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According to Caasba CEO Simon Twiston Davies, signal theft was
increasing at a rate of 11 per cent a year in Asia, corroding the
ability of the industry to grow. The cost of piracy of channels
by unlicensed cable operators, under-declaring of subscriptions
by licensed operators, and ad-blocking by cable operators, amounted
to more than $1.2 billion a year in the Asian region, Davies claimed.
"Piracy is a big problem for our members in Taiwan, the Philippines,
Thailand and India," he said.
ABU secretary-general David Astley told the seminar that many free-to-air
channels were suffering signal theft too, and proposed that the
two organisations work together where there were issues of common
interest.
FTA broadcasters were suffering what the chief legal counsel of
ABS-CBN, Philippines, Andrefanio Santos, described as both primary
signal piracy and secondary signal piracy.
Santos explained that secondary signal piracy was where cable operators
had pirated DTH (direct to home) satellite services that had already
pirated the transmissions of free-to-air broadcasters.
"There being hundreds of cable operators in the Philippines,
it is not expedient for ABS-CBN to seek legal action against each
and every cable operator," he said.
Santos said his organisation was therefore focusing its legal action
against the DTH operators. "Once the illegal broadcast by the
DTH operator is finally stopped, it is evident that most of the
unauthorized retransmission by the provincial cable operators will
also stop," Santos said.
The ABU seminar, which was held in conjunction with its annual
Copyright Working Party meeting, attracted delegates from Australia,
Brunei, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal,
New Zealand, People's Republic of China, Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand and Turkey.
Other issues that were discussed at the seminar included the protection
of format rights and the negotiation of music licences and royalties.
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