Audiovisual Media Authority favors piracy

National Channels such as Top Channel and TV Klan, together with other important outlets and also the DigitAlb platform, have asked AMA to intervene in the media market, where acble Tvs pirate the signal of their programs. So far, AMA not only has not undertaken any initiative, but they have expressed a lack of will to implement the law with all cable operators, who have found courage to steal programs even in Tirana, due to the lack of action from the AMA,

What has really happened?

The media market of TV broadcasts  is made of the traditional analogue national and local TV stations, of the digital platforms and of the cable platforms. Analogue and platforms produce programs which are transmitted on cable channels, mostly by violating the law, and often without license and unconcerned by actions that need to be taken by AMA.

National televisions buy their broadcasting rights and produce their own programs by paying all obligations to the state and even to AMA, so that AMA can do its job and implement the laws against piracy and illegal competition. Most of the cable operators use piracy for their channels, without having any agreement with the national TV where the programs are stolen from, and without paying the obligations of the state and AMA. Some even without a broadcasting license.

Mrs.Bushati, the leader of AMA for these five years, has been notified hundreds of times through written complaints, but they have never implemented their obligation. More importantly, they have even violated the law with their passivity in years.

Why did this happen?

AMA has claimed that they don’t have the capacity to monitor and follow the activities of cable TV throughout the country. Meanwhile, AMA has licensed an unprecedented number of cable operators by violating the licensing criteria, one of which is having an agreement for all the programs that are being transmitted.

In our concrete case, it is about the signal and programs of the National televisions, Top Channel and Klan, and also the programs of the digital platform Digitalb. The same goes for other important channels in our country. There is also an impunity level and lack of inspection on all unlicensed operators who not only act as illegals, but they also pirate programs and activities of national televisions and the Digitalb platform on broad daylight, by causing an economic damage to these operators and also to the Albanian government.

What is happening now?

After staying in silence for years, and after of hundreds of official requests made to the damaged operators in the past five years that it was led by Mrs,Bushati, only now AMA is trying to find a reason to address with an official request to the Albanian Copyright Office (OCA).

OCA was created 11 years ago and has been fully functional since then. However, regardless of the reasons and artificial arguments that Mr.Bushati is looking only today, after five years, the OCA also accepts that only the producing companies (Top Channel, TV Klan, Digitalb and every other TV that has been damaged), have the right to authorize the broadcast. For as long that these operators have not authorized the broadcast, and especially when these cables are operating without a license, the thieves should be identified and punished by AMA, which has all the necessary documentation from the damaged Tvs for programs that have been pirated. There is factual evidence 247.

Why Ama is not acting?

All these five years of economic damage to these TV operators and of inactivity and failure to punish piracy from the AMA director, Endira Bushati, show that this institution is incapable and doesn’t have the will to respect the law and obligations to the TV operators who respect all laws and criteria.

In the best case, judging by the long inactivity of AMA and by facing the flagrant piracy, there are reasonable suspicions that everything can be made intentionally and for private interests, by favoring special subjects in the market, with and without licenses.

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