MPs have called for a “robust attack” on a Saudi Arabia backed pirate television station which “steals” content from UK TV channels including the BBC.
Tory MP Giles Watling, a former TV actor who now sits on the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee asked Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright what is being done to prevent the channels, BeoutQ and Arabsat, from “misappropriating our industries”.
BeoutQ’s streaming apps provide access to around 100 UK TV channels including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky and others.
DCMS Committee Chair Damian Collins said: “The issue of beoutQ is straightforward piracy”.
(Image: ANDY RAIN/EPA-EFE/REX)
He added that he would be “slightly concerned” if cracking down on TV piracy was being “balanced with other trade interests in the region”.
But Mr Wright insisted a number of departments were pursuing the matter and “the (British) embassy in Riyadh is speaking to the Saudis on this subject”.
He added: “If we want to see good quality sport, we have to make sure that people are able to protect those rights so they can carry on delivering it to us; and those that are seeking to undermine those rights of course undermine that process.
“So that’s why we take an interest, it’s why we understand and sympathise with the concerns the Premier League and others have expressed and as I say there is activity underway.”
Last month Trade minister George Hollingbery said he was not familiar with the channels, but said the UK would “insist” its intellectual property rules are honoured by other countries “particularly if we are to do trade deals with them”.
