Rules 'should seek to create a balance'

This concern follows the public debate on the blackout of live Euro soccer matches in millions of satellite TV households. GMM Grammy, the holder of local rights to broadcast the tournament this year, leased airtime from three free-TV stations – BEC’s ThaiTV3, the Army’s TV5 and MCOT’s Modernine TV – to broadcast live matches over the airwaves only.

GMM Grammy insists that it protects copyright with signal encryption to control access within the Kingdom, as it must comply with the conditions of the rights owner, Uefa. 

But the Confederation of Con-sumer Organisation of Thailand has complained that GMM Z, the satellite broadcast unit of GMM Grammy, has caused more than 10 million TV viewers to miss the Euro 2012 soccer tournament. It claimed this was a violation of consumer rights.

Sudharma Yoonaidharma, dean of the law school of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the university’s Academy of Enterprise and Public Policy and Regulation (APaR), said Thailand had to strictly enforce copyrights and the intellectual property law. Free TV was a good example of an industry that had been complying with the copyright law. 

He made the remark during a seminar where content makers and thinkers shared views on the copyright law and creativity in the digital media. The event was co-hosted by the ApaR, Institute for Social and Economic Policy and organiser Absolute Communication and Events.

He said the NBTC has the right to set broadcasting regulations but copyrighted content was under the purview of state intellectual property agencies. The blank screen on TV 3, 5 and Modernine as carried by TrueVisions cable network shows that these free channels respect copyrights, he added.

Narongvit Techatanawat, executive producer of GMM Grammy, told the seminar that he hoped people pay as much attention to the issue of copyright protection for music products as they do to GMM Grammy’s broadcasting rights to live Euro matches. Thana Thienachariya, CEO of GMM Z, said the NBTC should prepare well-designed broadcasting rules and regulations to govern this dynamic industry. 

If the watchdog wants to adopt the “must carry” rule, it should determine clear-cut guidelines on which international sports events should be on a list to be made available to all viewers. Under the rule, satellite and cable TV platforms would show free TV programmes on their networks.

Ekachai Phakdurong, vice president for corporate affairs at Thaicom, the country’s broadcasting satellite operator, said the watchdog might support TV operators that want to launch a joint bid for those listed events as a TV Pool.