The scourge of piracy and 5G’s ‘killer app’

Broadcasting industry veteran Dr Abe Peled warned of the serious economic threat now posed by a new wave of piracy.

Dr Peled, chairman of Synamedia, the new spin-off from Cisco, told the IBC Telco & Media Innovation Forum that “streaming piracy is a scourge.”

There was a potentially serious collision on the way as the media industries increased their spending on original content fivefold while at the same time making it easier for pirates to strike by streaming IP.

The former NDS executive who has been involved in the fight against piracy for much of his career, told the Forum that pirates could now buy the equipment needed to capture and redistribute a channel illegally for $500.

The pirates, he added, always followed where the money was.

Fighting piracy will be…