How are leading operators such as Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica deploying new security and CDN tools to monetise their OTT ecosystem? Read more on this blog from Sebastian Kramer
By Sebastian Kramer, SVP Product Management at NAGRA
I recently had the pleasure of being part of a panel with colleagues from Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom and Broadpeak to discuss new ways the industry is collaborating to combat piracy. It was a lively discussion with some great topics covered. Today’s OTT service providers find themselves continuously adding to their service offerings. Examples include having to support new devices on top of an already extensive list, securing evermore feature-rich apps and delivering increasingly personalised services to multiple users within a household. Then, as services scale, they attract the attention of the pirates keen to take advantage of the substantial investments made by video service providers for their own illicit gain.
Picking up on this point, Javier Lucendo of Telefonica commented, “In a streaming environment, the wide range of devices used rather than the single, operator-provided device provides more complexity than the market has traditionally been used to.” To assist, today’s advanced technology offerings provide a view of what’s happening in the network and provide increased visibility across the broad networks utilised in OTT distribution. As an example, CDN session awareness tools provide an excellent anchor point from which to build your defences.
Deutsche Telekom’s Pedro Bandeira commented, “You’ll never provide 100% security, but we just need to make it very hard.” How to make it hard is possible through tools such as forensic watermarking to trace leaks, session management to identify unexpected activity, authentication of consumer devices and increased protection of streaming apps. These technologies working in partnership with the CDN, where there is already considerable security, means content distributed to streaming devices also becomes protected through broader security measures deployed in the network’s back-office platforms.
Turning to how the industry needs to react, Pedro commented, “There needs to be consequences to piracy from the industry which doesn’t involve operators needing to sell more subscriptions to pay for those intent on illicit content consumption.” Javier agreed saying “We all need to buy into a vision to manage and monitor real-time network activity data with a rapid reaction to illicit activity.” Citing recent legislation in the USA where streaming piracy is now a federal crime that can come with a custodial sentence, Pedro also commented that this should serve as a stark warning to those intent on stealing content.
As key players in the industry, NAGRA and Broadpeak offer an integrated and optimized set of solutions that for the first time allows security technology that has traditionally been seen as critical but non-monetizable now able to deliver a range of business enablement approaches through tools such as holistic session management and server-side watermarking; both key elements of NAGRA’s Active Streaming Protection toolkit. Collectively, this mix of intelligent, integrated security and network technologies provide video service operators with a range of business-driven tools through which to combat piracy.
If you couldn’t attend the webinar, you can catch-up here with a lively discussion that brought together several industry viewpoints. Alternatively, if you’d like to discuss how NAGRA can help you address your streaming security questions and help you realise the opportunities streaming environments provide, please get in touch here.
