DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has announced the opening of a significantly expanded anti-piracy lab in Denver.

The new facility increases IBCAP’s operational capacity and, for the first time, gives broadcasters and content owners outside IBCAP’s traditional coalition model access to the organization’s specialized technology, expertise and lab services.

“This new lab represents a transformative step for IBCAP and for the broadcasters and content owners we serve,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “We have invested in developing proprietary automation and technology that allows us to monitor piracy at a far greater scale and speed. At the same time, we are expanding our model so organizations that need targeted, specialized lab support can work directly with IBCAP without becoming coalition members. As a nonprofit organization, IBCAP is uniquely positioned to offer the expertise and technology our members and new customers require at a cost-effective price. These enhanced capabilities position IBCAP to address the rapid evolution of piracy technology, including the proliferation of IPTV services and playlist-based piracy.”

In addition to more physical space, the new facility expands IBCAP monitoring capabilities and supports a broader portfolio of anti-piracy services. Powered by proprietary automated technology developed by IBCAP and first announced in April 2025, the lab enables IBCAP to monitor more IPTV and set-top-box-based services and at a faster rate, resulting in the discovery and removal of a greater volume of pirated streams.

Through relationships developed over the past 12 years, including widely used hosting providers and CDNs that cooperate with IBCAP’s takedown requests, the coalition typically achieves a 75% effective takedown rate. This cooperation, combined with enhanced automation, has helped IBCAP more than double its number of takedowns over the past year.

IBCAP described the capabilities of the new lab as follows:

1. STB / IPTV Service Monitoring. Automated, 24/7 monitoring of hundreds of IPTV and set-top-box piracy services for live and video-on-demand (VOD) content. New IPTV monitoring capabilities that identify assets belonging to a specific member or customer across pirate services
2. Web Live and VOD Monitoring. Scheduled monitoring of live channel streams and VOD piracy. Visual confirmation of infringement by analysts to support defensible enforcement actions.
3. Automated Evidence Capture and Extraction. On-demand screenshots, data exports and forensic network captures for any monitored service. Extraction of critical technical evidence, including hosting provider and CDN identification and IP addresses, and key infrastructure such as authentication, authorization, EPG and content servers.
4. In-Depth Understanding of Pirate Ecosystems. Comprehensive analysis of pirate operations and their underlying infrastructure. Mapping of relationships among services to support coordinated, multi-front takedown strategies. Analysis of payment and monetization models used by pirate services. Detection of emerging piracy-as-a-service operations before they scale.
5. Validation and Delivery. Review of findings through IBCAP’s analyst validation hub for quality assurance. Flexible delivery options, allowing members and customers to receive raw monitoring data or fully validated, actionable intelligence packages. A direct path from identification to takedown through IBCAP’s established enforcement workflow.

More information is available at www.IBCAP.org.

CHESEAUX-SUR-LAUSANNE, Switzerland, and PHOENIX, Ariz.—Nagravision has launched Nagra Venturi, a new intelligence-led streaming security offering that helps service providers and rights holders detect threats, combat piracy, and safeguard revenue.

Nagra Venturi brings Nagravision’s streaming security capabilities together under a single intelligence-led model, shifting anti-piracy from fragmented, reactive tools to coordinated, data-driven offering.

“With AI in the hands of pirates, the market has reached an inflection point,” said Morten Solbakken, executive vice president and COO at Nagravision. “As piracy becomes faster, more automated, and increasingly intelligent, the industry needs a new approach. Nagra Venturi is built to fight AI with AI, giving operators and rights holders the ability to move faster and with greater precision, providing the clarity to see the full picture, the focus to target the threats that matter, and the impact to protect revenue and the audience experience.”

The new offering is designed to address the fact that today’s pirate operations are automated and increasingly AI-assisted, scaling illegal services globally within minutes and targeting live sports during the narrow window when content is most valuable. That has put operators and rights holders in the difficult position of managing growing volumes of data and alerts, without clarity on which actions will make the biggest difference.

Nagra Venturi answers that challenge by transforming security data into prioritized, decisive action. It aggregates and analyzes data from across the streaming ecosystem to create a real-time view of piracy activity, identifies the highest-value threats, and coordinates targeted intervention where it will have the greatest business impact. Rather than reacting to every signal, teams can focus on the threats that matter most to their business.

Through its managed service option, Nagra Venturi includes Nexus, the Nagra Anti-Piracy Center, where analysts coordinate monitoring, intelligence, investigation, and enforcement against a global view of piracy activity. Because Nagravision tracks the wider ecosystem rather than a single network, it can uncover pirate infrastructure and leaked content that individual operators may never see, then coordinate disruption across multiple points at once to maximize impact. Individual solutions, including forensic watermarking and multi-DRM, remain available as standalone solutions within the Nagra Venturi portfolio.

“For more than 30 years, Nagravision has protected the world’s most valuable content,” adds Solbakken. “Built on that heritage—and informed by decades of front-line anti-piracy intelligence—Nagra Venturi moves content protection from a reactive, tool-based model to a proactive, intelligence-led one designed for today’s piracy landscape. Nagravision is proud to be leading the charge to help its customers demonstrate the impact of their anti-piracy strategy—one that proves its value in commercial terms, not just technical ones.”

To learn more about Nagra Venturi, visit nagra.vision.

The recent crackdown led by the U.S. Department of Justice targeting several large-scale piracy websites should be seen as both a win and a warning for the media and entertainment industry.

In a coordinated international operation, authorities seized domains tied to some of the most popular piracy platforms, including sites that attracted tens of millions of visits annually and enabled widespread distribution of unauthorized movies, TV shows, and other digital content. These platforms hosted thousands of infringing works and facilitated millions of illegal downloads, generating significant revenue in the process.

On the surface, this looks like progress. And it is. But it also highlights a deeper issue that the industry can no longer ignore. By the time enforcement actions like this take place, piracy has already scaled, monetized, and caused substantial damage.

The Reality Behind Modern Piracy Operations

What the recent takedown reinforces is just how advanced piracy ecosystems have become. These were not small, niche operations. They were highly trafficked platforms, in some cases ranking among the most visited websites in their regions.

This reflects a broader shift. Piracy is no longer a fragmented activity driven by individuals. It has evolved into a structured, scalable business model. Today’s illegal platforms are often built using cloud infrastructure, automated ingestion tools, and sophisticated distribution pipelines. In many cases, they offer user experiences that closely resemble legitimate streaming services. For consumers, the line between legal and illegal access has never been more blurred.

This is why the concept of “piracy-as-a-service” is no longer an exaggeration. Entire ecosystems now exist to support the rapid deployment and monetization of stolen content.

Enforcement Alone Can’t Keep Up

The DOJ-led seizure demonstrates that coordinated enforcement can be effective. But it also illustrates a fundamental limitation. Enforcement is, by definition, reactive. Authorities step in after platforms have already gained traction, attracted millions of users, and distributed vast amounts of content. Even when domains are seized and infrastructure is dismantled, the underlying networks and expertise often remain intact. New platforms can and do emerge, sometimes within days.

We see this pattern repeatedly. A major operation shuts down one set of sites, only for others to take their place. It is an ongoing cycle that mirrors a game of whack-a-mole, but at global scale. For broadcasters and streaming providers, this creates a critical gap. By the time action is taken, the most valuable window for protecting content has already passed.

The Live Content Problem and Expanding Attack Surface

Nowhere is this more evident than with live programming. Sports, news, and special events derive the majority of their value in real time. If a live stream is captured and redistributed during the broadcast window, even a swift takedown may come too late. The audience has already migrated, and the revenue opportunity is lost. This is why relying solely on enforcement is increasingly risky. It does not align with how quickly piracy operates today.

Another factor complicating the challenge is the rapid expansion of the content delivery ecosystem. Streaming services now reach audiences across a wide range of unmanaged devices, including smart TVs, mobile apps, browsers, and connected set-top boxes. Each of these endpoints represents a potential entry point for piracy.

If protections at the device or session level are insufficient, streams can be captured and redistributed with minimal effort. In parallel, techniques such as CDN leeching allow bad actors to exploit legitimate delivery infrastructure to scale their operations further. The result is a vastly larger and more complex attack surface than the industry has faced in the past.

Why Proactive Defense Is No Longer Optional

The lesson from the recent DOJ action is not just that piracy is widespread. It is that the industry is still largely responding after the fact. To change that, the focus must shift toward prevention.

A proactive anti-piracy strategy starts with visibility. Operators need to understand how their content is being accessed, where it is flowing, and how it behaves across networks and devices. Abnormal patterns, such as unusual concurrency levels or unexpected geographic distribution, can provide early indicators of illicit activity.

From there, the goal is to reduce the opportunity for piracy to occur in the first place. This includes strengthening device authentication, limiting credential abuse, and deploying forensic watermarking to trace leaks back to their source. Real-time monitoring and automated response mechanisms are equally important, enabling operators to act immediately rather than in hours.

Perhaps most importantly, anti-piracy systems must be adaptable. Pirates are constantly evolving their methods, often iterating on new techniques within hours. Defensive strategies must be just as dynamic.

The recent enforcement serves as a snapshot of an ongoing battle. It also serves as a reminder that the industry cannot rely on enforcement alone to solve the problem. Legal action will always play a critical role, but it is only one part of the equation.

For broadcasters, streaming providers, and content owners, the path forward requires a true shift in mindset. Instead of asking how quickly pirated content can be taken down, the more important question is how to prevent it from appearing at all. That shift from reactive to proactive is a strategic necessity. Because in today’s piracy landscape, being even a few steps behind is no longer sustainable.

Learn more at www.verimatrix.com.

CESSON-SEVIGNE, France—Broadpeak has announced that it will showcase its latest innovations for broadcasters and streaming platforms at 2026 NAB Show April 18-22 (booth W3034), with a particular focus on premium live streaming performance, advanced advertising capabilities, and enhanced anti-piracy protection.

“Content providers need to deliver flawless live experiences especially for record-breaking live audiences, grow advertising revenues, and protect their content at massive scale,” said Jacques Le Mancq, president and CEO of Broadpeak. “At NAB Show 2026, we’re demonstrating how our customers can elevate their streaming services through premium-performance video delivery, advanced ad technologies, and real-time security.”

During the show, Broadpeak will be showing attendees a number of new technologies. Those include:

• Multiview: Broadpeak’s new approach for enabling viewers to watch multiple events simultaneously, or switch between different camera angles - all while removing client interoperability issues and reducing delivery costs.
• Dynamic ad insertion innovation: Enhanced ad insertion capabilities to expand inventory and drive ad revenues. BannersIn2 introduces new formats including pause ads, overlay ads, ad squeeze-back and content squeeze-back, increasing premium ad inventory while maintaining viewing quality. Click2Cart, enabling viewers to add products directly to a merchant’s cart via connected devices, driving measurable performance-based advertising and deeper viewer engagement.
• Media over QUIC (MoQ): The new protocol offers enhanced live streaming performance with faster zap times, lower latency, and reduced re-buffering.
• AI-powered subtitling and dubbing: Supporting global reach and accessibility through intelligent, automated language services.

Broadpeak will also demonstrate the latest enhancements to its solutions enabling content providers to stream live events while protecting revenue with anti-piracy measures:

• Stream at scale with premium QoE: Broadpeak’s purpose-built video CDN, including its HyperPoP architecture and Advanced CDN technologies, is designed to support high-audience streaming with broadcast-grade quality of experience (QoE). The solution, available for on-prem and cloud deployments or as a service, enables scalable, efficient video delivery while maintaining low latency and operational efficiency during major live events.
• Advanced real-time anti-piracy: Specifically created for streaming services and integrated directly into Broadpeak’s CDN, the solution integrates anti-token sharing, AI-based pattern recognition, quota management, and real-time content replacement to detect and mitigate piracy threats immediately – including credential abuse, scraping and unauthorized access.

Designed to scale during high-traffic live events, Broadpeak’s solutions support flexible deployment, including software-based installations, cloud-native architectures, SaaS via broadpeak.io, and managed services.

