AEPOC Board of Directors’ Meeting in Brussels
Fight against piracy successfully backed by international industry co-operations

1. Piracy in Europe and Middle East: industry co-operations
   lead to successful stopping of piracy incident
2. New EU legislation on counterfeiting and piracy: draft of
   Directive lacks in terms of accuracy on Pay-TV and Conditional Access
3. 3^rd AEPOC Anti-Piracy Symposium to be held in London on
   November 22

Brussels - November 2^nd 2005 - European media and technology industry is substantially proliferating its efforts against Pay-TV piracy while EU authorities still lag behind to create tighter legal foundations: The Board of Directors' Meeting of AEPOC, the European Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services, held in Brussels on October 11, reminded that a more precise EU legislation is needed, despite recent strikes against piracy achieved by members of AEPOC. “The current draft of the new EU Directive on Counterfeiting and Piracy lacks precision in the key issues of Pay-TV piracy and requires further improvement to support a secure and healthy growth of the information society in the EU”, said AEPOC Secretary General, Davide Rossi.

AEPOC members meanwhile report increased joint achievements against piracy that go even beyond European borders. Piracy of control words and other pirating techniques such as card sharing make increasingly use of anonymous distribution via the Internet. As outcome of a Middle East case and in order to prevent further incidents, AEPOC members have achieved important agreements with different companies on information exchange and joint market monitoring. This includes also the close collaboration with AEPOC partner anti-piracy associations such as North American CASST – the Coalition Against Satellite Signal Theft, based in Ottawa, and CASBAA – the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia, based in Hong Kong. Concerning European legislation, the draft of the new EU Directive deals with counterfeiting as well as piracy. AEPOC warns that this approach limits the effect on the audio-visual sector as the issue of Pay-TV piracy is diluted and dealt with on a very general basis only. AEPOC will prepare position papers pointing at the specific needs in terms of Pay-TV and Conditional Access. Regarding this matter AEPOC has sent the AEPOC Code of Ethics and intends to follow up with other more precise requests to European Commissioner for the Information Society Mrs. Vivian Reding.

AEPOC recommends to make the combat against piracy one of the main objectives of the Commission’s strategy for a secure information society.

AEPOC will continue to actively provide a discussion platform for anti-piracy strategies and report on AEPOC’s experience and knowledge regarding prerequisites for secure media businesses – especially in view of new Internet-based offerings which are heavily endangered by piracy unless the rights steps are taken.

Recently AEPOC was present at SAT Expo 2005 in Vicenza. During the presentation of the new satellite city-TV ‘Venice Channel’ at the Guggenheim Museum in Venice the President of SAT Expo, Paolo dalla Chiara, awarded to Jean Grenier, President of AEPOC, the SAT Expo 2005 Special Award. The award was conferred to Jean Grenier for leading AEPOC with success since 1998 and for reaching important goals such as the approval of the Bratislava Charter in 2004, the Code of Ethics, which was approved by all AEPOC members, and which has become a reference point for all operators of the broadcasting and telecommunication sector since.

AEPOC further participated with a key note during the XIX International Film and Television Festival from October 23 – 26 in Rome. On November 22 AEPOC will hold its 3^rd European Anti-Piracy Symposium in collaboration with AEPOC member BSkyB and FACT, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, in London. Moreover, AEPOC has confirmed participation at the Content Everywhere 2006 conference and exhibition event during May in London.

AEPOC President Jean Grenier summarizes: “AEPOC and its members have once again demonstrated their power in solving incidents of piracy by joint industry co-operations. While Europe has seen important improvements in regards to law enforcement of the current legislation, the draft of the new EU Directive on Counterfeiting and Piracy lacks from AEPOC’s point of view in terms of specific regulations for the Pay-TV and Conditional Access sectors.” Davide Rossi, Secretary General of AEPOC added: “We will continue to strengthen the work of the association for reaching our goal to eradicate audio-visual piracy in Europe. We invite new media businesses as well as traditional broadcasting and telecommunication companies to join forces with AEPOC for building a secure environment for exciting consumer offerings.” Concerning the new EU legislation Rossi concluded: “AEPOC will detail the position of the encrypted works and services markets to the EU bodies for enhancing the draft of the new Directive”.

It was decided to hold the next AEPOC Board of Directors meeting on November 21 2005 in London in conjunction with the 3^rd AEPOC Anti-Piracy Symposium on November 22. Details on the Symposium will be circulated.

AEPOC (www.aepoc.org) is the "Association Européenne pour la Protection des Œuvres et Services Cryptés" or the "European Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services". AEPOC started its activities in 1995. Its current membership consists of 35 leading digital television and telecommunication companies including TV channels, conditional access providers, providers of transmission infrastructures and manufacturers of related hardware. AEPOC's goal is to eliminate the pirating of encrypted works and services and to encourage the development of the appropriate legal, operational and technological frameworks to increase the security and safeguarding of conditional access systems for Pay-TV, TV-based and IP services.

The AEPOC members are: ADD Europe, AL MAJD, Aston, Atmel, BSkyB, Canal+, Canal+ Polska, comvenient, Conax, Digiturk, Eutelsat, Humax, Hutro, Infineon Technologies, Irdeto, Motorola, Nagravision, NDS, Nokia, NTV-Plus, Opentech, Pace, Philips, Premiere, Sagem, SCM Microsystems, Showtime Arabia, Sky Italia, Sogecable, Thomson, TPS, TVCabo, UGC Europe, Viaccess - France Telecom, and WELA Electronic.

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