AEPOC identifies urgent need for action in the fight against Pay-TV piracy

	After four years EU directive still waits for its full Europeanwide implementation
	New technical developments must lead to improved legislation
	New AEPOC members Nagravision, Nokia and Showtime further extend the association's authority

Amsterdam, October 25^th, 2002 - The rising threat of Pay-TV piracy for the European media industry took center stage at the meeting of the Board of Directors of AEPOC (European Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services) held yesterday in Amsterdam. AEPOC groups all the leading European players in digital television in a common effort to eliminate the pirating of encrypted works and services and to increase the security and safeguarding of conditional access systems for Pay-TV and TV-based services. AEPOC estimates that every year some 1 billion EURO is spent inside the European Union for smart-cards and decoding equipment solely for the purpose of hacking into Pay-TV.

The board of directors expressed its concerns with regards to the present legislative situation in Europe. Four years after the EU directive 98/84 on the legal protection of conditional access services entered into force, some Member States have still not fulfilled the requirements to prohibit and provide appropriate sanctions against activities such as the sales of pirated decoders, conditional access cards and the related software. The latest country to implement the directive is Luxembourg which has passed the appropriate law in August 2002. Luxembourg was among those countries which the European Commission has referred to the European Court of Justice in March this year. AEPOC now expects that similar steps will be soon implemented by the remaining countries Belgium, Greece and Spain.

The AEPOC Board of Directors went on to stress that new forms of piracy have emerged as a result of technological change, most notably the Internet, since the directive entered into force in 1998. Therefore, AEPOC claims further improvements both with regards to the enforcement of the existing directive and with regards to an extended legislative framework. Said Jean Grenier, President of AEPOC, "We need more stable and unwavering enforcement of the current legal instruments against piracy. AEPOC members doing their part. Recently in several countries millions of conditional access cards have been replaced with more secure cards. And millions more will follow all across Europe. These are very substantial investments in an already difficult market situation. This large-scale initiative must be supported by public authorities. And these investments must be protected by a legislation which does justice to the multiple threats resulting from existing technological advances and those arising in the years ahead."

Given the unsatisfactory level of protection of conditional access systems in Europe, AEPOC considers the upcoming report of the European Commission on the status of the implementation of the EU directive 98/84 an important next step towards the necessary improvements. The report is expected to be issued during the last quarter of this year.

Also, during the meeting the admission of new members active in the fields of conditional access technology, hardware and Pay-TV has been approved: Nagravision (www. nagravision.com), Nokia (www.nokia.com) and Showtime (www.showtimearabia.com). This brings the membership of AEPOC to a total of 27 leading companies further adding weight to AEPOC in the European efforts in the fight against piracy.

The next AEPOC meeting will be held in Brussels during the month of December 2002.

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 24 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 and TV-based services.

The AEPOC members are: BetaResearch, BskyB, Canal+, Canal+ Polska, comvenient, Conax, Eutelsat, IrdetoAccess, Motorola, Nagravision S.A., NDS, Nokia, NTV-Plus, Pace, Philips, Premiere, Rai, Sagem, SCM Microsystems, Showtime Arabia, Société Européenne des Satellites, Sogecable, Stream, Tele+, Thomson, TPS, UGC Europe and Viaccess (France Telecom).

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