for a successful initiative to tackle audiovisual piracy. The winner was Chief Inspector Monica Dopico and the […]