During the recent board meeting of AEPOC, Europe's Anti-piracy association for the protection of encrypted works and services, AEPOC discussed the "Pirate Bay" sentence in Sweden and the election of the "Pirate Party" into the European Parliament. AEPOC views the "success" of the Pirate Party, which questions the concept of intellectual property and copyright, and […]

The European Commission has launched a consultation to determine how to better work together at EU level to get the most from the DSO opportunity. The consultation will run until 4 September 2009. “The digital dividend comes at a critical moment when we want to connect all parts of Europe to high-speed broadband, ensure high […]

The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) has announced that the mission of its IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF) will be expanded to include the standardised delivery of Internet-sourced content over an IPTV network. Until this time, the IIF has concentrated on delivery of a TV service over a managed IP network. The IIF is a […]

From Branislav Pekic in Rome Italian consumers association Altroconsumo has lodged a complaint to the country's Communications Authority (Agcom), the Antitrust Authority, and to the European commissioners for Competition and the Information Society, regarding the issue of encryption of the satellite broadcasts of Italian public broadcaster RAI. According to Altroconsumo, in the period between April […]

Senators have voted through the 'Hadopi 2' law, which will allow judges to impose punishments on those found to have made illegal downloads. The law is a complement to the Hadopi (the internet watchdog) 1 law, setting up a new body for Internet piracy. It was originally proposed that this law would allow for the […]

From David Del Valle in Madrid The two largest pay-TV groups in Spain, Sogecable (more than 2 million subscribers) and Ono (over 1 million subs) have issued appeals against the Government’s Royal Decree bill that will allow pay TV services through digital terrestrial TV. Both argue that it breaks competition rules. For Ono, the bill […]

The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) has announced a new direction in the battle against pay-TV piracy in the Philippines. A breakthrough settlement by Turtle Cable, an infringing cable operator in Camarines Sur, is underpinned by a legally binding undertaking to refrain from broadcasting unauthorised TV programming and exclusively distribute legally authorised […]

European media commissioner Viviane Reding has set out her vision for a "Digital Europe", with four key points including a plea to resolve the legislative impasse caused by opposition to "three strikes" plans. On speeding the DSO she says: "The United States as a whole switched to digital TV last month. I call therefore on […]

Plans to merge the three former Deutsche Telekom cable nets in Germany are shelved admits Kabel Deutschland CEO Adrian von Hammerstein. The German monopoly commission Bundeskartellamt has outlawed the proposal. Kabel Deutschland will turn its attention to buying Level 4 operators that are distributors for the KDG product. The operator has also expressed interest in […]

From Colin Mann in London David Cameron, leader of the Conservative opposition party in the UK, has suggested that the role of comms regulator Ofcom be considerably slimmed down. Cameron, who hopes to lead his party to power in the General Election likely in 2010, has suggested that a number of quasi autonomous non-governmental organisations […]