TV decoder piracy problem
The issue of ‘TV piracy’ made headlines recently when the Sunday Independent reported that the SABC and Sentech could land in hot water because content aimed at South Africans only is being pirated throughout Africa.
“The national broadcaster is licensed to show movies in South Africa only but viewers from the sub-Saharan region in Mozambique, Angola, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are able to watch SABC free of charge,” the newspaper reported.
ICASA councillor Robert Nkuna is quoted as saying that the SABC’s signal was being pirated by people throughout Africa who used a cheap Chinese-made decoder known as Philiboa.
“This receiver is said to be sold in some of these countries by Chinese nationals who operate small shops that sell the receiver and dish cheaply. Some are on the market with the branding SA2010 to cash in on the Soccer World Cup,” the Sunday Independent reported.
“The device is similar to a standard satellite receiver; however it has been modified in China, to be able to decrypt the encryption system used on Sentech’s Vivid decoders.” Sentech launched its Vivid satellite TV service a few years ago, offering subscribers a variety of free-to-air channels, including SABC 1, 2 and 3.
Sentech responds
Sentech has now responded to reports about the piracy problem on its Vivid Decoders, saying that the entire Direct-to-Home (DTH) and Pay-TV signal distribution industry has to contend and deal with the universal piracy problem that comes with the territory on an ongoing basis.
“Sentech has always used encryption on our satellite platforms to secure programming content,” the company said.
Sentech added that it is vigilant about the security of the service and that they take the hacking of encryption very seriously. “Like all signal distributors around the world, we use both technical and legal means to try and combat piracy,” Sentech said.
Sentech’s Vivid service is available in Sub-Saharan Africa for viewers who have purchased the Vivid decoders. The Vivid platform is carried by satellite and as such the broadcast footprint extends into Sub-Saharan Africa.
According to Sentech the encryption software used in the Vivid decoder protected the geographic integrity of the broadcasters’ offerings outside South African borders.
“On the technical side, we do over-the-air technical updates designed to disable pirate devices and at times major Conditional Access (CA) system upgrades are necessary to keep ahead of the game. We are currently busy with such a major upgrade involving upgrading of all CA systems including smart card security as well as Set Top Boxes (STBs),” said Sentech.
“As a result thereof, we can confirm that e.tv is temporarily unavailable on Sentech’s Vivid DTH satellite service. While this new technology is state of the art today, our vendors are well aware that the pirates are starting to study these new security technologies to find ways to attack them and it will only be a matter of time until new attacks are successful and the cycle begins over again.”
Sentech added that they also enlist the services of the legal experts to combat piracy. “We have even employed private investigators and together with our reputable Intellectual Property Attorneys began a sting operation in order to get to the source of the piracy.”
“We are continually in communication with the South African Police Services Commercial branch that has all the relevant details of our findings. Ongoing SAPS investigations have resulted in the closure of one of the major distributors selling pirate decoders. The investigations are cumbersome and can be expensive as the syndicate is international.”
Sentech said that only SABC News International is expected to be received in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa by a satellite decoder. “No other SABC services can reach Europe or America on a Sentech satellite transmission. The encryption is not even a factor here as the footprints for the other SABC services do not reach beyond Southern Africa for Ku-band and Sub-Saharan Africa for C-band,” said Sentech.
Sentech concluded that it was not aware of any threatened legal action in respect of the signal carried on behalf of the SABC.
TV decoder piracy problem << Discussion
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