Regulators, law enforcement agencies and industry players have converged at the Kuala Lumpur Digital Content Anti-Piracy Summit to discuss efforts on safeguarding Malaysia’s creative content industry against digital piracy. The summit was organized by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), in collaboration with Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) and Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA), and supported by Maiaysian content companies including Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd, Media Prima Bhd/ dimsum and iflix.
The summit brings together government representatives/ industry and tech experts in a common platform where they exchanged information, best practices, and guidelines on how to curb digital piracy together with local and international experts from MCMC/ Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (KPDNHEP), MylPO, Media Partners Asia, 21st Century Fox, Singtet, and the English Premier League. In his opening address, Minister of Communications and Multimedia Malaysia, YB Tuan Gobind Singh Dec said that the government acknowledges the need for it to be more proactive in fighting digital piracy so that Internet users and media consumers do not take this issue lightly.
“Collective support and involvement of relevant law enforcement agencies such as KPDNHEP, KKMM, MCMC, and PDRM; industry players; Internet service providers; and consumer associations are critical to ensure sustainable and continuous efforts are being done. More importantly, these stakeholders need to understand that the collaboration extends above and beyond understanding of their own role but that which involves their investments in terms of time, manpower/ and finance,” said the Minister.
Also present at the event was MCMC Chairman, Encik Al-lshsai Ishak who revealed that close cooperation between KPDNHEP and MCMC have long been established particularly in the area of technical assistance to block access to websites that violates the Copyright Act 1987.
In his speech, Al-lshsal called on all stakeholders to do their part/ in a concerted and sustained effort, to educate the public about intellectual property and the culture of respecting other people’s intellectual property rights and ownership.
He encouraged the participants of the summit to benefit from the exchanges of valuable information and networking at this summit as they could contribute to a more holistic and effective strategy in tackling digital piracy.
“As the regulator and developer of Malaysia’s communications and multimedia industry/ we are committed to ensure and engender a digital world that is safe from all potential risks including piracy,” said Al-lshsal.
The implication of the digital piracy to Malaysia’s economy is significant where these illegal activities had caused the industry RM1.05 billion in loss of revenue and the government RM157 million in loss of tax as of year 2016 along with 1,900 job losses in the filming and broadcasting industry*.
Source: Astro’s internal analysis of the market landscape supported by reports from PWC Global Media Outlook Report 2016, Comscore 2016 and Oxford Ecomomics 2014.
