The ‘awareness‘ letters further encouraged the bars to subscribe to pay-TV services through Hong Kong’s three fully-licensed pay-TV operators: Hong Kong Cable, now TV and TVB Pay Vision. Print advertisements were also placed in newspapers and magazines to further increase public awareness.

The unauthorized commercial display in Hong Kong bars, clubs and other public venues of pay-TV programming intended for other markets, as well as trading in pirated television decoders, are acts of copyright infringement.

World Cup soccer organiser Fifa and pay-TV operators filed lawsuits against a number of Hong Kong bars for illegal broadcasting of the World Cup football tournament in June of last year, resulting in six-figure settlement payments for copyright infringement along with public apologies.

Casbaa, which represents the interests of the pay-TV industry across Asia, promotes the protection of the IPR of TV content creators and distributors, including licensed sports TV programming.

"The pay-TV industry will continue to take necessary legal action against pay-TV content copyright and illegal TV signal broadcast violators," said Casbaa CEO Simon Twiston Davies. "We, as an industry are committed to protecting the copyright of TV content and the interests of authorised pay-TV distributors not only in Hong Kong but across the entire region. We urge Hong Kong bars, clubs and other public venues to subscribe to licensed pay-TV programming from authorised pay-TV operators."