Court to decide today on consumer body's plea against GMM
The Civil Court will today decide whether to accept a case filed by the Confederation of Consumer Organisations of Thailand and satellite TV viewers against GMM Grammy, the sole holder of rights to broadcast live Euro 2012 matches along with three free-TV
The confederation claimed that GMM Z, the satellite broadcast unit of GMM Grammy, was responsible for more than 10 million TV viewers being unable to watch the Euro 2012 soccer matches. It considers this a violation of common consumer rights.
The Civil Court spent three days hearing the petition and convened experts, witnesses and others to get the relevant details before making its decision.
On Monday, two plaintiffs and two expert witnesses appeared, while yesterday a representative from GMM Z was questioned on behalf of defendants.
Dew Waratangtagoon, managing director for platform strategy at GMM Z, insisted that the company must comply with the conditions of the rights owner, namely the Union of European Football Associations (Uefa). The company must focus on copyright protection with signal encryption to control the satellite TV signal within the Kingdom.
After negotiations with Uefa to amend its contract with GMM Grammy and extend the rights to other satellite TV platforms such as PSI, IPM and TrueVisions, Infosat, Leotech, DTV’s standard definition service, Ideasat, Thaisat and Dynasat satellite dishes equipped with conditioned access (CA) systems, the Uefa replied that such a change would be offset by a critical risk of spillover into territories outside Thailand.
However, the court wanted more technical information regarding the transmission of satellite TV signal from other defendants such as BEC’s ThaiTV3, the Royal Army’s TV5 and MCOT’s Modernine TV or other free-TV operators.
Chumnan Ravivanpong, chief judge of the Civil Court, said that after considering all factors, the court expected to make a decision today.
