Thursday, June 27, 2013

That time when you realize that the corruption runs deep.

The latest news! Good thing some people read newspaper thoroughly and someone notice that there were some sort of a new announcement or notice made by MCMC (Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission) or in Malay SKMM (Suruhanjaya Komunikasi dan Multimedia Malaysia), published in one of mainstream newspaper media, Utusan Melayu.

I decided to write up about this issue, TONIGHT! without delay simply because things have gotten worse by the day. Ever since one of the so called 'major source of digital piracy' was taken down, a lot of other websites, forum, blogs, wordpress, and whatnot also suffered the same fate. When people thought, 'well.. we had a good run', and continue with their normal daily lives because obviously they know that 'digital piracy' or 'digital copyright infringement ' is a term coined by the record publishing companies. They use it to sue whoever that is suspected of digital piracy and claim some forecasted losses that is totally unrealistic.

For example, when they caught a person who have downloaded like say, one hundred thousand songs, then the recording company will then try to claim damages amounted to $100,000 provided with each songs cost about $1. You see, whats wrong with this example is that, if the person who is caught downloading the songs decided to 'return back' all those songs, do you think the recording company would just accept it? Why wouldn't they? You do realize that those forecasted sales means the sales that they thought they would sell but in reality thing could turn a bit differently, right?

Now take a good look at this picture. And tell me what do you think about it.



Click on Read more to see the whole thing elaborated.



Yeah, I know its in Bahasa Malay. But the issue is in Malaysia, so.. Apparently, it is not just the internet freedom that was attacked. But also, the freedom of watching a freaking TV! If you understand Bahasa Malay, you will see that in the notice, it says that any satellite receiver that in not in standard approved will be considered as illegal to be used, to be distributed, to be imported, or even to be sold. The reason for this notice, as it was mentioned, was to protect licensed service provider (Its Astro! Who else could it be??) and owner of copyrighted materials (Do we need to name him? Its kinda obvious by now).

Ok, first of all, IPTV means Internet Protocol TeleVision. IPTV set top box have nothing to with the list of 'illegal' product mentioned in the notice. Which is weird. DreamBox, SkyBox, OpenBox, and all of that, is the name brand of satellite receivers. But I will not elaborate on these for now.

The thing is that, the moment that notice mentioned about protecting licensed service provider and owner of copyrighted material, and you know where this is going. Who else in Malaysia that provides satellite receiver for their TV station? Who else provide IPTV set top box? Just not too long ago, in 3rd May 2013, Astro had just announced and launched its 'B.yond IPTV'. The only other IPTV was the Unifi HyppTV (Which hype is a new word for, really sucks). 

And because you can see the pattern here, repeating for over a couple of decades by now, maybe more, you can see how monopoly works in Malaysia. One company is under the government development project, the other one is a private company. The government-backed company will forever supported even though all of its product provided sucks ball, while the private company will provide a little better that the first company. The reason? So the people will go to the private company. 

Remember RTM and TV3? Do you have any idea how much much RTM pays to producers compared to TV3? Alot, RTM's telemovie purchase price is over RM100,000 while Media Prima (TV3) and Astro pay less than that. It almost seems that RTM was kinda allergic to quality production. Because all of its program really sucks.. But RTM never cared. Its a government backed company remember? It will be there as long as this country itself endures. But because of the RTM's programme was sucks, the viewer have no choice but to go to.. other than RTM.

So that is why Astro cannot have other IPTV and satellite receiver, which will not help its monopoly strategy, to go rampant unchecked. Nowadays there are alot of IPTV and satellite receiver that can be easily bought from a electrical hardware store or through an agent. I mean its only a hardware, its like buying a TV to watch a programme. The IPTV and the satellite receiver still have its own packages, but it just a box of decoder, but still, you can see how those words in that notice mentioned ,'that whoever viewing the programmes not intended for the public view with the intention of avoiding rates and fees by the licensed service provider, if found proven guilty would be fined RM300,000 or imprisoned for 3 years or both'. which means you got to shut the fuck up, use their decoder, and watch whatever that they wanted to shove right into your stupid skull.. Either way you are paying them.

It boogle one's mind as to how far exactly, does the government agency actually cater for the large private company. So far, as to ban the people from buying whatever that is that they wanted to ban that is used to watch, you know, a TV. How corrupt, is the government agency when they published a notice of filing in the newspaper, that is written clearly as a day, that it will only benefit the one obvious party? I have mentioned this before that IPTV and the product listed were 2 different things. One is the Internet Protocol TV set and the other is brands of satellite receiver.

And also, it might make you wonder why exactly Astro (its really obvious who pushed for this official notice) all of sudden getting restless only after today? I mean those brands of satellite receiver and IPTV was around for quite sometime. Why now? Could it be there is more to it that just the newly launched 'B.yond IPTV'?

 Why indeed.. Hehehe

The banner was made by Sarawakians in protest to Astro which refused to show live football match for Sarawak team even though the team are winning all the way through the league. Also, most of the households in Sarawak use Astro's satellite receiver in order to watch TV due lack of TV cable. The Sarawakians are calling for all-out boycott to Astro.

Well, there is nothing better than able to bend the government agency to do your bidding.

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