Visit Broadpeak at NAB Show 2026 in the West Hall, booth #W3034.

DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the operators of the illegal streaming service known as DMTN IPTV, as well as Idriss Premium TV and Max TV (collectively, DMTN IPTV).

The federal lawsuit alleges that DMTN IPTV illegally transmitted copyrighted content owned by IBCAP members, despite repeated requests for compliance under U.S. copyright law. According to the complaint, IBCAP issued 68 notices of infringement to the operator and 435 takedown notices to hosting companies used by the defendants since 2020.

“This lawsuit against DMTN IPTV is the latest in a long line of legal actions to enforce copyrights that are being blatantly infringed by pirate services,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “Our strategy of working with our members to protect their content by continually detecting and removing infringing streams has been highly successful. Nevertheless, when a pirate continues to ignore our takedown requests, the next step is to coordinate legal action. In line with past lawsuit wins, we expect a similar outcome in this case, including a broad injunction that can be enforced against third parties, such as hosting providers, CDNs, ISPs and payment processors to stop this infringement.”

At the time of filing the complaint, the website used to promote and market the infringing service promised customers “No More Cable Bills” and stated that DMTN IPTV “can be installed on any device.” The complaint also describes deceptive tactics allegedly used by the operators to hide illegal activities over the years, including providing PayPal sales receipt descriptions for leather goods rather than for the infringing service.

The suit names Idriss Elkasmi, based in Fes, Morocco, as the direct infringer and primary operator of the service, along with other Doe defendants. It further alleges that Ali Ezzaary, along with other Doe defendants, promote and enable access to the infringing service as secondary infringers.

The lawsuit seeks statutory damages totaling more than $21 million. It also seeks a permanent injunction, transfer of domains used by the service and court orders preventing third parties, including hosting providers, CDNs, ISPs and payment processors, from supporting the infringing operation.

The lawsuit was coordinated by IBCAP and filed by IBCAP member DISH Network. All evidence for the case was obtained and provided by the IBCAP lab. A copy of the complaint can be found here.

DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has announced that it has developed a proprietary, automated software-based system to identify and remove infringing video-on-demand (VOD) content on set-top boxes (STB) and IPTV services.

This VOD-focused system complements IBCAP’s existing proprietary software, which is already being used in removing infringing linear channels, further enhancing the coalition’s ability to combat piracy across multiple platforms.

“IBCAP’s new proprietary tool for VOD protection is the result of a year-long effort by our software engineering team, adding another automated solution to our robust toolbox to remove infringing content,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “This enhancement is designed to remove millions of illegal VOD streams, making a significant impact on piracy worldwide. Our continued investment in developing our own automated systems underscores our commitment to innovation and protecting our members’ content, both in the U.S. and around the globe.”

Developed by IBCAP’s in-house software engineering team, the VOD-focused solution uses automated methods to find infringing content, collect evidence and then generate and send takedown notices to the entities hosting the infringing streams. For infringing services that remain non-compliant after the initial automated takedown notifications are issued, IBCAP’s in-house attorneys will send follow-up letters notifying infringers of their copyright violations.

Building on the IBCAP lab's successful software that automates the removal of linear channels, the new system extends that capability to on-demand video content. Since launching its software for automated scanning and takedowns of linear channels a few years ago, IBCAP has achieved more than a 75% annual removal rate and expects similar compliance over time for VOD content, the group said.

IBCAP’s lab recently implemented a beta version of the new system on 10 STB services. The software identified more than 100,000 VOD assets owned or exclusively licensed to IBCAP members through automated scans of a selected list of titles. In the short period since the beta launch, IBCAP has already received strong compliance from the hosting providers used by the infringing services to transmit the identified VOD assets.

Following the announcement of the full launch of the VOD-targeted software, IBCAP also reported that it plans to add more than 80 STBs and IPTV services for automated enforcement in the coming months.

For more information about IBCAP membership and its benefits, visit https://www.ibcap.org/membership.

DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has announced the filing of a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas against the operators of the streaming service known as Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV.

The service, also available through several resellers under white-label brands, is accused of directly infringing on IBCAP member copyrights by illegally transmitting copyrighted television programs aired on 22 different channels.

The complaint filed by IBCAP member Dish Network alleges that despite receiving approximately 100 notices of infringement from IBCAP since February 2021, Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV continued to illegally stream protected content. During the first quarter of 2025, the service accounted for almost 30% of all unauthorized streams detected on set-top box and IPTV services monitored by the IBCAP lab, the group reported.

The complaint seeks statutory damages of up to $150,000 for the willful infringement of 171 registered works, amounting to a potential total of more than $25 million. In addition, the complaint seeks profits attributable to the infringement of potentially thousands of unregistered works, an injunction prohibiting the service and associated parties from operating or supporting infringement, an order requiring the transfer of domain names used by the service and the recovery of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs.

The complaint also requests discovery on a number of entities that will likely lead to the identification of the currently unnamed defendants, a legal tactic successfully used in past cases to identify the operators behind pirate services.

“This lawsuit is the latest example of our lab’s ability to identify the pirate services that are significantly infringing our members’ content and stack-rank such services in order to target and remove the worst infringers,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “Lemo TV and Kemo IPTV currently account for more than a quarter of the unauthorized streams on STBs and IPTV services monitored by our lab. This level of theft is unacceptable for our members, and we will put a swift stop to it—just as we have successfully done with numerous other pirate services through court-ordered injunctions.”

The lawsuit was coordinated by IBCAP and filed by IBCAP member Dish Network. All evidence for the case was obtained and provided by the IBCAP lab.

A copy of the complaint can be found here.

DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has announced the addition of DirecTV, a leading video distribution company in the U.S., as its newest member.

While IBCAP remains focused on anti-piracy efforts for the multicultural video market, the addition of DirecTV will permit IBCAP to broaden its scope as it works with DirecTV to identify the sources of piracy of mainstream American content.

“As technology advances, it is becoming easier for pirates to stream hundreds, sometimes thousands, of channels on a single service, with many of these illicit platforms growing bolder by offering American channels and sports,” said Brooke Mallette, senior vice president of legal at DirecTV. “We joined IBCAP to leverage its proven technical expertise in piracy detection and its legal success in curbing copyright infringement. As an initial step, IBCAP will identify pirate services that illegally offer the same channels as DirecTV, while we also increase our collaboration with programmers and channel providers to pressure pirate services and their hosting providers to shut down unauthorized streams.”

In its state-of-the-art lab, IBCAP monitors more than 100 versions of set-top boxes and related services, as well as hundreds of websites and a multitude of social media and mobile apps, to identify pirated content. On platforms monitored for piracy of international content, the IBCAP lab is finding an increase in piracy of mainstream American content, including general entertainment channels, sports and video-on-demand (VOD) — an area where DirecTV would like to see increased enforcement by content owners.

“The addition of DirecTV to IBCAP broadens our ecosystem to strengthen our fight against piracy by taking on pirates who are illegally streaming content that DirecTV also distributes,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “With our industry-leading automation for detecting infringement on set-top boxes, as well as our lab’s expertise, we will provide DirecTV with critical intelligence about infringers to curtail unauthorized streams.”

For more information about IBCAP membership, visit https://www.ibcap.org/membership.

There is a storm brewing that is helping content pirates. The budget cutbacks many consumers are considering due to economic challenges in many countries are accelerating the number of people turning to piracy. This is accentuated further by a growth in users who are increasingly more digitally adept. The Nordic market has always been one of the most advanced leaders of online and mobile consumption; for that reason, companies like HBO have chosen this region to launch in first.

One lesser-known detail is the rate of piracy has always been matching the market’s growth. More than one in four streams in Sweden is now pirated. This number is high across the region and that will accelerate elsewhere, too, unless the streaming companies fail to improve the way they manage their content. This in effect is increasing the cost of content and that in turn is fueling piracy. It's a negative spiral but it can be turned around.

TV piracy is nothing new and has been an industry problem since the establishment of the first pay-TV services. Initial growth in cable and satellite TV was mirrored by equal and opposite growth in an illegal content industry, with pirates looking to undermine the smart card-based Conditional Access Systems employed at the time to encrypt the broadcast signal.

As the industry has moved to digital, the piracy problem has increased each step of the way. The widespread penetration of the internet and broadband services led to a growth in peer-to-peer networks and the introduction of piracy to the mainstream via technology such as BitTorrent. The introduction of streaming options from broadcasters, and especially the presence of sports on live streaming services, made a move to live streaming piracy possible and extremely profitable.

Organized crime got involved, and it is now possible for consumers to access incredibly sophisticated pirate services via special devices or widely accessible websites. For all intents and purposes, these offer the same features and functions as legitimate broadcasters. Indeed, it is possible that some consumers might not even realize they are hooked up to illegal services.

The figures involved are deeply concerning for an industry that needs to protect its revenues and investment in content at all costs. TV piracy is by far the most popular form of digital theft, representing 48% of all access to infringing sites, according to the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). Movies and music, the latter long the unwanted poster boy for pirated content, only account for 11% and 6%, respectively.

Putting some real-world implications on these numbers, analyst Kearney says that online video-content piracy is estimated to lose the global media sector $75 billion per year. Even worse, this figure is projected to reach $125 billion by 2028, representing an annual growth rate of nearly 11%. The U.S. is the worst infringer, accounting for 11% of all video piracy demand thanks to what Kearney says is a potent combination of high penetration of superfast broadband, widespread access to computers and devices, a large population culturally focused on Hollywood and less-effective enforcement legislation.

So what can streaming companies do? How can they shore up the gaps in their chain to make sure there are no egress points where pirates can inveigle their way in and steal valuable content? After all, once it’s gone, it’s too late. After all, once it’s gone it’s too late. Too many are focusing on the golden bullet coming from AI and the way pirated content can be found while and once it has been consumed. This hype is driving a focus that misses alternative approaches to prevent piracy before distribution happens.

One of the key ways content rights owners can fight back is by taking control earlier in the chain. This is, of course, far more complex than before. Even niche broadcasters are delivering content to multiple different content platforms simultaneously. That means it is important to invest in a safe Content Delivery Network (CDN) architecture, as the CDN is the common touchpoint between the broadcaster and the end consumer.

An optimized CDN architecture splits the CDN into a session-control layer and a delivery layer. Following this, the control plane can be enhanced with additional features such as in-stream switching of HTTP ABR segments and a built-in server-side QoE monitoring function to adjust quality in real time via the routing of fragments. This is the approach we have taken with our CDN Director, which provides users with an enhanced visibility of every request hitting the CDN at any given time, making it easier to deny access.

This feature includes the use of common access tokens, which show that customer requests are coming from the rights owner’s own authorized back-end layer and not from outside agents (i.e., pirates).

As an interesting data point on what can be achieved with this approach, Telenor Sweden says that utilizing this system enables it to stop from 150,000 to 200,000 invalid requests to access its streaming-server resources every day. This is a significant roadblock to pirate activities, especially as pirates look to become more technically sophisticated and insert hooks into the CDN infrastructure itself.

Securing the CDN is, of course, not the only action that broadcasters can take, nor the only one they should do. Effective antipiracy action requires a holistic approach that permeates everything a company does. But one of the advantages being able to more closely interrogate the CDN confers is that the QoE monitoring required to rebuff pirate attempts also enables operators to boost peak performance, adjust streaming capacity and keep services running smoothly even during high demand.

That saves them money and gives a boost to the company-wide ROI on its antipiracy investment. This is a key point. Despite all the evidence that points to antipiracy efforts being extremely effective in protecting revenues, C-level buy-in can sometimes prove to be elusive in times of economic uncertainty. To be able to present an effective antipiracy action that looks to reverse some of the trends identified by EUIPO, Kearny and others—and, at the same time, drives further efficiencies in the costs of operating a CDN—makes a compelling argument.

Earlier this year, The Motion Picture Association (MPA) revealed that it’s planning to work with Congress to establish site-blocking legislation in the United States. With such an order in place, broadcasters, rights holders and content owners would be able to ask the court to order Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block websites sharing stolen content. MPA CEO Charles Rivkin highlighted that many countries use blocking as a tool against piracy and he strongly believes that the U.S. should be one of them.

