The Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) has increased its emphasis on engagement with leading social media and messaging platform providers in 2024, as the use of social media to spread pirate activity has risen in APAC, just as it has elsewhere around the world.
In Q2, CAP worked with representatives from Google, Facebook and TikTok on various issues on their respective platforms and organized Roundtables with each, during July in Singapore.
CAP finds Telegram to be uncooperative with rights holders and their representatives in anti-piracy requests. As a result, CAP lobbied the Indonesian telecommunications regulator, Kominfo, to seek their assistance in engaging with Telegram; highlighting links between pirated content, particularly live sport, and other illegal content such as gambling on the platform.
At CAP’s request, Kominfo organised a meeting with CAP, local Indonesian rights holders and Telegram in mid-May in Jakarta. A week later the Minister announced fines for illegal activities on platforms, and he called out Telegram as being totally uncooperative. CAP is continuing to provide Kominfo with evidence of ongoing infringement on Telegram with a view to push them to implement content protection measures.
AVIA’s quarterly Pulse newsletter went on to describe initiatives to advocate for site blocking legislation in the Philippines and to pitch for improvements to the site blocking regime in Singapore.
In early April, the Singapore government ordered ISPs to block 26 sites and more than 100 associated domains. In Malaysia, AVIA filed three rounds of site blocking requests in April, May and June, encompassing more than 100 sites blocked.
AVIA also summarized recent progress with search engines and social media providers in de-indexing and taking down infringing instances.
AVIA events through 2024
AVIA announced several events that will occur over the remainder of the year
- Korea In View, Seoul Korea, August 29
- State of Piracy, Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam, October 8
- Vietnam in View, Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam, October 9
- Japan in View, Tokyo, October 29
- Policy Roundtable, Singapore, December 4
- Piracy Over The Top, Singapore, December 4
- OTT Summit: Advertising First, Singapore, December 5
- OTT Upfront, Singapore, December 5.
Governance Framework
One of the policy areas that AVIA has focused on in the past few years has been around that of online curated content (OCC). In an attempt to proactively engage regulators on the concept of self- governance, AVIA developed a framework document in 2020, as a way of promoting self-governance.
“OCC” services offer fully curated content catalogs over the Internet on a ‘pull’ basis, have direct control over the content available on their services and permit the authorized use of this content and other assets by third parties. Examples include VOD and streaming services.
An updated version was published in June, based on feedback that AVIA received from regulators and members, to reflect on a more nuanced perspective as to how the Framework could be best used.
Further reading
Asia Video Pulse. Quartery newsletter. June 25, 2024. Asia Video Industry Association. (Requires log-in credentials from AVIA)
A Governance Framework for Online Curated Content (OCC) Services. White paper. June 18, 2024. Asia Video Industry Association. (Requires log-in credentials from AVIA)
Why it matters
AVIA has been a leading business advocate for rights-holders, distributors, government regulators and consumer rights in the Asia-Pacific region.
AVIA sees the OCC framework as a catalyst to create opportunities for formal industry and government consultations to assess and develop collaborative approaches. As the OCC industry continues to mature and develop, governments and industry professionals should engage in regular consultations to share experiences and exchange information.
