Does ABS-CBN Have a Case Against Dream?

August 5, 2005

Cocktales this morning reports that:

ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. said it was suing Dream Satellite not for competitive reasons, as reported here Monday, but for intellectual piracy in Dream’s re-broadcasting ABS-CBN channels. “ABS-CBN, as in any other broadcast stations, owns its broadcast signal and should be sufficiently compensated if any other entity intends to broadcast the same,” the Lopez network said in a statement.

According to the grapevine, GMA Network Inc. also filed a similar piracy case against Dream.

(The case was also reported here, here, and apparently affected the Sassy Lawyer personally)

The way I see it, the case against Dream can be broken down into two (2) parts: First, Dream is not permitted to re-broadcast Free-to-Air TV signals to its subcribers because the broadcaster “owns its signals.”  Second, Dream is not excused from paying royalties on the ground that it is required to carry Free-to-Air TV signals by relevant regulations of the NTC.

I’ll take the second one first.  (more…)