The Instituto Dominicano de las Telecomunicaciones (Indotel) and the Dominican Republic’s copyright office (ONDA) are partnering to strengthen the country’s fight against content and pay-TV piracy.

The main goal of the partnership is to create an inter-institutional board that unifies the efforts against piracy and presents a common front against pirate companies and distributors of pirate technologies.

According to Indotel, the agreement aims to find and fine companies that break copyrights laws and create conditions for unfair competition with legitimate companies.

“It means an alliance between two institutions that have the power to change the way the Dominican Republic follows the commitments with the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) in terms of content protection,” said José del Castillo Saviñón, president, Indotel.

In fact, the inter-institutional board against piracy will be open to international producers and distributors and representatives of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and the US embassy in the Dominican Republic.

Despite recent efforts, piracy continues to hinder the pay-TV industry across Latin America, and it is particularly strong in Central America and the Caribbean.