On August 10, 2016, the first Anti-Piracy Convention was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina featuring several exhibitors from both public and private sectors.  At this conference, various issues affecting the LATAM multimedia industry were discussed.

The event began with a welcome address, detailing the objectives of the conference, by Sebastian Lateulade (President of TodotvMedia) and Francisco Escutia (CEO, Latin American Antipiracy and IP Consulting, LLC (LAAPIP).

Presentations included sessions on multiple topics such as status of pay television and piracy and its impacts throughout LATAM.

STATUS OF THE PAY TV IN ARGENTINA

Speakers: Tomás Gennari (of Business Bureau, BB), Ralph Haiek, (Vice president of National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts INCAA), Federico Villalba, (Representative of National Public Prosecutor's Office Ministerio Público Fiscal de C.A.B.A.) & Ms. Silvana Giudici (Director of National Authority for Communications (ENACOM)

Mr. Gennari talked about the large number of households using pirated platforms today which not only affects advertisers, producers, software developers, hardware, collective management of copyright, to the market, but also the society in general.

The use of pirated platforms has resulted in pay TV in Argentina coming more or less to a standstill as no better alternatives are offered to the public. In contrast, Uruguay managed to reduce this problem by investing in digital TV and enacting an antipiracy law. Argentina should follow this path as well.

Mr. Haiek confirmed that the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA) is contributing to the fight against piracy through the creation of good and accessible content distribution locations.  They are the national representative fighting for those who cannot access content on a regular basis.  INCAA cooperates closely with the Argentinean Culture Ministry.  Together these offices are working on improving a better selection of films and the distribution of movies to everyone on Argentine TV, in the hopes of offering a better-varied selection on Argentine TV, thereby reducing the usage of pirated platforms.

National Public Prosecutor's Office raised the need to recognize piracy as a specific offense categorized as "unauthorized use of signals".  Although recognition of the "unauthorized use of signals" is an issue still pending in Argentina, Mr. Villabla confirmed that in Uruguay, this offense has been recognized as a criminal act by the creation of the "Anti-piracy law".  Argentina wants to adopt the same type of legislation regarding piracy.

Created in December 2015 through Decree 267, The National Authority for Communications (ENACOM) regulates communications in order to ensure that all domestic users have quality services. Ms. Giudici emphasized that ENACOM is aiming to draft a new media law, known as "Act of Communications Convergence" to replace the current law 26,522, enacted in 2009.  This new media law will integrate the various companies of collective approaches, associations related to the media, authors, musicians, etc., and long term be responsible for the fighting of piracy.

INDUSTRY PANEL – LOSSES AND IMPACT OF PIRACY

Panelists: Daniel Steinmetz, (Fox's Chief Anti-Piracy Officer), Francisco Barreto, (VP General Counsel & Corporate Affairs at DIRECTV ARGENTINA), Victor Roldan (VP Legal Affairs & Associate General Counsel at TURNER), & Sergio Piris (CABLEVISION's Head of Legal Affairs and Crime Clandestinidad Technologies)

During this segment, representatives of the communication industry expressed their current policies to combat piracy, including:

  • legal proceeding,
    • new specific regulations,
    • digitizing networks,
    • investment of money and time,
    • consumer education,
    • easy access to different contents so that consumers can access them simultaneously to its release in another country.

INTERNET PIRACY PANEL

This segment began with the issue of advertising as big business for the internet, because as more piracy content  a site uses, the more users enter, attracting more advertisers and obtaining, as a result, significant gains.

To combat this problem, the internet industry is looking for users to move from using illegal
sites to consume and pay for legal contents.  Therefore, it is working with internet search mechanisms to prevent access to these pirate sites through:

  • "notice and take down": the site is notified so the content is removed from it
  • "site lock": the site and the content are not removed but the access to them is blocked for a specific country.

Finally, it is concludes that piracy is a regional problem and, therefore, the cooperation of all LATAM countries is needed.

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