Hollywood lobby wants Singapore to crack down on piracy

SINGAPORE: The city-state which prides itself on being a haven for law and order is being called a haven for pirating copyrighted programming by entertainment titans such as Walt Disney, HBO, the National Basketball Association and the English Premier League.

Viewers in the republic buy legitimate set-top boxes that also allow unauthorised streaming of thousands of movies, TV shows and live sporting events, said the Coalition Against Piracy.

Its 21 members, including divisions of Sony Corp and TwentyFirst Century Fox Inc, want the government to block the pirating software inside the devices, which are found at local electronics stores and on e-commerce sites such as Lazada.

“Within the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore is the worst in terms of availability of illicit streaming devices,” said Neil Gane, general manager of the Asia-focused coalition, referring to countries where the boxes are considered legal.

“They have access to hundreds of illicit broadcasts of channels and video-on-demand content,” he added.

Singapore, notorious for imposing the death penalty for some drug and firearm offences, is a focal point in the entertainment industry’s campaign to curb piracy in the region.

Online TV and movie piracy will cost the industry an estimated US$31.8bil (RM131.9bil) in global revenue this year, reaching US$51.6bil (RM214.1bil) by 2022, according to London-based Digital TV Research.

The Asia-Pacific region will become the largest for online piracy next year, overtaking North America, the researcher said.

Singapore ranked ninth in the number of visits per Internet user to piracy websites, according to London-based Muso TNT, which tracks such visits.

In a separate survey of 1,000 Singaporeans sponsored by industry association CASBAA, about 40% said they were active consumers of pirated content.