For years, sports providers and media and entertainment companies outside the U.S. have been using domain and server blocking because it is a sophisticated enforcement method that stops piracy more effectively than traditional approaches.

Testing the Waters: What is Blocking?
In simple terms, blocking disrupts access to illegal content. Once an organization identifies that content is being stolen, blocking can rapidly make a significant impact, cutting off access to illegal streams and helping content owners and rights holders secure their revenue.

Although there are multiple deployment methods, there are two main types of blocking: Domain blocking, which works to stop access to pirated content at a domain resolution level; and server blocking, which restricts access to pirated content at a residential ISP level in real time.

Domain blocking works by deleting certain records in the Domain Name System (DNS) – essentially the phonebook of the internet. So, if an address has been subject to a domain blocking order, the record of the domain is removed from the public register so that when someone types in the URL in their browser, no result will appear.

In countries where it can be used, server blocking proved to be one of the most effective forms of supply-side content protection actions. It allows ISPs to block their subscribers from accessing pirated content, following specific legislation issued by the appropriate regional authority.

Blocking is especially effective in changing consumer behavior: as viewers get blocked by their ISP, it encourages them to watch their content on legitimate commercial sites – either because they discovered that they were unknowingly using a pirate service, or simply because they still want to access the content and are now forced to view it legitimately.

On the other hand, establishing which targets should not be blocked is equally critical. That means ensuring that any blocking target won’t cause collateral damage on unrelated and legitimate services. To prevent over-blocking and ensure proportionality, the IP block list should be updated every five minutes, and any IP addresses should be subjected to a battery of customizable tests.

Blocking is a technical tool approved by legal governing bodies in more than 40 jurisdictions. These regions have either adopted and implemented blocking, or are legally obligated to adopt measures ensuring that ISPs can block access to copyright-infringing websites.

Navigating International Waters
If the United States were to establish and enforce site-blocking legislation, they would be far from a test case.

Blocking technology has proven to effectively stop piracy. In fact, in Indonesia, blocking caused a significant drop in reach of pirated content—from 437 million to 118 million views, a 75% reduction from 2020 to 2022.

In France, blocking has also proven to be successful for live sports streaming. Between January and June 2022, the overall pirate sports audience decreased by 49%, thanks to blocking measures.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has closely examined the use of blocking and determined it to be effective and fair, based on its success in Europe. With that, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) – an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute recognized as a leading think tank for science and technology policy—among other organizations also shared their support for the U.S. pursuing blocking, noting that, “it would be a massive step in the right direction if policymakers in the United States and around the world could focus on the facts and weigh up the various interests and stakeholders in a similarly sober and dispassionate way as the CJEU.”

Other countries closer to North America have also explored blocking to combat piracy. For example, key Canadian operators have worked with an advanced video security and anti-piracy provider to detect piracy. And with that, government orders to dynamically block pirated access were swiftly implemented.

With blocking, illegal streams can be stopped in under four minutes, a timeframe that is critical when it comes to live sports content. Their provider monitors illicit streams so illegal servers can be blocked in an instant, ultimately reducing pirated streams of NHL and NBA games in Canada.

Steering the Ship: The Path Forward with Blocking
The evidence is clear: blocking is an effective tool in the fight against video piracy. The United States, with its massive media and entertainment industry, stands to benefit immensely from adopting such measures. By following the examples set by other countries, the U.S. can protect its premium content, secure revenue for rights holders, and maintain a fair and legal digital landscape.

It would be in the best interest of U.S. businesses to test the waters and get aboard with site-blocking, charting a course towards a more secure and prosperous future for digital media.

DENVER—NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp.) has joined the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP). 

The coalition is expanding the language content under its protection umbrella to include Japanese and has added a Japanese-speaking analyst to its anti-piracy lab to focus on protecting NHK content. The coalition already protects English, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Portuguese and French channels, among others, it said.

“We have been very impressed with the results achieved by IBCAP in controlling piracy for other members, and we are excited to join IBCAP and to bring our channels and VOD under IBCAP’s protection,” said Shigeki Sato, the head of NHK’s copyright and contracts division. “After visiting IBCAP’s state-of-the-art monitoring lab and meeting the legal and management teams, we were quickly convinced that joining this coalition was the right move for us to bolster the protection of NHK content not only in the U.S. but also worldwide.”

More information is available on the IBCAP website.

LONDON—U.K. commercial broadcaster ITV has selected Friend MTS anti-piracy services to help protect its content.

ITV will protect its main linear channels across broadcast and streaming platforms with Friend MTS’s 24×7 Global Monitoring service. These channels feature exclusive, premium content including Six Nations Rugby, the FA Cup, the England Women’s football team matches and the upcoming UEFA EURO 2024 tournament as well as entertainment like “The Masked Singer.”

“ITV’s aim is to contribute to making piracy unsustainable and through appointing Friend MTS we will be working together to enhance our anti-piracy activities in the U.K., said ITV director of distribution Sarah Tierney. “As a key part of our strategy to optimize broadcast and supercharge streaming, it’s important that we maximize ITV’s reach while protecting audiences from the material consumer harms of pirate sites and meeting our contractual obligations with rightsholders.”

Using the Friend MTS best-in-class global monitoring platform, which includes proprietary, fingerprinting technology and automated detection systems, backed by a highly experienced 24×7 operations team, ITV be able to identify illegal streams across the internet for immediate takedown. The platform also will facilitate removal of links from primary search engines, the company said.

“We are seeing a tide of key entertainment brands turning to us to help them fight piracy and keep their content secure,” said Chris Gibbs, Friend MTS senior vice president of sales. “Our unrivalled capabilities not only reduce exposure to piracy but ensure advertiser messaging is seen by the right people, which is paramount for an ad-funded businesses like ITV.”

 More information is available on the company’s website. 

DURHAM, N.H.—While streaming video services like Netflix have worked to rein in password sharing, a new study from Leichtman Research Group (LRG) reveals nearly one-quarter of all the direct-to-consumer VOD streaming services measured are being shared by more than one household.

“Password sharing continues to be prevalent throughout the streaming video industry, despite recent efforts to limit it. This study found that 10% of all DTC services are borrowed from someone else, down from 12% in 2022,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for LRG. “Overall, 20% of households have at least one DTC service that is paid for by another household.”

Published in LRG’s new “Internet-Delivered TV Services 2024” study, its seventh annual, the research focuses on vMVPDs (virtual Multichannel Video Programming Distributors) and other DTC streaming video services.

On the plus side for service providers, of the households that subscribe to the 15 top DTC video-on-demand services LRG measured, 53% have signed up for four or more services. Nearly three out of four of them fully pay for those services and do not share them with those outside their households, the research found.

The study reveals that among the 23% of all DTC services used by more than one household: 11% are used and paid for by those who also share the with someone outside their home; 10% are used in one household but borrowed from another household paying for the service; and 2% are used by multiple households that share costs, it found. 

The research also found 4% of DTC services are not paid for because they are bundled with another service.

Subscription borrowing was more prevalent among younger respondents. A total of 17% of all DTC services are borrowed by those ages 18 to 34, compared to 7% among those 35 and older. The younger cohort accounts for 59% of all DTC services borrowed by an adult, according to the findings.

The efforts of Netflix to combat service borrowing appear to be paying off as just 10% using the service borrow it from someone else—down for 15% in 2022, it found.

Other findings of the research include:

• Among adults ages 18-44, the mean number of DTC services is 5.1, compared to four among ages 45-54, and 2.8 among those 55 and older.
• 6% of all households in the past year had Netflix, but currently do not—the is true for Hulu and the live pay-TV category.
• Adults 18-to-44-year-old adults account for 57% of all those with a vMVPD pay-TV service.
• 72% of vMVPD subscribers are very satisfied with their service, which is down from 79% in 2022.
• 22% of all vMVPD services are shared by multiple households, including 8% of all vMVPD services that are fully paid for by someone outside the household.

The findings are based on an online survey of 2,546 U.S. adults 18 years of age and older. It was conducted in February, and the online sample has a statistical margin of error of +/- 1.9%. 

More information is available on the company’s website. 

DENVER—IBCAP has announced that one of its members, Dish Network L.L.C., has received a settlement payment of $3 million from an IBCAP-coordinated lawsuit. The settlement resolves Dish’s lawsuit against Datacamp Limited, a U.K.-based company providing global content delivery network (CDN) services under the name CDN77 and dedicated servers and network services under the name Datapacket. 

The lawsuit, filed in February 2022 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, asserted claims against Datacamp for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement for allowing continued use of the Datacamp services by 11 different pirate services.

The complaint alleged that Datacamp received nearly 400 notices of infringement from IBCAP but did little to stop the pirate services from continuing to use the Datacamp CDN. The complaint further alleged that Datacamp had no right to any safe harbor under the DMCA due to Datacamp’s failure to designate a DMCA agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement, failure to act expeditiously to remove or disable access to infringing material, and failure to implement a repeat infringer policy.

The settlement agreement follows substantial discovery and briefing on Datacamp’s motion to dismiss, which the court denied on July 14, 2023, rejecting Datacamp’s argument that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Datacamp could not be liable for infringement by its customers. 

In denying Datacamp’s motion, the court found that Datacamp knew of specific infringing uses of its services. The court also rejected Datacamp’s argument that it lacked the ability to stop the infringement, and found that Datacamp obtained a direct financial benefit from the infringement.   

In addition to Datacamp’s payment of $3,000,000, which has already been received, the settlement agreement requires Datacamp to implement a takedown policy and a repeat infringer policy, the IBCAP reported. 

These policies will promote the expeditious removal of infringing material and permanently shut down client accounts of repeat infringers. Datacamp further agreed to provide the identity and contact information of its clients that are repeat infringers or those that had their accounts permanently shut down for failure to remove allegedly infringing material. Datacamp agreed to future damages of up to $250,000 per month if it fails to fulfill removal and termination provisions of the settlement agreement.

“This lawsuit and resulting settlement agreement against Datacamp sends a direct message to yet another category of infringers — companies who support pirate services, such as CDNs and hosting companies — that their willingness to deliver infringing content over their networks will not be tolerated,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “Datacamp’s payment of $3 million conveys a strong message that CDNs and hosting companies should not take the risk of permitting infringing content to stream across their networks. The takedown and repeat infringer policies that Datacamp has agreed to serve as examples of policies other CDNs and hosting companies should adopt to help minimize infringements on their networks and minimize their exposure to sizeable damage awards.”

The lawsuit was coordinated by IBCAP, and evidence for the case was obtained and provided by the IBCAP lab. Prosecution of the case and settlement negotiations were executed by Dish’s outside litigation counsel, Hagan Noll & Boyle, LLC.

For more information about IBCAP visit https://www.ibcap.org/membership. 

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y.—With an increasing number of streaming services following Netflix’s and Disney+'s lead in cracking down on password sharing, one in three U.S. TV content viewers (33%) are still borrowing log-in credentials or sharing the costs of at least one streaming service they can access, according to findings from Horowitz’s "State of Media, Entertainment, and Tech: Disruptions" report. 

The study found that the main drivers to borrowing and share are: “Someone I know already had an account”; “I can’t afford it at this time”; and “I am just doing it to access a specific show/type of content for a short period of time.”

The study also found that almost one in four (23%) viewers who currently borrow or share a password are “very worried” that the streaming services they use will start implementing measures to prevent sharing; another 26% are somewhat worried about it. 

Horowitz is, however, reporting that about half of those who borrow the log-in or share the cost for Netflix, Max, Disney+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Paramount+ would be willing to pay the full price for those services if they were not able to share anymore. Sharers of smaller, less robust services are less likely to pay full price for those services.

