Pay-TV piracy hurts Indian broadcasters

Internet has opened a world of opportunity but absence of an efficient regulatory framework has led to it being used at times for distribution of pirated content and copyright infringement, causing revenue and viewer losses to Indian broadcasters such as Star, Sony, Colors and Zee.

A host of companies such as Reliable TV, a US-based IPTV firm; www.mast.tv, www.idesitv.com are allegedly relaying Indian television channels illegally without paying any subscription fees.

Industry observers said most of them are doing it either by hacking IP addresses or stealing the original content from service providers. Here, there are two major hurdles: First, to locate pirates’ streaming server location and second, to take down hosting server on a sustained basis as they will soon come with another portal with redirecting original DNS and name server.

An independent study done by KLipcorp IP, an anti-piracy protection services firm, which specialises in the removal of video-based pirate feeds, identified 94 instances of piracy for Asia TV during a 5-day anti-piracy trial period in April 2012. During this trial period, KLipcorp took down 50% of the pirate streams. Registered in the UK, Asia TV distributes television content in markets such as Europe, Russia, South Africa and the UK.

According to the study by the anti-piracy company, there were seven advertisers located on 13 occasions supporting pirate streams. While the anti-piracy company concedes it 10% less effective than their usual average, they are confident of identifying many thousand instances of piracy and removing them.

Piracy in various forms, as per an earlier study by the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA), is hurting the overall Asian pay-TV industry to the extent of $970 million a year while losing them significant foreign investment and tax revenues. On top of it, piracy creates avenues to generate illegal funds for crime syndicates, which, in turn, could even be linked to terror groups. CASBAA is an industry-based advocacy group.

Broadcasting industry estimates from India suggest that more than 100 Asian channels are being illegally streamed through websites in the US market alone to over 100,000 South Asian households. Industry estimates indicated that more than 100 channels are illegally streamed to over 10,000 households in the UK market. The number increases every time a cricket match is on. Star, Sony and Zee are among the popular channels in demand abroad.   

A viewer could watch streaming content anywhere in the world on the laptop or desktop using broadband connectivity with a nominal subscription to hacker or web owner. Moreover, the hackers are now offering multi-package channels through portals and with the help of external hardware. The service providers are losing at both ends – genuine subscribers and revenue streams.

“Educating the consumer doesn’t help much when he knowingly does something wrong. Even bigger challenge is that the consumer doesn’t even reckon that the service is illegal. That calls for a two-pronged approach where lack of awareness is supplemented by punitive measures,” said a domain expert.

Moreover, the challenge lies in dispelling overarching perceptions. Taking cognizance of the reigning view on pay-TV piracy, CASBAA chief executive Simon Twiston Davies said, “The perception that pay-TV theft and the theft of other types of intellectual property rights are victimless crime must be clearly rebutted.”

Most Indian broadcasters have created strong anti-piracy departments, whose primary task is to track down and curb piracy. But to take down instances of new found internet piracy, there is need for a professional expertise on offer from established anti-piracy technology companies. This, aided by effective regulatory framework, is likely to prevent misuse of technology.