The five major Portuguese pay-TV operators have refused to pay the government about €12.5 million due as the new annual fee established by the Law on Cinema and the Audiovisual Sector. Two of them, Zon and Optimus, informed the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual (ICA) that they would not pay this contribution, said to be […]
An online petition against Russia’s draconian anti-piracy law has received 100,000 signatures a number required to send it to the government for discussion. The petition was posted on the Russian Popular Initiatives (ROI) web portal in early July, two days after the new law against film piracy that allows copyright holders to request the court […]
Shortly after publicly calling for retransmission reform in the light of its ongoing dispute with Raycom Media, pay-TV provider DISH has now reached agreement with the broadcaster regarding the continued retransmission of Raycom TV stations in 36 markets. A statement issued late on August 10 said that service to DISH customers in the affected markets […]
DISH has blacked out Raycom Media for over a week, and CBS has been off Time Warner Cable for the past week, now DISH has called on Congress to update the local TV carriage rules and protect consumers. “Since the beginning of the year, Raycom has told its viewers to switch providers no fewer than […]
Normally it is billionaire EchoStar/Dish-owner Charlie Ergen who initiates billion-dollar lawsuits. But on August 6th a New York bankruptcy court was told that Ergen – and Dish Network – had allegedly “fraudulently schemed” to prevent Harbinger Capital Partners LLC from maintaining control of bankrupt wireless company LightSquared Inc. The complaint was filed in a $4 […]
MPEG LA, which handles licensing for the core MPEG/MPEG2 patents, has filed a suit in Florida claiming that Motorola Mobility “wilful infringements” of the MPEG-2 compression standard. The filing, made in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleges that Motorola Mobility supplied set-top boxes which used the MPEG-2 standard yet were […]
Microsoft is changing the name of Skydrive, its cloud storage service, after a legal challenge by BSkyB. The High Court ruled in June that the name infringed the broadcaster’s trademark. The judge had said there was evidence Skydrive’s name had caused confusion among the public. Microsoft had originally said it would appeal. The tech company […]
A strengthened Intellectual Property Bill, that will help create greater clarity and confidence for businesses who want to protect their intellectual property, has left the House of Lords – the second chamber of UK Parliament – after three months of scrutiny. It will now progress to the next stage, after the summer recess, First Reading […]
The UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport has set out strategic priorities for its review of the media and telecommuncations industries prior to introducing proposals to update existing legislation better to reflect the changes in the sector. In a foreword to the discussion paper – Connectivity, Content and Consumers: Britain’s digital platform for growth – […]
The BBC Trust has begun a review examining how well the BBC’s involvement in broadband television service YouView is meeting the conditions set by the Trust. Launched in July 2012, the open IPTV platform is a joint venture between the BBC and six other partners: commercial broadcasters ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, telco ISPs BT […]