AEPOC announces next steps in the fight against piracy of audiovisual services

	1st AEPOC European Anti-Piracy Symposium to be held October 2nd in Vicenza (Italy)
	AEPOC Board of Directors welcomes European Parliament's declaration
	Four new members extend the association's reach

Lisbon, June 13^th 2003 - At the Board of Directors Meeting and Ordinary General Assembly of AEPOC held in Lisbon, June 5^th 2003, the leading European players in digital television and services have defined the next steps in the fight against the pirating of Pay-TV and encrypted services in Europe. AEPOC (European Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services) represents 29 service providers and vendors throughout Europe and beyond.

At the meeting in Lisbon, Jean Grenier, President of AEPOC, announced that AEPOC will organize the 1^st AEPOC European Anti-Piracy Symposium. The event for industry professionals as well as representatives of law enforcement agencies and the press in Europe will present experts views on all aspects of piracy of audiovisual services. At the occasion of the Italian presidency of the European Union the symposium will be held October 2^nd in Vicenza, Italy, with in the framework of the 10^th SAT Expo (www.satexpo.it), one of Europe's top events on advanced telecommunications.

AEPOC welcomed the Declaration on the Fight against Piracy and Counterfeiting in the Enlarged EU which was adopted by the European Parliament on June 5^th 2003 by 321 signatories.
(http://www.europarl.eu.int/Declaration/Application/Script/Declaration_2003.asp?LG_CODE=EN&YEAR_VAL=2003) The written declaration calls on the Council and the Commission to ensure strong, harmonised civil sanctions for any intellectual property infringement and tough criminal penalties for commercial scale counterfeiting, to promote better cross border co-operation between law enforcement authorities in the Member States in addition to strengthening the role of Europol in combating counterfeiting and piracy as well as to raise consumer awareness that piracy and counterfeiting are not victimless crimes.

In the same spirit, the E.U. Commission has identified in its recently released report on piracy of audiovisual services (COM(2003)198) cross-border co-operation between the police, the judiciary and professionals as being a key factor to combat piracy of audiovisual services effectively. To foster the development of cross-border networks of enforcement agencies and professionals AEPOC has proposed AECATII (AEPOC European Conditional Access Training and Information Initiative), a pan-European, multimedia-based training and information system under the AGIS programme of the E.U.. The decision on the support of this initiative by the Commission is expected by the end of July 2003.

Said Jean Grenier, "After the release of the E.U. Commission's report on piracy of audiovisual services and the very recent declaration of the European Parliament a new stage in the fight against digital piracy has begun. Our tight schedule for the next months shows our continued commitment to this important task as well as our commitment to a fruitful European-wide private-public co-operation."

Also, during the Lisbon meeting the admission of new members active in the fields of Pay-TV, electronic pay-services and hardware was approved: TVCabo (www. tvcabo.pt), Digiturk (www.digiturk.gen.tr), Viasat Broadcasting (www.viasat.co.uk) and Humax (www.humaxdigital.com). In addition, SkyItalia, the entity resulting from the merger of Stream and Tele+, was accepted as a full member of AEPOC. This brings the membership of AEPOC to a total of 29 companies further adding weight to AEPOC in its efforts to fight piracy of audiovisual services in Europe.

The next AEPOC meeting will take place in Vicenza, Italy on October 2^nd, 2003.

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 28 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: BetaResearch, BskyB, Canal+, Canal+ Polska, Conax, Digiturk, Eutelsat, Humax, Irdeto Access, Motorola, Nagravision, NDS, Nokia, NTV-Plus, Pace, Philips, Premiere, Rai, Sagem, SCM Microsystems, Showtime Arabia, SkyItalia, Sogecable, Thomson, TPS, TVCabo, UGC Europe, Viaccess - France Telecom, Viasat Broadcasting.

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