Iffy protection? No way, go away, beIN boss says

beIN Media Group has ratcheted up its battle against piracy, saying it will no longer buy rights from companies that don’t adequately protect their own IP. 

The Qatar-based global programmer, which also owns U.S. studio Miramax, has already stepped away from its renewal of Formula One rights for the Middle East and North Africa as part of its harder-line stand.

The new acquisitions policy “is not a threat, it’s a promise,” says Tom Keaveny, former MD of Discovery Asia and now managing director, beIN Media. 

Keaveny is leading a high-profile multi-billion dollar battle against the 18-month-old Saudi-based broadcaster, beoutQ, widely believed to be backed by the Saudi government and said to be the boldest pirate operation in history. 

Keaveny’s position is that there’s no point paying top dollar for rights when rights holders shy away from the anti-piracy battlefront.

“What it comes down to is the integrity of the IP. It’s all very well people talking about it, but they need to take action. We will no longer be dealing with companies who do not protect their own rights, do not advocate, and do not take action,” he told ContentAsia. 

The policy is not confined to the Middle East/North Africa. 

“Protecting and valuing your own IP is now one of our calculations when we are considering rights globally,” Keaveny says. 

He has already called on Hollywood to step up activity against beoutQ, which has expanded its sports focus across genres and offers set-top-box embedded apps with unauthorised access to thousands of U.S. studio titles among other content. 

 Keaveny talks about piracy as an existential threat to the economic model of the entertainment industry; a position platforms and programmers in Asia support although none have taken their fight as far or as public.

“We need people to care about their rights as much as we do,” he says. 

Sports rights holders across the board say beoutQ’s threat to the industry cannot be under-estimated, particularly since the platform’s end goal is less likely to be money than the destruction of a Qatari enterprise. 

Separately, ContentAsia has been told that formerly bouyant markets in the Middle East are now struggling as a direct result of beoutQ, and legitimate sports packs – not only beIN’s – are in danger of disappearing. 

Rights holders say political tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia makes this a battle they can’t fight and win alone. “This has to be solved at state level,” one said.  

Sports and entertainment trade associations in the U.S. and Europe – including the NBA, U.S. Tennis Association, Sky in the U.K. and Canal+ in Europe – have already united behind the effort. 

Earlier this month submissions were made to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) demanding that Saudi Arabia be sanctioned for not following the rules of international trade agreements. 

In its submission, beIN/Miramax said “Saudi Arabia has permitted, and indeed facilitated, the operation within its territory of the boldest, most sophisticated pattern of broadcast piracy that the world has ever seen”. 

The submission also outlines the spread from sports to movies and television. Similar initiatives have emerged in Europe and the U.K., and the World Trade Organisation has set up a dispute settlement panel to investigate. 

Keaveny talks about the “negative multiplier” of piracy. 

“If IP has no value and things are free, no one is going to pay for it. That means everyone has less money, including, for instance, football development programmes,” he says, adding: “If we don’t succeed in stopping beoutQ, the ecosystem will collapse”.

This article was originally published in ContentAsia's eNewsletter on 18 February 2019. More at www.contentasia.tv 

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