Raising the stakes

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Scott Butler, CEO, Arabian Anti-piracy Alliance.

Middle East broadcasters see their investments in content undermined by piracy in its many guises. The Arabian Anti-piracy Alliance (AAA) is charged with tackling piracy on all fronts. Digital Broadcast spoke with CEO Scott Butler about the organisation’s latest weapons and emerging threats.

The AAA has seized more than 30 million pirated discs since it began operations. Led by a one-time Major in the US Special Forces, the AAA, which was originally a branch of the Motion Picture Association's (MPA) anti-piracy unit, now deals with optical disc, internet, software and pay TV piracy.

"We launched operations in 1996 with a focus on optical disc piracy. We managed to drive pirated material off the shelves and into the backstreet warehouses," says Scott Butler, AAA CEO. "Home entertainment sales immediately responded positively."

Legally, the AAA has no power to carry out raids or to prosecute - its role is to lobby governments and provide the relevant authorities with the knowledge they need to enforce intellectual property rights (IPR) law.

"We work with the authorities and the stakeholders to ensure criminal raids are conducted. At the end of the day, they have all the responsibility and the power," explains Butler.

Pay TV piracy is proving a more complex challenge than that presented by counterfeit DVDs, whose distribution the AAA has successfully nullified.

"Pay TV is not a tangible product like fake Nike shoes. You can't just go into a warehouse and seize it and there are so many ways culprits can steal the signal. We have to train the authorities to combat all the methods that consumers can use to acquire these services illegally."

Butler says that education is a large part of the AAA's operations in the UAE, with the Ministry of Economy (MoE), customs officials and the police all working with the Alliance to successfully combat copyright violators.

Pay TV signal violations can take many forms from hacked Smartcards, illegal redistribution of signals (collectively termed cable piracy) and grey market services from neighbouring regions such as Africa's Multichoice and India's Dish TV. There is also a new, more complex mode of pay TV piracy to be combated.

"The internet is throwing up a number of major challenges as broadband penetration levels increase across the region," says Butler.

"There was a dedicated download pirate site for the UAE called DVD4UAE.com offering free movies from a library of 600. The pirate had received 12,000 downloads, that is 12,000 movies that the studios received nothing for.

"The other half of the site offered pay TV streaming for $10 a month with services from ART, Orbit, Showtime and Pehla and others."

The AAA has a two-fold strategy for internet based piracy with the UAE Telecommunication's Regulatory Authority (TRA) blocking 410 sites offering unlicensed access to pay TV as well as movies and video games. However, Butler says that they are increasingly finding internet pirates operating within the region.

"Anyone that thinks this activity is only happening in Europe and the US is wrong - there are internet pirates based in the GCC. Dubai Police recently established a cyber crimes unit and to date they've had two great successes, one of which was DVD4UAE.com.

The police and the MoE tracked the culprit down, arrested him in Al Ain and raided a property in Ajman where his operation was based. They seized both servers and he was sentenced to three months in prison. In another case, authorities seized five servers and 15 satellites dishes from the roof and arrested five individuals.

"We have had a lot of positive results in all areas. Ten years ago the UAE became the first country in the region to imprison a copyright violator. Now Bahrain and Qatar are imprisoning pirates too. In these three countries, chances are those who are caught will go to prison. A first-time offender was sentenced to eight months in prison when they were caught with 850 DVDs. Another pirate who was caught with just one hacked pay TV smartcard was sentenced to a year in prison."

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