Audiovisual piracy problemsare set to get worse in 2005, according to a new report by lobby body, theEuropean Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services(AEPOC).

The association says thattwo factors will contribute to the growing scale of the piracy problem. Itsays: "the growing ubiquity of audio-visual services creates new breedinggrounds for piracy". And at the same time it says that governments are notdoing enough to protect the industry. The Council of Europe's anti-piracy convention,it notes, has not yet been signed by the European Union.

"2005 will see distribution ofaudio-visual services increasingly being extended to new platforms, creatingnew breeding grounds for piracy. The near future will also see a significant growthof content delivery for mobile devices such as personal digital assistants(PDAs) and mobile telephones. The proliferation of audio-visual content willcreate new risks of piracy at each and every stage of delivery and consumptionof content, resulting in a host of new frontiers in the fight against piracy,"said Jean Grenier, president of AEPOC. "The slogan 'content everywhere'could directly translate into 'piracy everywhere' turning these newopportunities into new, serious threats for the media industry."

Concerning the legalframework, Grenier said: "The convention has not yet been signed by the European Community. AEPOCdeems this step desirable in order to reconfirm the priority for the Union ofstemming audiovisual piracy."

ScreenInternationalwill be holding a conference examining the measures to tackle piracy onThursday 11 Jan. (For further details see: http://www.emapconferences.co.uk/piracy/).