Miguel Angel Oliva, vice-president of public relations and corporate affairs, HBO Latin American Group. Right: Cordel Green, executive director of Jamaica's Broadcasting Commission.

Jamaica's top regulator for subscriber television (STV), Cordel Green, has largely blamed American content providers - such as HBO and Cinemax - for the piracy of their signals by the island's STV companies, accusing the US firms of a long-standing "intransigence" in responding to the requirements of the Jamaican and other Caribbean markets.

Green, the executive director of Jamaica's Broadcasting Commission, said in an interview that his agency has been attempting, since 2002, to mediate the impasse and rejected that the commission was only now responding to the piracy concerns "because someone from HBO comes to Jamaica and starts granting some interviews".

This was clear reference to a campaign been waged in the Jamaican media - buttressed by hints of copyright infringement lawsuits - by Miguel Angel Oliva, the vice-president for public and corporate affairs at HBO Latin American Group, for the commission to clamp down on piracy.

"Many of the US programmers, including HBO, USA Network, Lifetime and Showtime, had refused to negotiate licensing arrangements with Jamaican and Caribbean cable operators and this was happening despite repeated promises to do so and despite urgings by the Office of the US Trade Representative," Green told the Financial Gleaner.

"I am not offering to you the explanation for that intransigence at the time," said Green, speaking in the context of a 2002 brief to the Government, which he said outlined a number of possible approaches for dealing with the problem.

"It could have been questions about whether this was a market in which they had really taken an interest, based on our disposable income and the bearable cost for cable," he said.

"It could be a business decision."

Green's comments are likely to be regarded as a bit of a salve for cable providers who have come under pressure over piracy in recent weeks, particularly the big three - Flow, Telstar and Logic One - which were first in HBO's firing line.

Significantly, too, Green's seeming combative remarks appear, on the face of it, to be a spurning of a commendation by HBO Latin America this week for theBroadcasting Commission's recent efforts to halt the unauthorised broadcast of its signals.

"HBO Latin America Group SM commends the Broadcasting Commission's diligent efforts and immediate actions to curtail the illegal transmission of HBO's signal by several Jamaican cable operators," the company said in a statement issued from Miami.

"Likewise, the company wishes to reiterate to those who are still broadcasting its signal illicitly to cease immediately," it added.

In the weeks since Angel Oliva came to Jamaica late last month as part of a more public and aggressive move by HBO to enforce its copyright and intellectual property rights, the attitude of the domestic STV providers has been mixed.

Some have since stopped broadcasting channels, while others have stopped and restarted or haven't stopped at all. Jamaica, like most of the Caribbean, is in the footprint of US domestic satellite, making it relatively easy for anyone here to access channels meant for the American market. Indeed, something of a cottage industry in cable/satellite box code-breaking has developed here to provide access to US satellite delivered television.

Competitive disadvantage

Paula Francis, manager of Logic One Limited. - File

Jamaican STV operators say that the top US channels are in such high demand domestically that it would place them at a competitive disadvantage if they do not carry them but their rivals did.

Some cable companies insist they are not averse to paying for the American content, but claim that until recently the US providers insisted that they take Latin American feeds, which often raised language and content issues.

"HBO 10 years ago offered a Spanish feed," Paula Francis, manager of Logic One, said in an interview earlier this month. "We do not speak Spanish."

Angel Oliva said in an interview that HBO has since developed a package for the English-speaking Caribbean, but that, apparently, is still being evaluated by Jamaican operators.

In his interview this week, the Broadcasting Commission's Green said while the footprint of US domestic satellite made the feeds accessible, "there was no regime in place for cable operators to access licences".

It was against this backdrop, Green said, that his agency's brief to the Government seven years ago proposed a framework for dealing with the issue, including joint Caribbean action and a possible unilateral payment regime in the event the US companies did not sign on to an agreement.

"What we were arguing in the ministerial brief was the fact that that intransigence on the part of a lot of the US programmers undermined the effort of the Government to develop a workable legal regime that would ensure the commercial success of cable operations (in Jamaica)," he said.

It was felt, then, that Jamaica should rally its regional partners to negotiate with HBO and others and to urge US firms to include the English-speaking Caribbean in any distribution contracts they fashioned for their domestic markets.

It was also proposed at the time, Green said, that the English-speaking Caribbean, and particularly Jamaica, "should introduce compulsory licensing laws to allow transmission of programming and payments of copyright fees where US programmers refused to negotiate with Jamaican and Caribbean cable operators".

Moves not sanctioned

The Jamaican authorities seemingly did not sanction these moves, although some other jurisdictions were heading in that direction.

However, Green indicated that the Broadcasting Commission continued to pursue the issue with the US content providers, even warning HBO in a 2007 letter that "there is a serious risk that cable operators will respond to the audience demand by acting in breach of copyright laws in Jamaica".

"We have been dealing with this issue consistently for almost a decade, but they have come with a complaint. Our job is to regulate," said Green in a thinly veiled stab at Angel Oliva.

"So we act, until our investigation (into the alleged breaches) is complete."

Added Green: "There remains a few matters that we need clarified with HBO about their engagement with these cable operators, but the signals have been ordered to be taken down and all companies have complied."