Set-top boxes and apps carrying Internet TV targets of strict new rules
China has issued a new notice to crack down on illegal Internet TV devices, which provide programming that has not been approved by regulators.
The new rules are outlined in a notice from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT), the Ministry of Public Security, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate addressed to local courts and public security departments at provincial-level regions, including the of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, reported lmtw.com, a Beijing-based media portal.
The notice aims to protect national and social security, the report said.
Equipment defined as illegal in the notice include devices and software that can share and receive signals from illegal TV networks such as set top boxes and apps.
Many set top boxes and video streaming apps offer unlicensed material that has not been reviewed by authorities, such as pornographic videos as well as other misleading content.
Engagement in the production and sale of such equipment as well as providing for-profit services such as illegal downloading will be regarded as criminal activities, according to the notice.
Serious violators can be fined over 100,000 yuan ($15,700) and be prosecuted for criminal liability, it added.
"Terrorism has been increasing, tending to spread its extremist's ideas and messages and recruit members through new media, and their way of transmission is becoming more diverse nowadays. Through strengthening government forces to regulate illegal TV networks and receiving devices, chances of spreading and receiving such materials will be efficiently reduced," Li Wei, an expert on counter-terrorism with the Chinese Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Zhang Peng, an associate film professor at Nanjing Normal University, told the Global Times on Wednesday that online TV networks lack strong supervision, resulting in problems such as copyright infringement and the spread of sexual and violent material.
"Streaming overseas channels and programs is seen as infringement because it was done without authorization and it is harming domestic interests of those legal stations that had paid for the permission," Zhang explained.
Zhang said the notice this time could be considered as the strongest policy and will give no further loopholes because producing, selling, installing the devices and providing download services are now criminal offenses.
In October 2014, more than 80 online streaming stations were ordered to rectify themselves after they were found streaming programs without permission and streaming overseas channels illegally, the report added.
Ying Xiaoqiang, a Hangzhou-based media observer, told the Global Times that the notice can give a strong legal protection to artists and producers.
He also called for strict law enforcement of the new notice to eliminate the illegal TV network stations.