“Profitability continues to be a concern in the streaming space, and password sharing clearly plays a role in that. It is inevitable that services will need to find new revenue sources, whether from subscriptions or ads or both,” notes Adriana Waterston, executive vice president of insights and strategy lead for Horowitz Research. “That said, as more services crack down, we can anticipate that some consumers will consider churning off some of the services they share if they don’t see the value for their money. In that sense, the bigger services are risking less by cracking down than the smaller services, because the more robust and varied their content offering is, the more their perceived value.”  

In the context of these recent crackdowns, Horowitz asked TV content viewers about the ethical considerations of password sharing. Three in 10 consumers believe that password sharing is unethical in any circumstance, whereas almost six in 10 consumers do not see an issue with it. Among those who are okay with password sharing to some degree, over four in 10 (42%) feel it is acceptable as long as it involves sharing with their own family members, even if they do not live in the same household. A smaller percentage of consumers (16%) think that password sharing is acceptable with everyone, including individuals who are not family members.

In terms of the ethical considerations, the study found that there are nuances by age.

By far, 18-34 year-olds are much more likely than their older counterparts to password share (54%, compared to 37% among 35-49 year-olds and 17% among 50+ year-olds). They are also the least likely to have ethical concerns about it: only 13% of those 18-34 think it is unethical, compared to 24% among 35-49 and 41% of 50+ TV content viewers. Younger viewers are also more likely to believe it is OK to password share even with people who are not family members.

The full "State of Media, Entertainment, and Tech: Disruptions 2023" report tracks the evolving market for new and potentially disruptive technologies that could be game-changers, including over-the-air (OTA) antennas, wireless 5G home internet services, and piracy and password sharing. The survey was conducted in September 2023 among 1531 adults 18+ who have a role in decisions regarding TV and internet services in the home. Data have been weighted to ensure results are representative of the overall U.S. population. The report is available in total market, FOCUS Latinx, FOCUS Black, and FOCUS Asian editions.

More information is available here.  

DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has announced that a complaint has been filed in the Eastern District of New York against ten defendants operating the Glo TV service, as well as Massive Wireless, Inc., a New York retailer, its CEO and director, and Rays IPTV LLC, a California distributor and retailer, and its CEO.

IBCAP is a coalition of leading international and U.S. content owners, broadcasters and distributors representing more than 190 television channels from the U.S. and around the world.

The lawsuit was coordinated by IBCAP and filed by IBCAP member Dish Network. Evidence for the case was obtained and provided by the IBCAP laboratory. 

The complaint asserts that Glo TV directly infringes IBCAP member copyrights by transmitting 20 television channels and the programs that air on those channels over the internet to users in the U.S. 

The complaint also asserts claims against the remaining defendants for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. The defendants received multiple notices of infringement from IBCAP, yet ignored those notices and continued to infringe, the group said. 

“This IBCAP-coordinated lawsuit sends a direct message to the entire business chain involved in piracy. From those who operate pirate services, to the distributors who wholesale pirate subscriptions, to the retailers who purchase and resell pirate subscriptions to consumers, the sale of pirate services will not be tolerated,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “As with other cases coordinated by IBCAP, we fully expect these defendants will be held accountable, and the Court will enjoin retailers, wholesalers, and others from supporting the Glo TV service.”

IBCAP said the complaint seeks:

• Statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work for the willful infringement of 170 registered works - up to $25,500,000 total
• An award of the defendants’ profits attributable to the infringement of the unregistered works
• An injunction prohibiting the defendants from distributing, providing, promoting, or selling set-top boxes and services that contain the subject channels
• An injunction prohibiting the defendants from distributing, providing, promoting, or selling set-top boxes and services that contain the relevant channels listed in the lawsuit
• An injunction prohibiting any hosting company from supporting Glo TV or any other service used to access channels exclusively licensed to the rightsholder
• An order permanently transferring each domain name that the defendants used in connection with the infringement to the plaintiff
• Prejudgment interest and post judgment interest
• Reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs

DALLAS—Anyone wondering how much password sharing and other forms of piracy are costing the U.S. streaming industry now has an answer from Parks Associates. The research firm is reporting that by the end of 2027, there will be a cumulative loss to piracy of $113 billion for streaming video providers serving U.S. consumers. 

While large streamers like Netflix are working to cut down password sharing, the international research firm's latest forecast also indicates that the problem is getting worse, not better. 

It predicts that piracy rates for U.S. streaming services in film and television programming are expected to rise from 22% in 2022 to 24.5% in 2027 and that the value of fraudulent advertising delivered online to media and entertainment consumers may exceed $700 million in 2027.

The Parks Associates research also shows that visits to pirate hosting websites increased by 31% in 2020 and industry leaders are responding with new anti-piracy policies in the hopes of stemming revenue losses.

The new study "Streaming Piracy Market & Ecosystem Strategies" provides a comprehensive view of piracy threats and the evolution of anti-piracy techniques along with five-year forecasts of revenue loss in the US market for video service providers. 

"While there is some optimism that emerging countermeasures and best-practices may see piracy begin to plateau by 2027, there is no consensus among stakeholders as to when it may begin to decline," said Steve Hawley, contributing analyst, Parks Associates, and managing director of the Piracy Monitor industry newsletter and consultancy. "This research provides a much-needed understanding of the issues at hand and the technologies and approaches available to fight piracy."

Parks Associates' research indicates that video service providers may reduce the motivation for password sharing by restricting the number of users who can stream the service simultaneously. In addition, Netflix is introducing a feature that will allow users to share accounts for an extra fee, and Adobe launched "Prime Account IQ" to help providers identify when viewers are sharing credentials.

"The number of households who share account credentials and consume pirated content is rising. People are increasingly looking for new ways to satisfy entertainment needs," said Sarah Lee, research analyst, Parks Associates, and contributor to the report. "Participation in sharing account credentials increased 48% since 2019."

LOS ANGELES—As part of its campaign to stop the illicit hosting of digital piracy content, the MPA's Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), has shut down Streamzz, an illegal file hosting service with global reach.

Operated out of Ahlen, Germany, Streamzz logged more than 7 million monthly visits prior to its closure. One-third of that traffic originated in Germany, followed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Hungary, the group reported. 

Operating since 2019, Streamzz hosted and streamed more than 75,000 movies and 15,000 TV series episodes, affecting all ACE members.

The service was used by more than 60 websites offering pirated content.

“The shutdown of Streamzz is fresh proof that no one in the content piracy ecosystem – whether they’re a streaming service, video streaming host or anything in between – is above the law,” said Jan van Voorn, executive vice president and global content protection chief of the Motion Picture Association and head of ACE. “We will target piracy services of various kinds in order to protect the global creative economy.”

ACE worked with Constantin Film, a member of the coalition, on this action.

“Piracy continues to undermine the legal market and the investment into new and exciting content," explained Philipp Wohlfrom, executive vice president of international licensing and head of anti-piracy at Constantin Film. "This action is a massive success for rightsholders in Germany and across the world and we are proud to work with ACE to support their ongoing efforts to protect copyright and fight piracy."

The operator of an illegal IPTV service that raked in more than $34 million and attracted more than 100,000 subscribers has been sentenced to five and a half years in prison and ordered to give up more than $30 million in assets—nearly $6 million of it in cash—by a federal court this week.

Bill Omar Carrasquillo, who had also built up a Youtube following (as “Omi in a Hellcat”) of more than 800,000 by touting his luxury lifestyle, had been accused of a variety of crimes including fraud, copyright infringement, tax evasion and money laundering. He expressed his regrets in an apology to the court during this week’s sentencing, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

“I really didn’t know the significance of this crime until I was picked up [by the FBI] at my home,” he said. “I feel like I let everybody down.”

Carrasquillo’s scheme—dubbed “Gears TV” or “Gears Reloaded”—lasted three years before it was finally shut down in 2019. The illegal service offered subscriptions to VOD and TV shows and access to live cable networks and PPV events at prices as low as $15 per month from companies including Comcast, Verizon FiOS, and DirecTV.

In delivering the sentence, U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III noted that the $30 million fine imposed on Carrasquillo could be a teachable moment for Youtube viewers impressed with the defendant’s flaunting of his wealth. 

“Thirty million dollars is a lot of money [but] tangible objects aren’t everything,” U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III said. “You have a large following and there may be people who think if you can get away with it, they can too.”

In this video posted to Youtube last year, Carrasquillo attempted to defend his actions:

VANCOUVER, B.C.—As more media companies rollout consumer experiences for sports and entertainment in the metaverse, a new survey from Telus International indicates that consumers have a lot of concerns about privacy and security in the medium, with the majority of respondents (60%) citing privacy and data security concerns as a reason for why they’d be uncomfortable completing various tasks in this emerging digital world.

“The metaverse provides an exciting and immersive way for consumers to interact with their favorite brands. Unfortunately, with the emergence and adoption of new technologies and platforms there are also opportunities for bad actors to deploy new and oftentimes more sophisticated forms of identity theft,” said Michael Ringman, chief information officer, Telus International. “Add to the fact that the metaverse is still in its nascency of being regulated, making it easier for fraudsters to impersonate an individual and carry out unauthorized activity without any real world implications. To safeguard their customers and brand reputation, companies must prioritize embedding robust trust and safety measures in the foundation of their metaverse strategy, while also ensuring that these measures are seamlessly integrated so they do not overly complicate the customer journey.”

As the metaverse continues to gain traction among brands and consumers alike, more than one-third (34%) of respondents said their top concern was that their personal data will be compromised. Additionally, 56% believe that it will be easier for hackers to steal their identity or data in this new digital space, the survey found. 

For companies seeking to address consumers’ metaverse concerns, a quarter (25%) of respondents indicated that robust and transparent privacy and security guidelines would encourage them to interact with brands in this space, the researchers said. 

In addition to having security measures in place, companies should post about them on their website or email customers directly so they are informed about the measures in place, as well as highlighting tactics for consumers to proactively decrease their exposure and vulnerability to bad actors.

“Ensuring proper data security in any online environment is complex and partnering with an experienced and proven trust and safety provider offers numerous benefits, including peace of mind,” said Ringman at Telus, which designs, builds and delivers end-to-end digital solutions to help global and disruptive brands enhance and protect the customer experience. “In addition to monitoring and addressing issues in real time, external providers can help anticipate new and emerging threats and have the expertise, agility, technology, processes and controls in place, including AI and human content reviewers, to detect suspicious activity,” 

The survey findings are based on a Pollfish survey that was conducted on Oct. 17, 2022, and included responses from 1,500 Americans familiar with the metaverse.

The streaming service market is vitally important to the global and U.S. economies. According to the annual Motion Picture Association (MPA), the digital content streaming marketplace has been growing rapidly, and in 2021 accounted for 72% of the combined theatrical and home/mobile entertainment market. To get an idea of its upward trajectory, in 2019, digital streaming represented just 46% of the market.

But piracy threatens this vibrant industry, putting revenue, franchises, and jobs at risk. In its report, the MPA estimates that online TV and film piracy costs the U.S. economy a minimum of  $29 billion in lost revenue each year, and robs the industry of hundreds and thousands of jobs.

A big part of the problem is the ease with which consumers can access out-of-market streaming content. Content creators and copyright owners never give licensors carte blanche to stream their content. Rather, they negotiate agreements with the creators on a region by region basis, and deploy IP blocks to enforce compliance and licensing rights. 

As anyone who has seen affiliate ads for VPN services knows, it is now child’s play to get around those IP blocks. VPNs are encryption tools that hide a device’s IP address as well as the user’s online activity. Many also offer users the ability to choose their geo-location for the express purpose of circumventing out-of-market restrictions.  According to Security.org’s Third Annual VPN Market Report, 22% of consumers say that “access to out-of-market streaming media” is their top reason for using a VPN service.

With piracy tactics constantly evolving, it’s time to approach piracy as the cybersecurity threat it demonstrably is. The following is a list of best practices for identifying potential  circumvention attempts:

Leverage IP Address As Starting Point
IP blocks are still effective for the simple reason the IP address is one of the most accurate ways to identify the location of a device. IP stands for “Internet protocol,” which is a set of rules that govern the format of all data that’s sent via the Internet. An IP address is the unique address that identifies an Internet-connected device, be it a computer, mobile phone, or connected TV. 

