CANAL+ HUNTS DOWN PIRATE DECODERS IN EUROPE.

• Position: Brief Article

On 12 September, the television channel Canal+, whose broadcasts are encrypted, announced that it had recently conducted a wide-ranging offensive against all holders of pirate cards and decoders in France and in Spain, expressing the view that pirating is "the work of criminal organisations operating on an international scale". In France, the digital broadcasting centre for the Canal+ group (Vivendi Universal) sent "a specific electronic signal which neutralised the majority of the pirate cards currently in circulation", according to a press release by the group. In Spain, Canal+ performed the same technical operation three days earlier and has already "programmed similar actions at regular intervals over the coming weeks in order to make it futile for the pirates to reprogram their cards". The same...