Warsaw, September 6, 2001

PRESS RELEASE

The Board of Directors of AEPOC (European Association for the Protection of Encrypted works and services) was recently held in Warsaw. This is part of the strategy of the Association aiming at the creation of a transnational effort and lobbying to defeat decoder piracy.

At the European level, AEPOC estimates the illegal turnover in pirated works is in the order of 1 billion Euro yearly.

A new AEPOC web site is now on-line at the address: www.aepoc.org.

AEPOC brings together the leading European players in the digital television sector, representing pay-TV operators, infrastructure providers, conditional-access companies and hardware manufacturers. The new website is part of the massive public awareness campaign AEPOC is promoting across Europe to encourage full adoption of the Conditional Access Directive approved in November 1998.

AEPOC highlights the need for a more co-ordinated international approach and urges the adoption of adequate measures to fight personal use and possession of illicit equipment and software providing access to encrypted transmissions.

Jean Grenier, President of AEPOC said recently:

"We estimate that in Europe the illegal turnover in pirated works is of the order of 1 billion Euro yearly.

This money is not simply lost to the pay-TV operators, to the creative community and to Governments (due to tax evasion), but it also means the loss of important investment in research and in human resources. Piracy is, therefore, highly detrimental to technological progress and employment. In particular, all Eastern European countries should look very carefully at the actual risks of losing all the advantages and opportunities of substantial and steady development offered by these new digital telecommunication technologies".