 Without the IP protocols, the Internet wouldn’t be able to tell one device from another, and data would be misdirected.  This makes the IP address persistent, and it’s a good starting point for determining where a device is geographically located, and whether to allow it access to content. There are caveats to this, such as network address translation (NAT) but for the sake of the topic, IP addresses are valuable for identifying a location.

Deploy Proxy Detection
Once the streaming platform determines the geo-location data, the next step is to determine whether or not the device is using a proxy server. Proxy servers are slightly different from VPNs, in that they hide only the device’s IP address, but do not necessarily encrypt the traffic. 

Therefore, we can safely assume that devices associated with a proxy are hiding their IP addresses for reasons other than privacy, which should raise a red flag for any security team. Proxies have many uses, but become nefarious when an attacker leverages multiple of them to avoid firewall IP address blocking.

Detect VPNs
While many VPNs invite consumers to leverage their services to more or less spoof their geo-location, it’s neither fair nor accurate to say that all VPNs do. The VPN market has exploded over the past few years, and continues to grow and become highly nuanced. While many enable their users to circumvent geo-restrictions, many more do not.

What’s more, per Security.org, 55% of VPN users just want the security and privacy that VPNs offer, and 35% of people use a VPN because their job requires it. Therefore, we can’t assume that all VPN users are keen to access content that is out-of-market to them.

The trick for streaming companies is to understand the nuances of the VPN market, distinguishing between VPN providers that tout (or simply allow) circumvention of geo-restrictions, and those that don’t. 

Next, they need to understand their own appetite for risk vs. user experience. A streaming service can opt to ban all VPN traffic (a tactic that retail sites like Amazon have deployed), but it may mean bad user experiences for the millions of consumers who happen to use a VPN. 

If total VPN blocking is unacceptable, the streaming service can prompt for additional authentication, such as entering a Zip or postal code, or even registering for an account prior to gaining access to free content. But even that has a limit as they are trusting a user is entering data truthfully.

Detect Residential IP Proxies
As streaming services get better at detecting VPN traffic that’s outside of their markets, pirates are moving on to a new tactic: residential IP proxy networks. These are networks that pay consumers to share their Internet. 

Next, those residential IP addresses are “rented” to other companies or players that want to appear as residential IP addresses within a specific region (e.g. a consumer in a specific city). Although residential IP proxies look like legitimate traffic, IP intelligence data can be deployed to determine if traffic is proxied.

Set Granular Access Rules
Once the security and digital access rights teams have a better understanding of the VPN services used by their customers, they can use this contextual insight to set rules that better protect their content. For instance, they can (and should!) block all traffic associated with a proxy.

They can approach VPN traffic on a case-by-case basis. Given many of the VPN services allow their users to select their exit point, streaming companies can opt to ban some providers, but not others, based on the VPN’s user policies. Amazon asks VPN users to disable their VPNs in order to access the site; streaming providers may want to follow suit.

Stay Vigilant
Finally, remain vigilant. Nefarious players—whether they’re pirates that steal content outright or some kind of provider that allows end users to do so—are in it for the vast sums of money to be gained. This makes them highly motivated to innovate new ways to circumvent geo restrictions, which could make keeping content safe feel like playing a game of whack-a-mole. 

But rest assured, there are data and security companies tracking their tactics, and offering up tools to protect unauthorized users from accessing the publisher’s content.

LOS ANGELES—Anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) says it has shut down Extreme-down, which it says is France’s second most popular illegal streaming and direct download site.  

ACE said it had located the operator in Houmt Souk, Tunisia, contacted the operator who subsequently ceased  operations and transferred all domains to ACE. The domains now redirect to the “Watch Legally” page on the ACE website.  The service had more than 14 million visitors each month. 

“Thanks to ACE’s rapidly expanding global network, we are in a better position than ever to act decisively against illegal piracy operators in all markets across the world,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Global Content Protection Chief of the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE. “Extreme-down offered a large library of TV series and movies in French and original versions; we counted more than 40,000 movies and TV series episodes affecting ACE members. That library is now closed.” 

French premium television channel providers and ACE members CANAL+ and France Televisions worked closely with ACE and local authorities on this action. 

“CANAL+ Group has fought content piracy for years and, as a member of ACE, we are particularly pleased with the takedown of this notorious illegal website,” said Celine Boyer, Global Head of Content Protection at CANAL+ Group. “The elimination of this website is a massive success for the protection of rights holders in French-speaking countries.” 

“The damaging effects of piracy cannot be overstated, especially for a global public service media company like ours,” said Nathalie Bobineau, Senior Vice President of International Development for France Televisions. “We applaud the efforts of ACE in their fight to defend copyright and successfully close down a piracy operation of this magnitude. ACE is currently the only organization able to give powerful and efficient support to our relentless fight against piracy worldwide, and we will continue to work with ACE to combat illegal operations that threaten legal content creators.”  

DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has announced that a federal district court and a federal bankruptcy court in Florida have ordered Hisham Manse Ibrahem and Nezar Saeed Hammo, U.S.-based sellers of the pirate service ATN, to pay $32,100,000 in combined damages for willful copyright infringement. 

Both individuals were selling the ATN service through a company known as Alfa TV Inc., which was also found liable, along with Haitham Mansi, a Sweden-based owner and operator of Alfa TV, Inc. Notably, the ATN service is no longer carrying IBCAP-protected channels in the U.S., the IBCAP reported. 

The evidence for this case was collected by IBCAP's anti-piracy lab in coordination with NAGRA. 

The cases were filed by IBCAP member Dish Network.

One of the co-defendants, Nezar Saeed Hammo, filed bankruptcy during the pendency of the district court action in an attempt to avoid liability. But, as with similar actions against willful copyright infringers, the bankruptcy court ruled the judgment non-dischargeable and that the defendant can’t use the bankruptcy system to avoid liability for willful copyright infringement.

Both courts ordered the defendants to cease “distributing, providing, selling, or promoting any product, or service, including ATN set-top boxes, apps, service subscriptions, and any other set-top boxes and television subscription services, that reproduce, copy, transmit, stream, distribute, or publicly perform any of the [IBCAP Member Channels at issue] or any of the programming that comprises or appears on any of the [IBCAP Member Channels at issue] in the United States.” 

“Yet again, the federal courts have levied huge financial awards against individuals in the U.S. who were selling pirate services,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “This case is another example of why it is not worth the risk for retailers to sell pirate services. It is also important to point out that sellers of pirate services cannot use bankruptcy to shield against their illegal activities. Here, as with other willful copyright infringers who have sought to use bankruptcy to avoid judgments, the bankruptcy court concluded that the judgment against Mr. Hammo is not discharged by the bankruptcy.”

A copy of the district court order can be found here; a copy of the bankruptcy court order can be found here. 

LOS ANGELES—The Motion Picture Association’s global film and television content security initiative, the Trusted Partner Network (TPN), has announced the launch of its enhanced program with a new membership model, application and cloud content security assessments, and the TPN+ platform.

TPN, which is fully owned by the Motion Picture Association (MPA), is leveraging the updated MPA Content Security Best Practices v5.0 to expand its scope to include software application and cloud security in addition to site and work-from-home security assessments. With this expansion and the launch of the new TPN+ platform, TPN is bolstering its program to keep pace with rapid change and evolution throughout the media and entertainment industry, the TPN reported. 

“With the launch of its enhanced program, TPN is taking a crucial step toward ensuring the security of all content produced by our members,” explained Karyn Temple, senior executive vice president and global general counsel of the MPA. “Content security is a top priority of the MPA, TPN and all of our member studios, whose ability to produce the films and TV shows audiences love depends on our ability to protect and secure that content.”

“At the MPA and TPN, our goal is to support content creators from script to screen,” said Terri Davies, president of TPN. “This new iteration of the TPN program is a huge leap forward that provides an enhanced solution for content security. TPN is designed for all companies in the media and entertainment ecosystem who are committed to keeping content safe. We very much look forward to continued collaboration with our Service Provider and Content Owner members, as well as our Assessor partners, as we maintain forward momentum to keep pace with the rapid transformation and technology advancements in our industry.”

TPN’s new membership model is tiered to encourage participation from all global stakeholders, ranging from individual contributors to large-scale pre- and post-production companies, software application providers, and all Content Owners, it said. 

TPN reported that its new platform TPN+ is custom-built for member companies to manage and communicate content security status, including non-TPN security certificates such as ISO and Soc2, as well as complete TPN questionnaires and assessments based on the MPA Content Security Best Practices and guidelines.

The TPN+ platform provides standardization, expanded functionality, greater flexibility, and multi-layered transparency of security status to global Content Owners. The new platform unlocks self-serve functionality for Service Providers to communicate their content security status in a centralized and accelerated manner, resulting in enhanced visibility to Content Owners, overall time savings, and a reduction in duplicative assessment efforts, it explained. 

For Content Owners, TPN+ provides guidance that enables independent and informed decision-making. The new platform achieves this with a simplified process of assessing Service Provider partners’ security preparedness to ensure content is secure throughout the media supply chain.

For more information, please visit www.ttpn.org. 

LONDON—Video software provider Synamedia has unveiled research on piracy covering seven countries that found comedy is the most pirated entertainment genre. 

Piracy was driven by such titles as “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”, and “Ted Lasso”, with half of all pirate viewers streaming comedy illegally. This is followed by the action and adventure genre, and the crime and thriller category respectively, the researchers reported. 

The study, conducted by Ampere Analysis, finds the value of entertainment piracy is three times bigger than sports piracy and that the fragmentation of rights across more services is now affecting piracy in the entertainment market as it has for sports.

If piracy was stopped, sports would create $9.8 billion in potential revenue in the seven surveyed markets, however this figure is dwarfed by the possibility of unlocking an additional $21.8 billion in revenue by converting movie and TV pirates to legal services, the researchers reported. 

The study covers the impact of sports and entertainment piracy across seven countries and the potential revenues that would result from converting pirate viewers to legal subscribers. 

“Unless the industry takes action, the fragmentation of premium content compounded by the current economic climate will continue to drive viewers to both paid and free piracy services,” explained Avigail Gutman, vice president of intelligence and security operations at Synamedia. “This represents a real risk to rights holders, broadcasters and streaming providers. As well as using tools and techniques to protect content and services, operators can counter the rise in piracy by ensuring content is easy to find and meeting consumers’ demands for mobile-first services, as well as more aggregated services and billing.”

The data shows that stopping piracy of a single Hollywood major movie release can trigger revenues of between $130m and $280m in the U.S. alone, with super-hero blockbusters offering the biggest opportunities. For a popular title like “Spider Man: No Way Home”, stopping piracy would lead to potential revenue for a studio streaming service of over $400m, based on the true annual lifetime value of streaming subscribers.

Of the seven countries surveyed, Synamedia’s report finds that the market with the most to gain is the US, with the potential of $13.7 billion in new revenue annually by stopping movie and TV piracy and an additional $5 billion related to sports. This would generate $5.9 billion in annual income for US streaming providers, with the 28 most heavily pirated movies and TV titles alone contributing up to $1.8 billion in new revenues.

According to the research, Germany, Italy and the UK have the lowest levels of piracy. But, by stopping piracy and converting pirate viewers to legal subscribers in the UK for example, video providers and content owners have the potential to unlock a whopping $1.36 billion for entertainment and $1.17 billion for sports annually, the companies said.

Football is the star sports piracy attraction and, despite being available on free-to-air TV, FIFA World Cup it is the most pirated league according to the findings. This reflects its popularity globally but indicates that even free content can suffer from piracy if fans are already using illegal sites to access other sports content. 

UEFA Champions League and the English Premier League are second and third respectively. The only non-football league in the top 10 is the NBA. After football, the most popular sports to watch on pirate services in the seven countries surveyed are cricket and kabaddi, driven by piracy in the Indian sub-continent, and badminton, driven by piracy in Asia, the researchers said. 

