AVIA’s Q3 2024 Pulse newsletter found the organization working closely with media industry stakeholders and regional governments to help guide anti-piracy policy.
AVIA’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) has focused largely on social media and messaging platform. During Q3, CAP held its first Roundtable with TikTok as well as in person Roundtables with Google and Facebook.
For TikTok the key issue is the current lack of any real or effective automated takedown. TikTok claims they are working on measures to address this, but AVIA will continue to push them to implement an automated tool that can be used by all of its members.
Activities in Indonesia
In Indonesia, in collaboration with AVISI, the local industry association, AVIA CAP highlighted the issue of live sports piracy linked to gambling on Telegram to the Indonesian telecommunications regulator, Kominfo, of the issue. A few days later, the Kominfo Minister issued a statement noting that they are preparing to take action against Telegram due to ongoing criminality on the platform.
Coincidentally, this was within days of the arrest of Telegram’s CEO in France on similar issues. While in Indonesia, CAP also met with the country’s Intellectual Property Office to discuss site blocking.
CAP’s IP blocking program in Indonesia referred more than 600 sites referred to Kominfo for blocking, which must be referred first to Indonesia’s Intellectual Property Office, which is an optimal situation.
In The Philippines
While in Manila, CAP met with Senate officials to push a site blocking bill, and supplied background information to the Legal Team of the Senator Chair of the Committee hearing the bill. Coincidentally, CAP is working with Globe, the Philippine media company, to provide sufficient information to push the release of a report so the site blocking bill can progress.
Actions in Thailand
Thailand remains keen to attract international content as well as develop the local content industry. In response to a recent consultation conducted by the Thai Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on a draft Film Act, Avia took the opportunity to inform regulators about the need to improve enforcement capabilities against pirates who distribute film and TV content illegally.
Facebook is clearly a real concern in Thailand and an analysis developed jointly between CAP and Synamedia analyzed piracy via social media, reviewing the main pirate streaming sites and IPTV services. The resulting report provided three recommendations to combat streaming piracy in Thailand: implementation of an efficient and effective site blocking regime; targeting pirate revenue streams, and; working collectively with platforms to tackle piracy.
Elsewhere in Asia
CAP used UEFA’s Euro 2024 as an opportunity to identify sites pirating live football with a view to initiating an action earlier than usual in Singapore.
CAP’s program of monthly blocking in Malaysia is now firmly in place with more than 200 sites referred so far in 2024, and the Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MDTC) is now referring sites to ISPs for blocking within a week or two of receipt of the sites from CAP.
CAP is also working on a report into the infrastructure risks in Taiwan as a result of consumers using pirate services, in particular ISDs. CAP aim to have this research released in Q4.
CAP conducted a State of Piracy (SOP) event in Vietnam in October, and on December 4th and 5th, AVIA will be conducting a confrence in Singapore, which will include the segment “Piracy Over the Top.”
Further reading:
Asia Video Pulse quarterly newsletter. October 2024 issue. October 11, 2024. Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP)
Why it matters
“The industry is changing faster than ever before, and the issues we grapple with – policy, piracy, advertising, technology – are all far more profound than at any point in this association’s history,” said AVIA CEO Louis Boswell.
