BSkyB has won permission to appeal against a Competition Appeal Tribunal ruling forcing it to reduce its 17.9% stake in ITV to below 10%. Last November, the Competition Appeal Tribunal rejected an appeal against the original ruling in October 2007 that the deal had restricted competition but Sky went to the Court of Appeal which […]
France’s culture minister has defended a new bill clamping down on Internet piracy that is backed by music artists but opposed by consumer groups. The proposed “creation and Internet law” has stirred controversy over a provision allowing a state agency to cut off Internet access for up to a year to those caught illegally downloading […]
From David Del Valle in Madrid Spain’s broadcasting agency Abertis Telecom, shareholder in satellites Hispasat and Eutelsat, has rejected SES Astra’s charges of favouritism in the Spanish DTT market before the European Union. In a letter to the European Competition and to the Spanish Ministry of Industry, the company has defended the Spain’s DTT model […]
Oxford Economics institute in UK says online piracy cost the industry £235 million (E253m) in 2008 – that's nearly half of the £531 million the group says was lost to piracy of all kinds. But the annual online loss could be reduced to £83.2 million if downloaders received an ISP warning and if detection technologies […]
The Shenzhen Bureau of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine revealed that the European Union’s new environmental regulations for simple set-top boxes (STBs) will directly affect China’s STB export business, which is valued at nearly RMB 10 billion (E1.14bn). A spokesperson for the bureau said that China currently produces more than 50 million STBs every year […]
Talking before a UK Parliamentary committee Comms Minister Lord Carter continued to hint net neutrality would not be a foundation of his Digital Britain report. Having already assured BT its investment in NGN would be recognised and protected, he said "Our emerging view is that it is not unreasonable for a network provider to be […]
BSkyB is lobbying to have the list of sporting events reserved for free-to-air television abolished in an ongoing government review. Chief executive Jeremy Darroch said Sky would argue for a situation where the World Cup or the Olympics could be shown on pay TV, with sports bodies free to decide where to sell their rights […]
Telenor has rejected the demand from the IFPI to block access to the Swedish website The Pirate Bay, and says there is no legal basis for the demand for ISPs to control or assess the content users download. Telenor says it does not condone pirating of material and illegal file sharing. In Telenor’s opinion, expressed […]
Vivendi and broadband provider Iliad have joined together to file a complaint with the European competition authorities against France Telecom claiming it has abused its dominant market position in the country's fixed-line and broadband market. Vivendi chief Jean Bernard Lévy noted that 11 years after the market was open to competition, France Telecom still had […]
A French commercial court has told France Telecom to stop linking subscriptions to its Orange Foot soccer channel exclusively to its broadband packages. Rival broadband providers Iliad and Neuf Cegetel had complained to the court that it was unfair for Orange Football to be available only to France Telecom’s broadband subscribers. A France Telecom spokesman […]