The study also found that pirate viewers using both free and paid for services are more likely to be male with paying pirates more likely to be to be men under 35 with young children. The research finds that 44% of affluent consumers pay to pirate live sports, despite most pirates falling into lower income groups, indicating a desire to cut costs and watch all the leagues in one place.

As fragmentation of content rights continues, the research finds that pirate viewers tend to be those who are most engaged with content. As consumers increase the number of legal subscriptions they have, they also become increasingly likely to watch pirate content with 91% of respondents who have access to five or more legal video subscription services have also watched illegal content.

“There is a persistent myth that the pirate consumer won’t pay and will never pay,” noted Guy Bisson, executive director and co-founder of Ampere Analysis: This research overturns this received wisdom, with more than half of all pirate viewers paying for pirate TV services and 54% also paying for legal services. We already knew sports piracy was a big-money issue, but what surprised us most about this study was the true scale of impact on the US major studios and Hollywood as a whole.”

Building on Synamedia’s research report into sports piracy in 2021, this survey involved 16,000 consumers in Brazil, Italy, India, Germany, Thailand, UK, and US.

Synamedia and Ampere Research will host a fireside chat, ‘No laughing matter: pirates enjoy comedy’ to discuss the findings in more depth on Tuesday 28th February 2023 at 4pm UK / 5pm CET / 11 am ET / 8 am PT. More information is available here. 

DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has announced that BBC Studios, representing the BBC Group, is joining IBCAP. As part of its membership, IBCAP will play an instrumental role in protecting the BBC’s channels against piracy in the U.S., the group said. 

“Television piracy causes financial harm to the British creative industry, depriving UK producers and broadcasters of income for future investment,” said Diane Hamer, head of business & legal affairs content and brand protection for BBC Studios. “As BBC Studios continues to distribute valuable content in the U.S. and around the world, to return value to its parent company, the British Broadcasting Corporation, it will work with IBCAP to help monitor for infringement and stand as the initial bulwark against piracy. The relationship between IBCAP and BBC Studios enables both parties to collect evidence, share information, enhance detection, and implement comprehensive and coordinated strategies to disrupt piracy in the U.S.”

Representing more than 150 TV channels from around the world, IBCAP is the leading alliance of international broadcasters organized to prevent the unauthorized streaming and illegal distribution of international TV content in the U.S. 

IBCAP’s state-of-the-art anti-piracy lab monitors over 250 different pirate set-top boxes and all major pirate websites, apps and social media platforms. In addition to these distribution platforms, the coalition’s enforcement efforts also effectively remove additional sales channels, including local “brick and mortar” shops and online retailers.

“Leveraging our success to date, IBCAP continues to expand its membership by offering the benefits of our world-class anti-piracy lab and highly successful strategies against pirate services that have significantly impacted our members’ business,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “Acting as a coalition, rather than individually, has proven to be not only cost effective, but also highly successful in reducing piracy of our members’ content. We welcome BBC Studios as our newest member and are thrilled to now have them as part of our coalition.”    

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France and SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Verimatrix today launched Verimatrix Streamkeeper, a cybersecurity and anti-piracy solution for the media and entertainment industry.

Streamkeeper enables users to hunt down and take out OTT pirates who steal content, such as live sports and premium movies, as they are distributed from the source to the endpoint (mobile app/user level), the company said.

The solution includes Verimatrix Counterspy technology, a new, autonomous anti-piracy and app protection security agent relying on the company’s proprietary zero code technology. It enables users to add deep, defensive countermeasures as well as monitor clients without a huge integration effort. Integration can be done in minutes, it said.

Streamkeeper enables operators to offer studios and other content owners piracy visibility and protection. It also gives operators full control of the visibility given to content owners, the company said.

Creative hackers often weaponize CDNs and end device software, such as mobile apps and web browsers, and use them against operators. Verimatrix’s Counterspy zero-code injection approach shines a light on previously hidden piracy attacks, leaving pirates with no place to hide. The battle-ready tools provided within Streamkeeper allow customer to fight piracy with powerful, military-grade cybersecurity countermeasures never before available, it said.

Currently in beta testing and examined by studios, Verimatrix Streamkeeper is scheduled for general availability at the end of Q1 2022, the company said.

“Streamkeeper is a game-changing new OTT anti-piracy solution that will forever change how Hollywood and sports will tackle piracy,” said Asaf Ashkenazi, chief operating officer and president at Verimatrix. 

“It’s a complete content security package containing exciting new technologies, such as the autonomous injection of an anti-piracy security agent that utilizes zero code technology; meaning we can now easily add deep, defensive anti-piracy tracing, app protection and countermeasures instantly to customer ecosystems.”

Working in tandem with multi-DRM, fingerprinting/watermarking and dark web crawling to track down pirated content in new ways, Streamkeeper takes anti-piracy far beyond reveal and takedown notices, enabling alert verification as well as views into the actual apps, devices and users accessing authorized and unauthorized content during livestreams, the company said.

More information is available on the company’s website. 

DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy has announced that on November 15, 2021, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas entered a Judgment and Injunction against ChitramTV, a popular South Asian pirate IPTV service. The Court found that ChitramTV willfully infringed 207 registered copyrighted works and imposed the maximum statutory penalty of $150,000 per work, $31,050,000 in total. 

The Federal Court in Texas also ordered registries and registrars to transfer current and future domains related to the operation and sales of the ChitramTV service, including domains used to sell or promote set-top boxes and subscriptions. 

In addition, the injunction prohibits all resellers from distributing, selling, or promoting the ChitramTV service or any set-top boxes related to the service. Lastly, the Court enjoined all third-party providers such as hosting companies and CDNs from providing services to ChitramTV.

The lawsuit against ChitramTV was coordinated by IBCAP and filed in March 2021, by its member company, DISH Network, after numerous cease and desist notices were ignored. Today’s news follows IBCAP’s recent announcements of lawsuits against iStar IPTV service, DesiTV, and dealers of those services. 

“We are very pleased with this legal victory as it will enable us and our members to shut down one of the most popular South Asian pirate services operating in the U.S.,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “The injunctions imposed, along with the transfer of current and future domains associated with ChitramTV, will have a devastating effect on ChitramTV and any dealer selling ChitramTV. A dealer that continues to sell ChitramTV after receiving notice of the injunction will be in contempt of the Court’s order and liable for further damages. Dealers should be aware that it’s not worth risking their business by selling pirate IPTV services.”

A copy of the Court Order can be found here.

A few weeks ago I interviewed Nitsan Baider, director of product management for security solutions at Synamedia, about the company’s release of its new OTT ServiceGuard anti-piracy offering.

During the interview, Baider mentioned in passing the company’s team that gathered intelligence on pirates in its effort to help protect the content of clients from theft. That piqued my curiosity about what those anti-piracy efforts might entail.

To find out, I recently interviewed Avigail Gutman, vice president of intelligence and security operations at Synamedia. In this interview Gutman discusses how intelligence is gathered, involvement with law enforcement to go after pirates, working with competitors to advance common anti-piracy goals and whether or not the company has ever suffered cyberattacks at the hands of pirates or hackers out for revenge. 

(An edited transcript.)

TVTech: Since I spoke with Synamedia about OTT ServiceGuard a few weeks ago and the topic of tracking down pirate scripts came up, I’ve been thinking about what steps you might be taking to gather intelligence on pirates and the scripts they use to steal high-quality OTT content. Maybe you simply pay them to reveal their scripts and techniques. Maybe there’s some cloak and dagger going on, and you infiltrate these communities. Maybe you conduct some digital spying of your own. But that’s just my imagination talking; tell me what’s really going on.

Avigail Gutman: It’s probably all of those. When we gather intelligence about piracy and about hacking that leads to piracy, one of the important things to understand is that you're gathering intelligence about people who, on the one hand, don't want to be found. They’ll be hiding their activities or their conversations or their “Aha!” moments on breaking or exploiting.

On the other hand, these are people who need in terms of the hacker psyche, they want recognition for what they've done, and if they’re pirates, it’s a big business, so they need a sales outlet—whether it’s a sales point to sell a pirate subscription, stolen credentials or tools that enable you to parse a large database of stolen credentials. Or, maybe they want to sell scripts that enable you to break into a CDN and pull out video—maybe even strip it from DRM.

So, there's this constant tension within this ecosystem of both not wanting to be found but wanting to be exposed and to show off on the part of hackers and make money when it comes to piracy.

In that kind of environment, to find out what hackers and pirates are doing you have to employ a variety of methods to track them. So, yes, we do a lot of what you said. It’s a layered kind of approach.

TVTech: Tell me about those layers.

AG: At the very basic level, of course, we do internet research. We scour the internet. It’s known as web intelligence today, or open source intelligence. 

You scour the internet for discussions, tools and pirate services. You have to do this in multiple languages. We do that in 20 languages, so we cover the world. We go into open forums. So there's a lot of open source information available, but we also go into closed groups and chats.

Of course, we don't go in as Synamedia and nor do our competitors or other anti-piracy professionals in the field who also use similar techniques where you go in undercover and you participate in the discussions, not only listen to them. To do that, you need to see the world from a hacker’s perspective or from a pirate’s perspective. So you need to become educated in the content itself and the subject matter, but also in the way people speak. The types of things that people on these forums share or don't share. You don't want to be found out and thrown out.

That's the first layer. You do this across social networks; you do this on open and closed internet forums, and also on the dark web where there's a huge sales market for tools that enable piracy that might be in the gray area and therefore not available publicly. I mean, there's a lot that is available publicly.

TVTech: And the next level?

AG: Well, you asked, “Do you join the networks? Buy a subscription to the networks?” Yes, we have to. Not all of the news that we read on the internet is true. I always say it’s not the Harvard Law School Library. The reliability is not very high.

So you need to validate or verify or refute some of the information. Sometimes that means if you have early information on a new hack or piracy method, that you actually have to go out, purchase it and test it functionally.

Then if it works, do some forensics on it. Both because you want to understand how it works, so that you can create a technology to prevent it from working, but also to gather evidence, because clearly, this is something that facilitates infringement on copyright. 

TVTech: That gets to my next question. Do you work with law enforcement agencies?

AG: Absolutely. This is one of the reasons to do this. There’s really two reasons that we gather this intelligence in our business. One is for product improvement. The other is to go back to our customers and say, “Look, here are the pirates that we think are impacting you. Here is the intelligence we gathered on them.”

Oftentimes, we’ll make a recommendation and ask “Shall we go to law enforcement?” of they’ll say “We want to go to law enforcement with this.” At that stage, we have to turn the intelligence into evidence.

TVTech: What’s the reaction of law enforcement to video piracy?

AG: Law enforcement agencies are not preoccupied as a top priority with video piracy. They have to deal with street crime, but even in the cyber area there is what they consider to be much more serious cybercrimes—attacks on government, corporations and pedophilia. 

So, even if they do see piracy as cybercrime—and many countries do today, by the way—their resources are not there to do the investigation from scratch based on a complaint. So one of the things we do is bring in the evidence that we’ve gathered to support law enforcement activities. We do this all around the world.

There was big action in Brazil a couple of months ago. That was a very coordinated action by the government across several states to raid and arrest video pirates. We had been working with an anti-piracy organization there and with the government to gather intelligence about the pirates who ultimately were raided.

TVTech: Then do you step back and leave it to law enforcement to execute the raid?

AG: We often accompany the police during the raid. We’ve done this in Bulgaria, in the U.K., in Asia, in East Asia, in Thailand and elsewhere. We accompany the police because oftentimes we can see a certain technical setup by a pirate. Maybe the police officer’s instinct is immediately to seize the equipment, but if they disconnect it, they might lose evidence. Today, the police are much more sensitive and educated about this, but still we are there.

We’ve also been tasked by law enforcement and by our customers to do the forensics on some of the findings of these raids to turn it into evidence and maybe even give expert testimony if needed.

Some customers might decide they don’t want to go to the police because that’s a huge, one-year operation. But they want to send takedown notices to ISPs to take down content. We help with that.

TVTech: Synamedia isn’t the only company in the area of content protection. Is there cooperation among competitors when it comes to combatting piracy?

