Anti-piracy war takes another turn Downunder

[Len]

China’s biggest media content producers, TVBO Productions and Television Broadcasts (TVB), are batting the Australian Federal Court over multiple piracy infringements via Australian IPTV networks.

TVB claim that content theft is occurring by Australian pirates across a range of its content catalog including pre-recorded films made by TVB, content exclusively licensed by TVB in Hong Kong but not in Australia; pre-recorded films and live TV among others.

TVB legal counsel has stated that around 51 percent of all TVB content being consumed via the set-top boxes in Australia are TVB-made and TVB-exclusive licensed films and higher when taking into account the mixed category of pre-recorded films and live TV.

TVB's application takes issue with seven separate set-top boxes, priced between AU$155 and AU$240, that run on the Google Android operating system and use proprietary software applications that work only with each box.

These services allow users to watch video-on-demand content, live TV broadcasts, and replayed TV broadcasts from five separate channels owned by TVB by accessing them through "target application markets."

The Chinese broadcasters are seeking an order to sever the domain names involved in the process.

According to TVB, the impact of piracy on its business caused a revenue loss of around AU$35 million between 2011 and 2017 and reduced its employee headcount in Australia by 35 positions.

In another hearing during April, Roadshow Films successfully gain orders by the Federal Court for ISPs to block 16 online locations of alleged piracy websites that were being used by smart TV boxes to access alleged copyright-infringing streaming services via apps.

The TVBO/TVB and Roadshow cases began in December 2017.

Also during April, Foxtel brought yet another piracy site-block case to the Federal Court, this time targeting 15 online locations involving around 27 domain names.

Previous site-block hearings saw content owners successfully seek blocks against Kickass Torrents, the Pirate Bay, and more than 200 additional alleged piracy sites.

The Chinese TV company wants to have the same telcos listed in Roadshow’s application block online services linked to seven Android-based set-top boxes: A1, BlueTV, EVPAD, FunTV, MoonBox, Unblock, and hTVS. The set-top boxes are largely focused on streaming Chinese language content, the court heard.

In addition to seeking to block the online services associated with a number of apps that run on the set-top boxes, TVB said it wants ISPs to block access to the app marketplaces related to what it dubs the “illicit streaming devices” (ISDs).

TVB will present further evidence relating to the copyright status of its broadcasts at an additional hearing in May.