1st AEPOC European Anti-Piracy Symposium sets the course in the fight against piracy of audiovisual services

Vicenza, October 13^th 2003 - AEPOC (European Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services) made piracy of electronic pay-services a top item on the agenda of the 10th SAT Expo, one of Europe's leading events on advanced telecommunications (www.satexpo.it), which ended in Vicenza, Italy, October 4th. In addition to the 1st AEPOC European Anti-Piracy Symposium AEPOC also held its regular task force meeting as well as its Board of Directors meeting where the association’s new advertising campaign was officially launched.

At its 1st AEPOC European Anti-Piracy Symposium, the association gathered more than 120 media professionals from across Europe in Vicenza, Italy. At the symposium on the occasion of the Italian presidency of the European Union experts from industry, legislation and law enforcement agencies gave a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of electronic pay-services piracy and discussed perspectives of the fight against this threatening phenomenon.

Among the guests speakers were Sabrina Castelluzzo from the Italian Postal and Telecommunication Police – Italian Ministry of Interior Affairs, Erik Lambert from The Silver Lining Project, Roberto De Simone from the Legal Affairs Department of SkyItalia as well as Ross Biggam, Director General of ACT (Association of Commercial Television in Europe). The guest speakers and the representatives of AEPOC all agreed that the effectiveness of the fight against piracy of audiovisual services will largely influence the structure and competitiveness of Europe's media business.
In her concise presentation Mrs. Castelluzzo stressed the importance that the Italian Police attributes to the problem. "The Postal and Telecommunication Police service can rely on 2.000 skilled officers as well as several field offices in the major Italian cities to fight against computer crimes, on-line child pornography, telecommunication frauds, computer piracy and to protect critical infrastructures," she said.

Jean Grenier, president of AEPOC summarised a key finding of the event. "Italy being a positive example, the awareness of the significance of the piracy of audiovisual services problem is – generally speaking – unevenly developed in the law enforcement agencies across Europe. The knowledge of piracy's criminal dynamics and the technical background is inadequate. 'Business models', practices and the technologies used by pirates are constantly changing and pirates operate increasingly in trans-national patterns," Grenier said. "It has become clear that one of the foundations of a successful fight against piracy of audiovisual services is training and up-to-date information for the enforcement agencies." AEPOC will focus specifically on this issue at the next AEPOC European Anti-Piracy Symposium planned for next year.

In his contribution, Ross Biggam, director general of the Association of Commercial Television in Europe, argued that broadcasters had to do more to explain their business models to the EU and other international organisations to engage them in the fight against piracy.

Mathias Bendull of conditional access system provider comvenient focused on the short technical innovation cycles. "Just consider two aspects in the ongoing race between the CA provider and its customers, on one side, and the large hacker community, on the other: the development of a completely new CA system takes approximately two years and costs – depending on cost structures etc. – approximately 20 to 30 Mio. €. In the same period the performance of computer technology increases by a factor of two and the purchase price for such computers decreases by the same factor putting even more powerful tools at the disposal of the pirates."

Taylan Ozsipahi of Digiturk provided an insight into the operators fight against piracy in Turkey. Digiturk successfully determined the legal subscribers engaged in piracy manipulating their original smart cards. Legal notices were sent to these subscribers and a significant amount of penalty fees was collected.

Davide Rossi, secretary general of AEPOC, considers the positive response of the attendees and the fruitful dialogs as encouraging for the association. "We are happy about the contribution our symposium has made to the advancement of discussions among anti-piracy professionals. We will continue to be an open anti-piracy forum for the media industry," he stated.

Prior to the symposium the AEPOC task force gathered in Vicenza and agreed on further technical and legal investigations on potential counter-measures against new threats of piracy.

At its quarterly Board of Directors meeting the association launched its new business-to-business advertising campaign. The theme "Protecting Uniqueness" with its strong visual of a fingerprint addresses the social, political and legal responsibilities to protect the media industry’s contribution to the cultural landscape in Europe.

Click here to download the 300 dpi printable images or 72 dpi web optimised images in the the AEPOC press service / image gallery.

Also, during the meeting the Board of Directors decided to transfer the membership of BetaResearch to comvenient GmbH & Co. KG, Munich. comvenient was formed in 2003 through a management buy-out of the conditional access, customer care and billing system activities of BetaResearch GmbH. In addition, the admission of a new member was approved: WELA Electronic Handels GmbH, based in St. Georgen, Germany, develops, produces and trades hardware around satellite reception, cable and multimedia services. This brings the membership of AEPOC to a total of 30 companies further strengthening AEPOC’s voice in Europe and beyond.

The next AEPOC meeting will take place in Brussels in December 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 30 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: BskyB, Canal+, Canal+ Polska, comvenient, Conax, Digiturk, Eutelsat, Humax, Irdeto Access, Motorola, Nagravision, NDS, Nokia, NTV-Plus, Pace, Philips, Premiere, Raisat, Sagem, SCM Microsystems, Showtime Arabia, SkyItalia, Sogecable, Thomson, TPS, TVCabo, UGC Europe, Viaccess - France Telecom, Viasat Broadcasting and WELA Electronic.

Press Contacts