In our latest blog, Tim Pearson considers recent industry successes in dismantling large-scale pirate operations and what defensive steps video service providers can take to secure their offerings and protect against the threat of piracy in the first place.
“The key to combatting piracy is to remain one step ahead of the pirates. If they adopt a new technology, you need to adopt it better and faster.”
That’s what a former pirate told us when we interviewed him last year for our “Inside the Mind of a Pirate” video series. It proved a fascinating insight and if you missed it, you can catch-up here.
An Industry Approach to An Industry Problem
Of late, there have been several key developments in our industry that have seen both regulators and an alliance of organizations come together to combat the continued rise of piracy in our industry and particularly in live sports. Most recently came the news from the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA), of which NAGRAVISION is a proud member, that they have supported the Catania Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Croatian State Attorney Office for Suppression of Corruption and Organized Crime and law enforcement agencies in Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Croatia and the UK. Together they have dismantled the world’s largest transnational criminal organization alleged to be serving pirated audiovisual content to over 22 million users and generating over €250 million in illegal revenue per month. The NAGRAVISION Anti-Piracy Investigation Team provided on-site technical support to Swiss regional and federal law enforcement authorities during the police raids that supported this recent action.
The dismantling marks a significant achievement in Europe and demonstrates the industry’s continued determination to protect its considerable content investments from bad actors, as well as protect citizens from the effects of organized crime. While a pirate service may offer a very attractive price designed to lure in consumers, the malware a seemingly harmless app may include can extract the consumer’s identity or financial information and have disastrous consequences.
As the adage goes, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is!
On the other side of the Atlantic, the first prosecution in the United States has been made under the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act, 2020 with intelligence supplied by Kudelski Group teams. In this case, a US national was caught operating a large illegal streaming service, and after the case was reported to the authorities, a successful prosecution was made and a sentence of 12 months and 1 day in a federal prison and a $250,000 fine was handed down.
But before the industry needs to resort to costly prosecutions, what can service providers do to protect their content investments from the threat of piracy in the first place?
Build Your Defenses
The mass adoption of streaming has created a range of opportunities for content owners and aggregators, but the very nature of streaming means there is a large surface attack area. This means that a comprehensive streaming security strategy needs to be put in place. Think of it as a brick wall holding back water. Every weak point of that wall must be strengthened to prevent leaks. This means going beyond multi-DRM and considering elements such as device or endpoint security, platform security, anti-piracy intelligence and emerging threats such as quantum and generative-AI (which can be as much as a threat as a defense mechanism and was discussed in another recent blog).
This raises one important question though: where to begin? How do you build out a streaming security strategy that is designed to secure valuable content investments without relying solely on deployed technologies to fend off attacks?
The answer is to analyze activity on your network first.
The NAGRAVISION security monitoring and analytics solution conflates multiple datasets.
The AI-powered platform then identifies the types and volume of piracy that is present on your streaming service’s network. This helps to answer questions such as which accounts are stealing premium content, and where the content is being stolen from. It also quantifies what this means financially to your business.
With the data in-hand, NAGRAVISION solution experts can then advise which of the various tools from our streaming security toolbox are required. These can then be easily deployed thanks to our SaaS-based platform approach. Once deployed, the platform will continuously monitor for wider threats and if a new incidence of a particular type of piracy is detected, it will alert you to change your posture which may include the deployment of additional tools.
Security That Delivers Business Value
Security is often viewed as something that is mandated by content owners to ensure the licensing of content as part of a revenue protection approach. However, this perspective is changing as greater returns on investment are being realized. Thanks to tools such as the NAGRAVISION security monitoring and analytics platform, multiple data sources are conflated and presented in easy-to-read dashboards that show actionable business insights. For example, if there is a particular pattern of piracy or the dashboards are showing high levels of credential sharing during live sports events, teams can A/B test new price points and see the resultant impact. Alternatively, patterns of data may suggest scope for a new content offer or an area of network that may need extra capacity and so on. Driving real business-value through core security datasets is key as our industry continues to navigate dynamic trading conditions as well as the threat of piracy.
Then, if required, the datasets which identify and expose pirate targets can be shared with the NAGRAVISION Anti-Piracy intelligence team who will first attempt to resolve piracy issues via out of court settlements and cease and desist notices. If further engagement with law enforcement is required, working with a partner such as NAGRAVISION is key as it prevents a steep (and costly) learning curve in getting law enforcement organizations to take and prosecute piracy cases.
Using tools such as NAGRAVISION streaming security keeps your organization several steps ahead of the pirates. And, as the former pirate we spoke to said, that means you’re maximizing your defense against their attacks.
How Are the Pirates Using Your Network?
Intrigued or want to learn more? Get in touch with one of our friendly, regional solution experts and discuss how a proof of concept undertaken over a short period of time – perhaps during the broadcast of a live sports event over a weekend – can show you the level of pirate activity on your network today. Alternatively, you can find out more about our streaming security solutions on our website, contact us or follow us for all the latest developments on LinkedIn and X.
