Board of Directors meeting in Rome - focus on Conditional Access Directive

AEPOC demands substantial amendments of the European CA Directive

	EU Conditional Access Directive (CAD) regarded as positive step towards a comprehensive and pan-European legislation against piracy - but still room for improvement in many areas
	Anti-Piracy Update: Italian market 'secure' through latest generation CA-systems while facing new challenges of Internet-based piracy
	French initiative "Mission Olivennes" against consumer piracy similarly taken up by other major EU countries
	Davide Rossi remains AEPOC Secretary General

Rome – April 17, 2008: AEPOC, the European Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services, calls on the European Commission to reconsider important sections of the Conditional Access Directive (CAD), currently being under review. On the occasion of AEPOC's Board of Directors meeting held in Rome on March 27, AEPOC highlighted the considerable progress made on the Directive and its national implementation since its official launch back in 1998 – while underlining the need for substantial clarifications and greater harmonisation in its implementation to successfully meet the challenges of today's audiovisual piracy environment on a pan-European basis.

Latest development within the review process of the Directive is a Public Consultation launched by the European Commission, which AEPOC responded to in a comprehensive position paper. The full document – as submitted to the Commission on April 2 – can be viewed on the AEPOC website. In particular AEPOC has expressed its dissatisfaction with several of the findings of a professional study conducted by different consulting companies for the Commission.

Davide Rossi remains AEPOC Secretary General
An official document issued by the Public Prosecution Office and following an investigation of the Italian fiscal police against pay-TV piracy in Sicily mentioned Mr Rossi – amongst 132 other but unnamed individuals – as possible "external supporter" of a local TV hacker. Jean Grenier, President of AEPOC said: "The explanations received from Mr Rossi and our discussions within the AEPOC Board of Directors did not reveal any grounds to justify to change our efficient Secretary General. We have complete confidence in the Italian justice that they will resolve the matter."

Anti-Piracy Update: Italy 'secure' in terms of typical forms of pay-TV piracy
Mr Vittorio Livraghi of AEPOC member Sky Italia gave a comprehensive presentation on the situation of pay-TV piracy in Italy. Thanks to the use of latest generation conditional access systems on all major pay-TV platforms, the Italian market shows a 'zero piracy' situation concerning classical forms of illegal access devices – such as smart card piracy. Nevertheless Mr. Livraghi drew the attention to an increased level of Internet-based illegal content offerings, which must be regarded as a dangerous breeding ground with a potential to reach critical mass in the nearer future. In this area AEPOC closely surveys the development of newer pirating mechanisms such as card and control word sharing. Individual member companies have already or are about to launch dedicated legal actions against any known cases.

France's Mission Olivennes – precedent for major EU countries to bring down private piracy
The French initiative "Mission Olivennes", an action to mainly bring down and prevent private piracy , starts serving as a precedent for the development of similar projects in other major EU countries: Comparable to the French move, the UK, Sweden and Italy have launched initiatives to limit Internet-based piracy committed by consumers. All motions have in common to ultimately inhibit users from their Internet access in case of abusive usage. The next major step within the implementation of the Mission Olivennes will be the approval of an advanced proposal for the operational functioning, expected for July 2008.

The Board of Directors meeting in Rome was kindly hosted by AEPOC member company Mediaset and organised on the opening day of SatExpo 2008 - Italy's leading trade show and congress for advanced telecommunications and media.

The next AEPOC meeting is scheduled to take place in June 2008 in Stockholm.

About AEPOC:

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 31 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, Atmel, Boxer TV-Access, BSkyB, Canal+, Canal+ Polska, comvenient, Conax, Digiturk, Eutelsat, General Satellite, Humax, Infineon Technologies, Irdeto, Liberty Global, Mediaset, Motorola, Nagravision, NDS, NTV-Plus, Opentech, Pace, Philips, Poverkhnost, Premiere, Sagem, Showtime Arabia, Sky Italia, Sogecable, TV Cabo Portugal, and Viaccess - France Telecom.

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