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| Subject: Pay TV declares war on piracyFoxtel---Austar | |
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Author: new smartcard technology Irdeto V4 smartcards that were first deployed internationally in May 2003. |
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Date Posted: Tuesday, November 18, 05:57:21am Pay TV declares war on piracy Nov 04 Damon Kitney The Australian pay television industry is launching its biggest crackdown on piracy in a bid to claw back as much as $40 million a year that the sector loses to fraudulent activity. The Packer and Murdoch-backed Foxtel has joined with regional pay-TV operator Austar to spend more than $10 million on a new smartcard technology they claim will end satellite piracy by disabling pirate satellite equipment. The move is part of an aggressive crackdown on piracy by key players in the global entertainment industry, including pay TV, computer games and music. Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers recently estimated that up to $300 million a year was being lost by the Australian entertainment industry to piracy. Under the new pay-TV smartcard rollout, which starts this week Australia-wide, more than 800,000 satellite subscribers to Foxtel and Austar will be issued with new Irdeto V4 smartcards that were first deployed internationally in May 2003. advertisement advertisement V4 is an advanced version of the Irdeto V2 smartcard that is still secure after three years in the global pay TV market, despite attempts by hackers to break it. "Piracy for a business like ours is a scourge and we are determined to stamp it out," Foxtel chief executive Kim Williams told The Australian Financial Review. "They have no thought to the consequences of their actions for the chain of employment and investment in this industry." Estimates of the share of pay TV services delivered illegally in Australia range between 10 and 15 per cent, helped by pirates who sell counterfeit smartcards for as much as $250 each on the black market. The most common form of piracy is "tier-theft" whereby pay TV subscribers legally buy a satellite dish and decoder, which is then loaded with an illegally programmed smartcard, giving them free access to movies, pay-per-view, adult and premium sporting events for which the pay TV companies charge legitimate viewers. "We have seen penetration of our basic-only customers double over the past 18 months. It's gone from 10 to 20 per cent and we attribute a lot of that to piracy," said Austar chief executive John Porter. The pay TV industry believes new revenue steams will be created after the crackdown as pirate subscribers become legitimate subscribers to not only the basic package of channels, but to channel tiers as well. Some analysts estimate up to 25 per cent of viewers who receive pirated pay TV signals at present, could return to the industry as legitimate subscribers by the elimination of the traffic in pirated smartcards. Mr Williams also called on the federal government to reform the copyright regulations to allow the more effective prosecution of pirates on cable and satellite services. Digital amendments to the Copyright Act which came into effect in March allowed pay TV operators to start prosecuting people who made and sold pirated smartcards, prompting several successful prosecutions over recent months. But the companies are still unable to prosecute users of the illegal equipment. "I hope governments develop a real focus on how serious this crime is," Mr Williams said. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |