Talks between TF1 and M6 and pay-TV platforms about carriage of their respective thematic channels have reached a deadlock say reports. DTH operator Canal Plus currently holds exclusive rights to the channels, including Histoire, TV Breizh, Ushuaia TV, Odyssee, Serie Club and Eurosport, for which it pays approximately E60m. The broadcasters have offered their channels […]
TiVo has filed complaints in the US District Court against AT&T and Verizon Communications for infringement of three TiVo patents – 'Multimedia Time Warping System', 'System for Time Shifting Multimedia Content Streams', and 'Automatic Playback Overshoot Correction System'. The complaints seek damages for past infringement and a permanent injunction, similar to that issued by the […]
The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is to launch an investigation into how the habits and personal information of web users are used to target Internet advertising. Competition regulators said they had been prompted to launch the study, which could ultimately lead to an industry code of practice, because of a need to “update […]
BskyB has written to the BBC Trust expressing "serious concerns" about its handling of Project Canvas. The Trust's conduct of a consultation process on Canvas "will only serve to undermine further industry confidence in its ability and inclination to act as a genuinely independent regulator of the BBC", Sky said. Since February, the Trust has […]
China said it would consider launching an appeal against a World Trade Organisation ruling that the US claimed would help open up Chinese markets for media as well as curbing rampant intellectual piracy.The WTO said that it was impermissible to give one state-owned enterprise the monopoly for importing products such as films and books in […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]