03. 03. 2010
ANEM ACTIVITIES IN FIGHT AGAINST BROADCASTING “PIRACY”
One of the main objectives ANEM is advocating for is the establishment of a functioning market that enables media to operate under equal conditions and in accordance with economic principles. A large number of illegal broadcasters, which economically threaten legal broadcasters to a great extent, by jamming of the signal and dumping prices in particular, are among several important reasons which prevent that. The relevant regulatory bodies, as they say, have not been able to effectively cope with this problem due to a lack of legal authority and lack of support of state bodies.
Working in the interest of its stations, ANEM constantly seeks ways of effectively solving this issue. In addition to particular advocating for its stations that suffer the consequences of chaos in the broadcasting sphere, ANEM has contributed to the inclusion of the assistance of state authorities to regulatory bodies in preventing the work of broadcasters without proper license as one of the Government measures from 2009 to assist the media in conditions of crisis. However, this cooperation of the competent authorities has not yet been realized, so there are still a large number of illegal broadcasters in 2010.
Considering it extremely important to solve this problem efficiently and as quickly as possible, ANEM sent a letter on February 3, 2010, to the Minister of Internal Affairs. In its letter, ANEM requested a meeting with the Minister and stated the facts about the number of "pirate stations", but also informed him on the degree of various forms of endangerment of its members and other broadcasters because of lack of legal capacity of the regulatory bodies to cope with broadcasting "piracy" on their own. At the same time, ANEM proposed possible legal actions of the Ministry and police in solving this problem - on the basis of violations of law that are the subject of illegal broadcasting (Art. 149, paragraph 2 and Art. 353 of the Serbian Criminal Code).
After the letter, on February 26, 2010, a meeting was held at the offices of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, with representatives of ANEM and Interior Minister Ivica Dacic. The meeting was also attended by Mr. Milorad Veljovic, director of the Police. The topic of the meeting was the situation in the broadcasting sphere, namely, the problem of ANEM stations and other electronic media, caused by a large number of stations that broadcast without the proper license, which, by doing so, seriously jeopardize legal broadcasters. ANEM urged Minister Dacic to provide the assistance of the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the control and closing of pirate radio and TV stations. After the meeting, the Serbian Interior Ministry issued a statement which stated that the Minister stressed the readiness of the said Ministry to assist in finding solutions, emphasizing the need to find a legal foothold in qualifying of this act, with the inclusion of judicial and prosecution authorities and representatives of RATEL and ANEM. The complete statement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, can be viewed here.
It was agreed at the meeting that ANEM would provide the Minister with RATEL's list of illegal broadcasters, which would be used as a starting point of consultations with the Ministry and Prosecution, judiciary, as well as ANEM and RATEL. ANEM submitted to the Minister the aforementioned list on March 3, 2010, following which more concrete activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are expected, with active participation of ANEM in solving problems of increased broadcasting "piracy".
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