AG: Absolutely. First of all, there are anti-piracy organizations around the world. Some of them are regionally based. We’re members of all of them. So are our competitors, and so are our customers and other industry players.

As part of those organization, we engage in cross-industry, anti-piracy activities wherever there is no conflict of interest. There is a sense of camaraderie and cooperation, so yes, where there’s no conflict of interest I will certainly pick up the phone to my counterpart at a competitor and tell him about pirates we happen to run across that are targeting him, not just me. We’ll even take joint action in some cases. 

TVTech: What about retribution? Has Synamedia ever been attacked by a hacker or pirate who wants to settle a score?

AG: If we have, they haven’t done it successfully yet. Our customers worry about this as well. We, like anybody else or any other industry, work on the cybersecurity of our own organization. It’s not just pirates. You do this anyway with the surge in cyberattacks globally. Everybody is susceptible to this, and yes, we worry about it just like everybody else. Retribution is something we have to think about a lot.

PARIS—Viaccess-Orca (VO) and ATEME have announced a contribution watermarking solution with a pay-per-use business model that eliminates the complex pricing traditionally associated with watermarking and in the process enables faster technology adoption.

"Piracy is evolving. Hackers are exploiting new techniques to illegally access and redistribute video content, and the industry needs an accurate, scalable, and cost-efficient solution to identify the source of leaks," said Mathieu Harel, product director of watermarking at Viaccess-Orca. "Collaborating with ATEME, we've developed a smarter method for tracking piracy: one that focuses on the full content path as opposed to just the end points. With our solution, content owners and providers can protect their content and revenues in a way that was never before imaginable."

As part of the solution, VO's software-based dynamic watermarking technology is embedded and ready to use within IRDs and encoders from ATEME, enabling content owners and providers to precisely identify the source of video piracy leaks within various distribution channels.

VO's dynamic watermarking technology features multiple, dynamic algorithms with the ability to track and change watermarks in real time. As content owners distribute live content to multiple affiliates, the solution tracks its path through different channels — including satellite and IP — injecting an invisible watermark on the video at each distribution point. The solution offers a portal to VO's Anti-Piracy Center, where content leaks are closely monitored and then quickly identified so that content owners can fight back against piracy, the companies said. 

The new solution's pay-per-use business model eliminates licensing, maintenance, and service fees, allowing content owners and providers to pay for contribution watermarking technology only when they use it. The dynamic watermarking technology is software-based, allowing content owners and providers to scale the new solution rapidly as they address piracy concerns, the companies explained. 

"By 2022 the cost of online video piracy is expected to reach $52 billion, and this problem is only going to get worse without an effective solution," said Julien Mandel, solution marketing senior director at ATEME. "Teaming up with Viaccess-Orca, an industry leader in content protection, we've created a free solution that liberates content owners and providers from sizing their network, so that they can focus only on tracking the path of leaks throughout the distribution workflow. Before this, content providers were limited to only identifying the end point of leaked content, so this solution is a real game-changer for the industry."

The companies also noted that the new solution supports BISS-CA encryption, an open protocol that enables real-time entitlement management for content streams over any network. When used in conjunction with dynamic watermarking, BISS-CA simplifies content owners' ability to trace the source of illegal streams and safeguard their content, making this new watermarking solution especially advantageous for live sports streaming applications.

More information about VO and the new contribution watermarking solution is available here. 

LONDON—The summer’s tentpole movie was more than a box office disappointment and lawsuit catalyst for Scarlett Johansson; Marvel’s Black Widow was also the most pirated movie of the pandemic era, as reported by TorrentFreak. One possible culprit (apart from the temptation to see Ray Winstone attempt a Russian accent) is simultaneous digital distribution, the practice of releasing a film on VoD and in theaters at the same time. 

Not only is this potentially harming earnings (the complaint behind Johansson’s legal action), it arguably makes the most valuable assets the most vulnerable. 

“The opportunity for cyberattacks to occur is elevated as the risk of disruption from these digital releases increases during high-profile events, mainly if a film is available to download and stream at the same time as a cinema release,” says Eric Elbaz, strategic engagement manager—Broadcasting Media, Akamai. “Pirates and threat actors are opportunistic in nature and will take advantage of high-profile releases to maximize their impact and return on investment. Companies must be aware of this trend and take action to mitigate the risks.”

Looking outside the Hollywood bubble, cyberattacks are on the rise the world over; ransomware attacks in particular were up 151% in the first half of 2021 (compared to the same time in 2020), according to data from Atlas VPN. And yet the media industry is under unique pressure to keep its materials under wraps, according to Christopher J. Chan, Partner at international law firm Eversheds Sutherland.

“While ransomware attacks and breaches in customer data privacy have been well publicized in other industries,” Chan said, “the reliance of the media industry on maintaining confidentiality in a motion picture product makes the media industry particularly prone to the adverse effects of a successful cyberattack which may compromise the details of an otherwise motion picture product, such as a plot or storyline, or surprise ending to a movie.” 

SHIELDING CONTENT
Without a team of superheroes to protect them, how can media companies defend this content from increasingly sophisticated forms of piracy? The trend towards content protection offers something in the way of security, a combination of authentication, encryption and watermarking to prevent assets from being copied.

“We see greater investment than ever in protecting content, especially as the nature of how content is delivered continues to evolve,” confirms Darren Lepke, head of video product management at Edgecast. “As content availability increases, we’re likely to see content providers apply more pressure on OTT platforms to support advanced solutions like watermarking and proactive monitoring, in addition to standard methods like DRM, encryption, and user authentication.

“We anticipate that watermarking solutions will become crucial, particularly for live sports,” Lepke continued. “Forensic watermarking will enable platforms to identify unauthorized traffic and determine which streams are being compromised so that security professionals can quickly shut them down.”

Even with this increased investment, content protection is a far from perfect solution, as Chan explains: “No content protection technology has yet proven 100% effective against video and streaming piracy, and the sophistication of pirates and infringers appears to increase with each advance of new content protection technology... It is still an open question as to whether content protection technology will ever be strong enough to prevent the unauthorized pirating and distribution of video and streaming content.” 

Deploying content protection in tandem with other cybersecurity protocols makes for more robust defences, both prior to and after a product’s release.

“Content protection and cybersecurity need to cooperate with each other to provide effective protection against bad actors as well as convenient and easy access to video and streamed content by authorized consumers,” notes Chan. “During development and production, as well as after the public release of video and streamed content, such content should be sufficiently protected with both content protection measures as well as effective cybersecurity for associated networks and computers. The lapse in sufficient protection of video and streamed content by either content protection or by cybersecurity will likely jeopardize the economic value in the video and streamed content.”

On the network side, regular testing of a system’s defenses adds another layer of protection against piracy. Wayne Pecena, director of engineering at KAMU TV/FM at Texas A&M University, and past president of SBE, advocates “penetration testing,” which seeks to discover and exploit security flaws in an IT system.

“A pen test is executed by an ‘ethical’ hacker or ‘white hack’ hacker,” he explains. “The goal is to proactively find security flaws and correct in lieu of system flaws discovered by an actual cybersecurity event. Pen testing is a key aspect of a security audit.” Employing hacking tools such as NMAP or METASPLOIT, the would-be hacker carries out network reconnaissance, uncovers points of vulnerability and tests default logins. 

“I view penetration testing as the ‘proof of performance’ for the broadcast IT environment to verify the cybersecurity prevention measures that you think are in place really work,” says Pecena.

NEW POWERS
Emerging technologies such as AI and 5G will also have a key role to play in cybersecurity operations, and could be particularly powerful tools when combined.

Elbaz uses the following example: “AI can monitor shifts in internet traffic that may signal the start of an attack. 5G technologies can enable the fastest response possible by allowing AI to perform at-the-edge inference analysis and mitigation within milliseconds of detecting an oncoming attack.” 

By accelerating the speed of data analysis and enriching the granularity of detection, the efficiency of cybersecurity could be considerably enhanced. But so too could the attacks themselves; just as supervillains come in evil versions of their nemeses’ armor, hackers will harness the same technology used by media companies and the arms race wages on.

In the end these villains are thwarted when the heroes work together in ways that are unavailable to the forces of greed, and Philip James, Partner at Eversheds Sutherland, sees an opportunity for companies to provide something communal that pirates cannot, by using technology creatively.

“There is nothing like the shared experience of the theater,” he argues. “The more unique or distinct a theatrical performance can be, whether via virtual reality, 3D, in-theatre special effects, hospitality, exclusive content, trailers and interviews with directors and actors, the better opportunity there is for content creators to maintain an edge over hackers... by making the official content the best experience it can be.” 

LONDON—Synamedia today launched Synamedia OTT ServiceGuard, an anti-piracy solution for over-the-top services designed to protect them from an inherent weakness pirates can exploit to trick the service’s content delivery network (CDN) into giving out protected content.

“With the transition of the market into OTT, pirates have shifted their paradigm of stealing content as well as stealing service… and they’ve managed to find ways of doing it very effectively,” said Nitsan Baider, director of product management for security solutions at Synamedia, during an exclusive interview this week with TVTech.

Pirates have identified a way to steal content at the highest level of quality and also take whatever subtitles and audio tracks they desire without being detected, They can do this quickly and without the effort they previously had to expend, he said.

By using pirate scripts, they are able to connect to an OTT service, trick it into giving out the content, thereby doing away with the extensive steps they’ve previously taken to swipe content, he said.

“All that’s needed is a set of credentials, which are super easy and cheap to obtain, and you’re good to go,” he said.

These pirate scripts work because the OTT protocol is broken, he explained. “[E]veryone is focused on protecting the content and digital rights management. But DRM is not the issue,” he said.

The problem centers on the communications between OTT clients and services. Pirate scripts breach this communication and impersonate a client, said Baider.

This makes it easy for pirates to access content, enabling them to exploit vulnerabilities in the DRM, get to the control plane of the service provider, take whatever DRM licenses are needed and then, going to the CDN, obtain desired content and peel away the DRM, thereby completing the heist, he explained.

Another method is for pirates to reroute content from the service provider to their pirate clients. In this instance, a pirate server hacks the protocol and redirects those clients directly to the service provider’s CDN. In such a circumstance, a CDN may be servicing hundreds or even thousands of pirate clients on a single account and be completely unaware of what is happening, said Baider. 

Synamedia OTT ServiceGuard protects content across all platforms, including mobile, browsers and smart TVs, and extends service protection to the CDN itself, thereby stopping pirates from stealing content at the point of distribution, the company said.

The new solution gives each client a unique identity that cannot be cloned and allocates secure keys for signing service requests. This ensures all client messages are validated for authenticity and origin, it said. 

Synamedia OTT ServiceGuard is the latest layer of security in the company’s EverGuard portfolio. It is offered as a service and quick to deploy, the company said.

The offering supports all client devices and is easily integrated with existing OTT infrastructure without affecting user experience or existing application-service communications, the company said.

More information is available on the company's website. 

CATONSVILLE, Md.—Limiting access to OTT content contributes to people pirating content and appears to be a more important factor in driving piracy demand than market rate pricing of streaming services, according to new research.

Researchers from the University of Houston, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Indeed in Austin, Texas, examined the growth of Netflix in 40 Asian countries after the company announced in January 2016 its plans for global expansion. They compared searches for pirated content in Indonesia, where the nation’s primary telecommunications firm blocked the service to such searches in the other countries. 

The researchers found that the failure of Netflix to launch in Indonesia led to a 19.7% increase in searches for pirated movies and TV shows, which could have been viewed legally if the public in Indonesia had access to Netflix.

To examine piracy demand, the researchers collected monthly search data from Google for a sample of 304 titles, including movies and TV shows, available on Netflix in 41 Asian nations between October 2014 and June 2016. This period represents the time before the Netflix expansion and the months following its rollout. 

While denial of access to the content motivated searches for pirated content, it wasn’t the only reason. Where people have access to paid OTT content, they may simply wish to avoid paying market rates. However, the searches for pirated content is more closely associated with content with restricted access, they found. 

