While satellite pay-TV operators have performed strongly in recent years in terms subscriber gains, many continue to deal with the effects of smart card piracy. The illegal watching of content costs pay-TV operators in Europe millions of euros each year and, throughout the years, satellite platforms have suffered from their fair share of piracy.

The problem was particularly prevalent in the pre-Sky Italia era in Italy, where operators Telepiu and Stream were widely hacked. While a number of satellite pay-TV operators have implemented new conditional access systems designed to halt stealing of the signals, the problem is not going away.

At the front line of the battle is the European Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works (AEPOC), a trade association that gives a voice to a number of digital TV platforms in the battle against piracy. All of the major European satellite pay-TV operators are members of the association.

AEPOC President Jean Grenier, former director general of Eutelsat, spelled out in no uncertain terms that the people behind the industry of illegal smart cards were growing their activities in this area.

“This kind of unlawful activity, which violates the decoding systems, is a growing form of parasitic exploitation of the rights to the material transmitted,” Grenier said. “It risks increasing exponentially in the coming years because of the strong market penetration of equipment for satellite reception.”

While it is nearly impossible to measure the actual size of the piracy phenomenon,” it is reasonable to say that at least one billion euros ($1.3 billion) is spent yearly in the European Union to buy pirate cards and/or to get manipulated decoding apparatus,” Grenier said.

Awareness

To stem the flow of this billion-euro industry, AEPOC is calling for tougher punishments for the people behind the piracy, Grenier said.”AEPOC is in the front line encouraging the implementation and the enforcement of all anti-piracy legislations,” Grenier said. “In view of the recent enlargement of the European Union, our concern is to make the new EU member states aware of the risks and the overall negative effects of piracy.”

More effective punishments are being implemented, as lawmakers across Europe get tougher on the pirates. Christine Maury Panis, executive vice president and general counsel of conditional access vendor Viaccess, told attendees at Mediacast May 10 that a network of pirate activity recently was dismantled in France and prison sentences as well as civil penalties were handed down to the perpetrators.

A piracy panel at Mediacast, an annual broadband and digital television conference and exhibition held in London, heavily emphasized the punishment aspect of the piracy issue. Whether this will act sufficiently as a deterrent remains to be seen.

Grenier believes stronger punishments are needed. “We want to stimulate all the European Union member states to lay down provisions in order to punish the personal use and possession of unauthorized decoders,” he said.

One of AEPOC main aims to educate policy makers and the public across Europe about the scale of the problem and that many players in the digital television chain feel the effects of smart card piracy.

Grenier called the public awareness campaign “the most urgent task,” with the goals of that campaign being to inform and arouse public opinion by promoting an information campaign with the aim of determining the real extent of the phenomenon and the effects it produces; to encourage communications between operators in the sector and trade associations; to foster collaboration with law-enforcement bodies and the courts and to create a wide-ranging dialogue with governments to ensure that there is constant far- reaching action to achieve the goal of piracy reduction.

–Mark Holmes

(Carmen Schembri, AEPOC, carmen.schembri@skynet.be; Anne Imbert, Viaccess, anne.imbert@viaccess.com)