A recent study by the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia and Standard Chartered Bank estimated the cost of pay-TV piracy in the Asia-Pacific at US$1.13 billion (Bt41.42 billion) this year, with 5.2 million viewers connected illegally. Both numbers represented significant increases over last year. Pay-TV piracy will cost content owners and legitimate broadcasters in Thailand an estimated $160 million this year.

"The illegal broadcast of copyrighted content by media companies creates significant losses for content owners and has an enormous impact on Thailand's legitimate operators and international reputation," said Mike Ellis, the MPA's senior vice president and regional director for the Asia-Pacific.

The operation took place on Tuesday in the areas of Bang Sue, Yan Nawa and Samray. The MPA was accompanied by a police task force. They arrested one man, seized broadcasting equipment and shut down unauthorised channels belonging to Thai Soon Cable TV, Golden Channel Cable TV and Sunshine Entertainment Cable TV. The three pirate cable companies' entire operations were shut down yesterday.

"The association and our member companies greatly appreciate the efforts of the police in this investigation and are firmly committed to supporting them in every way in their fight to protect intellectual property rights in Thailand," said Ellis.

A comprehensive study aimed at producing a more accurate picture of the impact that piracy has on the film industry, including, for the first time, losses due to Internet piracy, recently calculated that MPA studios lost $6.1 billion to worldwide piracy last year. About $2.4 billion was lost to bootlegging, $1.4 billion to illegal copying and $2.3 billion to Internet piracy. Of the US$6.1 billion in lost revenues to the studios, approximately $1.2 billion came from piracy in the Asia-Pacific region, while piracy in the US accounted for $1.3 billion.

Last year, the MPA's operations in the Asia-Pacific investigated more than 34,000 cases of piracy and assisted law-enforcement officials in conducting more than 10,500 raids. These activities resulted in the seizure of more than 34 million illegal optical discs, 55 factory optical-disc production lines and 3,362 optical-disc burners, as well as the initiation of more than 8,000 legal actions.