Major content owners and technology providers met in Beijing - — 24 Mar 2010
CONCLUSION OF 3RD DIGITAL FUTURE SYMPOSIUM CHINA, BEIJING 2010
Major content owners and technology providers met in Beijing on the 24 March 2010 for the Digital Future Symposium (DFS) event organised by the Centre for Content Protection (CCP) to discuss the future of digital distribution in China and the Asia region. Amongst the attendees were government officials, technology providers, content protection companies and legal practitioners. 119 people from all over Asia attended, including those from the United States, Europe and China.
The event partnered CDTV, a local Chinese TV publication and entity, with the Motion Picture Association’s representative office in China.
The meeting found that China’s State Council has announced the decision to advance the three-network convergence (Telecom, broadcast TV and internet) to introduce new services and drive consumption. The convergence network solution will enable audience to enjoy more TV programs. New distribution channels are inspiring new revenue streams. Hot discussion remains on how to balance between content owners’ legitimate rights and public interests.
China’s State Administration for Radio, Film and TV (SARFT) opened the meeting with its keynote speaker Wang Xiao Jie. The meeting found a keen interest between Chinese companies to partner with content companies and foreign entities. It was found, however, there are still some misalignments regarding the role of copyright in China and protection of intellectual property. On a more positive note, there are strong indications that piracy and copyright infringement are beginning to be questioned as business models for UGC and Internet sites.
In the New Media panel, the attendees found that new and upcoming media for entertainment include mobile as a key delivery mode for movies and TV in future. Mobile content was seen as the area which would bring new business and revenues to content owners and producers in the Asian region including China.
Another important finding was the possibility of legal recourse for companies seeking court action against piracy in China. The legal panel found that while the process remained significantly complicated for foreign companies to address piracy issues in the Chinese courts, it is not impossible to do so and there are now cases to reflect.
The technology panelists found interest in the China market for content protection. For content companies to invest and participate in China business, strong and dependable content security is required. It was found that content protection enables pay-per-view and other legitimate business models in various platforms. Content protection is provided for by content protection companies in the region who are also members of the CCP.
The increasing occurrences of piracy and “control-word sharing” in content protection inform content producers that there is much work to be done: and that security cannot be overlooked when delivering high value content on broadcast channels. “Control-word sharing” is an example where a hacker obtains the codes to a specific set-top box, and redistributes the code over the Internet to enable larger illegitimate channels.
The conference overall identified that content distribution and delivery very much remains hot topics in China and it is envisaged that new business models will accompany the rise of mobile in China.