Egyptian court jails broadcast content pirate
Details
Rebecca Hawkes
| 08 March 2017

An Egyptian court has ordered a year’s imprisonment and record fine for a man found guilty of illegally distributing and selling stolen broadcast content from OSN channels.

The Middle East pay-TV operator has welcomed the ruling of the Economic Court of Alexandria, who found the defendant guilty of two charges of setting up an illegal broadcast network and breaking intellectual property laws. He was fined EP100,000.

OSN is part of a regional broadcast anti-piracy coalition, along with MBC, Rotana, ART, CNE, MPA, and satellite operators Eutelsat, Arabsat and Gulfsat. The members of the coalition share intelligence on content theft, and work together to raise awareness about the extent of the issue across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The coalition claims that almost 200 Western content infringements and over 4,000 Arabic content infringements occurred in the region in the six months to October 2016.

“The judges have sent out a very strong message. Stealing content from OSN, and other legal owners, can land you in jail as well as face very big fines in Egypt,” Sophie Moloney, OSN chief legal officer and spokesperson on content protection is quoted as saying in Arabian Business.

“We are extremely grateful to the Egyptian Police and enforcement authorities for their hard work on this case. Together we can do a lot to thwart the criminals who steal our content, and help to protect the rights of the creative people who make the wonderful entertainment programmes and movies we all love to watch.”