Jakarta – Detailed analysis of the destructive effects of pay-TV signal theft on economic and social development in Southeast Asia featured strongly throughout a series of government and industry meetings in Jakarta, Indonesia. The CASBAA-coordinated meetings were centered on an APEC and ASEAN symposium which covered the protection of broadcast content with officials drawn from 16 governments from around the Asia-Pacific region. The first day of the three-day programme was delivered in cooperation with the Indonesian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Directorate General of Intellectual Property Rights and the Indonesian Multimedia Providers’ Association (APMI). The day opened with Bambang Subijantoro, the Acting Director General of Communications and Means of Dissemination, who outlined a Ministry objective of making the “operating permit” process for cable TV providers in Indonesia “easier and simpler”. By the end of the first quarter of 2010, his department will take action against any remaining illegal operators, he said. The December 14 programme was followed by a regionally focused ‘Signal Piracy, Regulation and Enforcement in a Convergent World’ symposium with the 16 governments with pay-TV broadcasters such as MTV, Turner Broadcasting, ESPN Star Sports, Celestial Pictures and Newscorp, plus signal security providers Irdeto and Viaccess, pay-TV platform operators Indovision, Cignal and Foxtel as well as the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, the Motion Picture Association and European anti-piracy organization AEPOC. This symposium was co-hosted by the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). “The three days of intensive interaction between the APEC and ASEAN officials and the subscription TV industry have been unique in the development of our sector,” said Marcel Fenez, the Chairman of CASBAA. “We greatly look forward to the next stages of this dialogue in 2010.” Among items covered in Jakarta were the impact of TV piracy on domestic creative industries and investment in networks; the losses incurred by governments in terms of tax revenues foregone from black-market and grey-market commercial piracy; the vast potential damage from mass online piracy of TV content and the need for governments and industry to work cooperatively.