Piracy is one of the most eminent threats looming over the digital content industry. It‘s no less than the act of burglary in the house, the difference here is that it’s carried out in a virtual space.
The digital world is still in the nascent stages of development and the laws related to online piracy are not very strict in most cases.
Robust digital rights management measures are needed to curb out piracy from the grassroots level.
In addition to this, other best practices include introducing forensic watermarking for digital content as watermarking helps a great deal when it comes to tracing the leak.
A secure VOD streaming platform will help you to protect your content from being illegally distributed.
As per a recent research report, it is estimated that the global online TV and movie industry will collectively lose around $51.6 billion because of piracy in 2022. The loss incurred by content creators and broadcasters as a result of piracy is paramount.
You will be surprised to know that pay-TV and OTT operators in the US alone took a hit of approximately $9.1 billion in 2019. Some of the most prominent factors that contributed to this huge loss include consumers sharing their accounts and pirating content.
Out of the staggering $9.1 billion loss, almost $2.5 billion can be accredited to piracy.
What Is Digital Piracy? / Understanding Digital Piracy
It is important to understand what exactly constitutes digital piracy before finding remedies to tackle this challenge.
Piracy existed long before the internet came into existence but it has got a new meaning in the digital age. The official definition of piracy describes it as the practice of illegally copying & selling videos, digital music, computer software, etc. Digital piracy can be broadly explained as the act of unauthorized reproduction and distribution of digital content which has copyright protection.
Digital content here includes multiple types of content such as music, videos, e-books, software, etc.
How Does Video Piracy Happen? / Factors Inducing Video Piracy
Have you ever downloaded a movie from a torrent website because it wasn’t freely available elsewhere? Well, you might have contributed to online piracy without knowing. Now, downloading videos illegally is a type of piracy but it’s not just limited to this.
You can easily take a small step to stop video piracy by not using these sites to access content for free. Let’s delve deeper into how video piracy happens.
1. Credentials Sharing
How many times have you asked your friends to share their Netflix credentials because you wanted to watch your favorite TV series? Well, unfortunately, this is also a form of piracy that is very mainstream because companies haven’t really found a way to tackle this challenge. Credential sharing is very common in subscription-based OTT platforms, people usually buy a single account and share it with their friends and family. This refrains the content creators and broadcasters to reap the full benefits of their creation.
There are various other methods of piracy that use credentials to illegally obtain access to content. Here are some of the most common ones that will help you understand how it takes place.
Password theft includes stolen account credentials from legal users. Pirates usually try to sell these accounts further at a cheaper rate to interested buyers.
- Token theft
Most of the online video streaming applications and websites identify users via tokens. Pirates do copy these tokens to other devices and use them to illegally gain free access to paid content.
- Bypass of concurrency controls
Most of the subscription-based OTT platforms do restrict the number of devices per account. Pirates can hack into their servers to find a way around these restrictions so that more people can watch the content without any fee.
2. Content downloading
There are plenty of tools and extensions freely available online that help users to download content illegally. This downloaded content is also illegitimately distributed among their friends and family or other interested users. You must be wondering how to secure video streaming against this illegal act.
Well, a vast majority of video streaming platforms use encryption to protect their videos from being illegally distributed.
However, they don’t put in additional efforts to protect the encryption key which most users easily find on the internet. Many a time, pirates even hack the storage platforms used by these service providers to gain access to content that is yet to be released. Eliminating illegal content downloading will stop movie piracy considerably.
3. Simulcasting
Simulcasting entails capturing live streaming content or any other television content with the intent to redistribute. It is one of the most common types of video piracy challenges that is hard to tackle. There are multiple ways used by pirates to initiate live stream capture and simulcasting, some of the most common ones include the following:
- Video playback software or android operating system tampering.
- Screen share session capturing or recording screens during playback.
- Using the re-quantization technique to tamper with videos to defeat watermarking.
- Using VPN to view content that is not yet available for a particular geographical region.
4. Trial fraud
Trial fraud is one of the easiest ways to gain free access to paid content. Many a time, people exploit a company’s trial policy by repeatedly opting for the trial offer using different login credentials.
It is easier for users to create a new email account that can allow them free trial access from the popular OTT service providers. Creating fake accounts for free trial content is one of the most common forms of piracy that prevails today.
What Should You Do to Secure VOD Content? / How to Effectively Secure VOD Content in the Contemporary?
The big question here is, can piracy be stopped? Well, it can be controlled and mitigated to a great extent by following some of the best practices and educating viewers on the repercussions. However, there is a need to implement strict laws governing the access and use of digital content to stop piracy. Let’s dig deeper into what can be done to achieve a high level of VOD security and how to combat piracy effectively.
1. Block credential sharing
Credential sharing is one of the most common forms of piracy that exists and it also contributes significantly to the loss incurred by content creators and broadcasters. Blocking credential sharing will aid in the overall piracy reduction to a great extent. Let’s see how it can be put into practice.
- CMS
If you have used WordPress software to create your online streaming website, you can install multiple plugins available to stop credential sharing. This allows you to easily limit the number of users accessing the portal using the same credential at a given time.
- Non-CMS
You can block credential sharing even if your website is not based on WordPress. All you need to do is allocate a unique ID for every account whenever a user logs in with a particular credential. Now, whenever a unique ID is active, no other ID will be generated for a given account.
- Use SSO
How comfortable are you with sharing your Netflix password? Most people are quite comfortable. How about sharing your Facebook or Gmail account password? Well, that’s not in a comfort zone at all for most of the users. You can use the Single sign-on (SSO) feature for login to reduce credential sharing drastically. This allows users to log in to your portal using their social accounts such as Facebook, Google, etc.
2. Restrict video playback
Limiting the total watch time for a given user will help to reduce or eliminate account sharing. Observing the user behavior will provide you with insights into what should be the total watch time for them. Usually, most viewers won’t watch a particular content more than 2 or 3 times. Depending on the user’s behavior you can restrict the total video playback time.
3. Encryption
Video encryption is one of the most powerful tools to help you secure your online videos and hide them from users that don’t have genuine access to your portal. The encryption key bars anyone from viewing your content without permission. Two prominent video encryption protocols can be used; the AES 128 encryption and the HLS encryption with AES 128.
4. DRM
Digital Rights Management (DRM) provides a robust way to secure your online video content and protects it from pirates. The video encryption technology is a powerful tool but it has some drawbacks such as open key exchange which exposes the encryption keys. This is where the DRM system comes in to save the day. It works alongside the popular encryption protocols including HLS, DASH, RTMP, etc. to make it almost impossible to find the encryption keys and illegally download content. Popular DRM tools being used in the market include Google’s Widevine DRM and Apple‘s Fairplay DRM.
5. IP (Geographic Restrictions)
Geographic restrictions play an important role in reducing piracy. IP addresses from various parts of the world can be categorized into the blacklisted and whitelisted regions. This helps to restrict anyone from accessing your content who visits from a blacklisted IP. It also helps you to easily block anyone including pirates, competitors, etc. from a given country. If you are searching for how to prevent movie piracy by restricting users from a particular country, IP restriction is among the most pragmatic solutions available.
6. Watermarking
Watermarking is among the most effective ways to secure VOD content and keep pirates at bay. Forensic watermarking is used by broadcasters and content creators to add unique serial numbers to content that sticks to it even after transcoding, resizing, and downscaling the video. It is an effective way to protect film releases from pirates. Watermarking is also used to trace the leak and find out the source which helps to take necessary action against the party responsible.
7. Secure hosting
You can always rely on third-party secure hosting services if you don’t have the time or resources to protect the video content available on your online platform. Choosing a reliable hosting service provider will take care of the security and technical aspect of your online streaming platform. Some of the most important features to look for before choosing a hosting platform include security, video API, CDN, video analytics.
Conclusion
Piracy of online video content is a major concern for broadcasters and content creators as it hampers their overall returns. Securing your VOD content from pirates requires a deep understanding of how piracy takes place and having strategic countermeasures in place to eliminate the threat.
Some of the most common forms of piracy here include credential sharing, simulcasting, and content downloading. Choosing a video on demand platform provider who can deliver secure hosting is crucial when it comes to limiting the actions of pirates on your online platform. Using effective anti-piracy technologies such as watermarking, IP restrictions, video encryption, DRM, etc. will help you keep pirates at bay.