The researchers also found that demand for pirated content is higher for less dialogue-oriented content, which is consistent with the greater appeal of dialogue-light content to non-English-speaking consumers, the researchers said.

The research is published in the May edition of the INFORMS journal Marketing Science. The researchers’ article is entitled “The Effect of Over-the-Top Media Services on Piracy Search: Evidence from a Natural Experiment.”

LONDON—The cost of sports piracy has been revealed via a new report from Synamedia and Ampere Analysis, with as much as $28.3 billion in new revenue being available to service providers and rights holders each year if they are able to reduce sports piracy.

The report, “Pricing Piracy: The Value of Action,” uses a model that evaluates how different illegal viewers respond to anti-piracy measures and identifies the demographics and characteristics of those illegal users who are most likely to convert to legal services.

By understanding the motivations of those who access pirated streams, the report says that service providers can target those most likely to switch—aka “the converter cohort”—by implementing disrupting streams as well as providing them with incentives. Of more than 6,000 sports fans in 10 markets, Ampere found that 74% are willing to switch from illegal streams if a legitimate alternative is available and illegal streams become unreliable.

This converter cohort tends to be younger and is often families with young children, the report finds, with them watching as many as 10 or more different sports on connected devices. As many as 40% of the converter cohort would subscribe to OTT streaming sports services, while the remaining balance would opt for traditional pay-TV, particularly those offering exclusive sports rights. More than half of the converter cohort actually already pay for legitimate services (57%), while 52% pay for pirate services.

To convert pirate customers to legitimate services requires service providers to address the reasons that they sought illegal services out to begin with. Per the report, these include flexible access without complex installations or long contracts; ease of use; availability on every device in any location; and, for OTT services, a price point that is lower than traditional pay-TV services with premium sports tiers included.

If able to access this new revenue, Synamedia and Ampere estimate that of the $28.3 billion, about $22.9 billion would be split among pay-TV providers and $5.4 billion would be for OTT sports streaming services.

For more information, the full report can be downloaded here.

LONDON—An event that may have gone unnoticed last December when the U.S. election was still dominating the news cycle, was the ratification of the “Protecting Lawful Streaming Act,” which makes stealing video streams a felony, to be treated the same as illegally distributing copyrighted TV and movies.

And not a moment too soon—Q1 2020 saw a fourfold year-on-year rise in credential stuffing attacks against the media industry, according to a study by Akamai, which reported approximately 100 million malicious login attempts per day.

LOCKING DOWN STREAMS

Clearly the pandemic has a role to play, since lockdowns ironically result in more breaches of streaming security as a result of higher demand. Two months into lockdown last year, Nielsen reported that Americans were streaming twice as much content as in 2019.

“Much of that traffic was driven by more people staying at home relying on streaming video for entertainment,” confirms Ian Munford, director of Media Product Marketing at Akamai. “In our '2020 State of the Internet/Credential Stuffing in the Media Industry' report, we noted a spike in malicious login attempts against European video service providers and broadcasters that coincided with early lockdowns in the region.

“While we can’t definitively state that the attempts were directly related to an increased demand for streaming, it’s certainly reasonable to draw at least some level of correlation between the two,” he continued. “Like many others, criminals were isolating at home as well, and likely had more inclination and time to devote to nefarious activities.”

Philip James, partner, privacy and security from law firm Eversheds Sutherland, concurs. “The appetite for entertainment remains high, and despite the pandemic, is supported by ease of access through mobile and tablets,” he said. “In addition, bandwidth and speed of streaming have increased, and on balance, have become proportionately better value.”

Add to this today’s trend for film companies to release movies online that would traditionally have been tentpole theatrical events, and the seas of piracy grow even choppier.

“The increasing proliferation of high-profile content, which would have ordinarily gone to theatrical release, is particularly attractive and some studios have decided to go straight to online stream rather than await theatrical release—with the exception of the Bond franchise, of course, which delayed its release of ‘No Time To Die’ twice as a result of the pandemic," James said. “One of the key reasons for awaiting theatrical release is likely to be security concerns around pirate copies of streamed content.”

Indeed, Warner Bros’ release of “Wonder Woman 1984” directly onto HBO Max made it the target of 10% of all illegal TV or movie downloads on the day it came out, according to piracy tracker TorrentFreak. Writing in Quartz, Adam Epstein estimates “at least $20 million in lost revenue for the studio—and likely much more in subsequent weeks.” This places film studios in a position TV broadcasters have been in for decades, fending off pirates as tenacious as any foe of Wonder Woman.

In 2021 Warner Bros is releasing all of its movies on HBO Max concurrently with their theatrical (and at the moment highly theoretical) release, leaving the company open to digital attacks and, depending on the appetite for the new "Space Jam" movie, losing millions in potential revenue.

SHIELDING CONTENT

How then do broadcasters protect their content from the increasing threat of piracy?

“Regardless of the scope, authentication and encryption are the keys,” said Wayne Pacena, director of engineering, Texas A&M University, KAMU FM & TV, adding that “the implementation is likely very different based upon the scope or context of what is being protected.”

For instance, as sports rights holders up their defense game, pirates respond with equally sophisticated lines of attack.

“During one particular sports tournament, Akamai anti-piracy specialists identified attack vectors changing on a daily and even hourly basis,” notes Munford. “It is for this reason that the means of protection against video piracy also needs to change. No longer is it possible to use one technology such as digital rights management or even watermarking as video pirates will find a way to circumnavigate the protection.

“Responsible broadcasters are now looking to build protection throughout their value chain and adopting a 'zero trust' posture,” Munford added. “In practice, this means stepping up their investigatory and legal activities but also complementing this work by preventing access to internal production systems, preventing credential abuse, protecting APIs in addition to investing in real-time monitoring and stream revocation technologies.” 

A SEACHANGE IN IP

ST 2110—the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers’ standard for video transport over IP—is designed to enable interoperability between different systems when transmitting uncompressed audio and video over an IP network. Pacena emphasizes the difference between this kind of managed private media infrastructure and the public internet, whose “maze of independent interconnected networks … is simply not an appropriate network choice in which to implement SMPTE ST 2110.”

By contrast, Pacena recommends a broadcaster’s IP network infrastructure employ a number of security measures or layers of protection, including “physical security, Ethernet switch port security, network (subnet) segmentation, packet filtering, access control, encryption and authentication.” A robust network is crucial to stopping the different forms of piracy increasingly jamming up digital space.

Such attacks are now liable to prosecution as felonies, a welcome step for anti-piracy practitioners but far from exhaustive according to Minal Modha, consumer research lead at Ampere Analysis, who noted the continuing threat to live sports.

“Sports is a good place to look when considering the battle against piracy,” Modha said. “Sport rights holders have been fighting it for years, have pumped large amounts of resources into it and are still facing big issues in tackling it. Pirates are using more advanced technology to stay ahead of the game and the vast number of streams available means that as soon as one is taken down, another replaces it almost instantly.

“With the huge numbers of pirate services available and how lucrative it is, unless the bill results in a large number of prosecutions, I’m not sure it’s going to be a further deterrent,” she added.

WASHINGTON—The illegal pirating of streaming videos is a growing threat to content owners and distributors, according to the Trump administration, which has shared its annual Intellectual Property Report to Congress.

The annual report—the final one from President Donald Trump’s White House before President-Elect Joe Biden is inaugurated—takes a look at many different facets regarding intellectual property, but it was sure to make mention of the pirating of streaming content and detailed steps the administration has taken and recommends moving forward.

“Global sales and use of ISDs [illicit streaming devices] is growing and poses a direct threat to content creators, sports leagues and live performances, as well as legitimate streaming, on-demand and over-the-top media service providers,” the report reads.

The report says that the administration advocates for increased intellectual property enforcement efforts. It makes no mention, however, of the bill that was included in the COVID-19 relief package that reclassifies the act of illegally streaming content for profit from a misdemeanor to a felony. It is unclear how the timing worked out between the writing of the report and the passage of the bill.

Other efforts the administration highlighted in its report include a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Homeland Security Investigations National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center and the Motion Picture Association to develop strategies to coordinate public- and private-sector efforts to combat digital piracy. This includes HSI’s Operation Intangibles.

The full Intellectual Property Report is available to read online. 

MANCHESTER, U.K.—Dragons were replaced by Baby Yoda as the most-pirated TV content for 2020, as TorrentFreak reported its annual top 10 list of most-pirated TV shows, which saw the “Star Wars”-based Disney+ series “The Mandalorian” lead the way.

HBO’s “Game of Thrones” had held a seven-year streak as the most-pirated show, but with the series ending in 2019, a new champion was bound to emerge. “The Mandalorian” (the third most-pirated show in 2019) now headlines a new top three that also consisted of Amazon Prime Video’s “The Boys” and HBO’s “Westworld”—both of which had not been on the list in 2019.

TorrentFreak says that the three most popular titles being on three separate subscription services, which not everyone may be able to afford, is an example of the piracy problem.

PLUS: Pirating Streamed Content to Become Felony

The other top 10 most-pirated shows are as follows: “Vikings,” “Star Trek: Picard,” “Rick and Morty,” “The Walking Dead,” “The Outsider,” “Arrow” and “The Flash.”

TorrentFreak’s rankings are based on BitTorrent statistics for downloads of single episodes worldwide. 

WASHINGTON—Illegally pirating streaming video could put guilty parties in jail thanks to a new bill. The Protecting Lawful Streaming Act introduced by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) was included in the omnibus spending bill of the COVID-19 relief bill that was passed by Congress on Dec. 21.

Under Tillis’ bill, any person that pirates video streams of copyrighted work will have committed a felony act and be subject to either fines or imprisonment. The previous penalty for pirating streaming content was a misdemeanor.

The bill targets large-scale, criminal, for-profit streaming services, not good faith business disputes or noncommercial activities. Nor does it target individuals who access the pirated streams, knowingly or unknowingly.

Streaming has become increasingly popular in the last few years, particularly in 2020 as the global pandemic has changed viewing habits as people have more time during lockdowns. This new bill brings the pirating of streamed content on the same level of other pirating efforts, including the illegal downloading of copyrighted content.

Co-sponsoring the bill with Tillis is Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.).

NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith issued a statement saying the association strongly supports the passing of the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act and how it is "tailored to deter large-scale copyright piracy while ensuring that legitimate licenses are not subject to potential prosecution."

UPDATE 12/21, 8:50 a.m.: The spending bill looks like it will be passed by Congress, though it is unclear at this time if the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act is officially included in the bill. 

WASHINGTON—The punishment for illegally streaming content could soon be more severe, as a new bill currently before Congress would increase the penalty of streaming pirated content from a misdemeanor to a felony.

The Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020, which was introduced by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and has bipartisan support, says that any persons who “willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or financial gain” provide public digital transmission services of copyrighted works will have committed a felony act. The bill is currently attached to the omnibus spending bill under consideration by Congress.

According to a blog post from Seth Cooper of The Free State Foundation, under the existing law piracy of online content is classified only as a misdemeanor, while other forms of piracy, like downloading content, are considered felonies. Cooper says that streaming, which is becoming the most popular way for consumers to view content, is also becoming the predominant form of online piracy through “stream-ripping” websites and apps as well as illegal Internet Protocol Television services.

PLUS: Nearly 40% of Consumers Commit Video Piracy, Per Hub Survey

Citing an August 2020 Digital Citizens Alliance report, Cooper says that an estimated $1 billion in U.S. subscription revenues were generated by illegal IPTV services, with about 9 million subscribers to these services.

The COVID-19 pandemic may have increased the popularity of illegal streaming piracy, Cooper adds. Tracking firm Muso found a 43% surge in American visits to movie pirating sites during the last week of March 2020 compared to a month earlier, Cooper writes.

“Under existing law, criminals who operate illegal IPTV streaming services can only be charged with misdemeanor infringement, not felony infringement,” Cooper says. “As a result, operators of these illegal streaming services face less severe penalties than operators of online piracy sites for downloading copyrighted movies and music. There obviously is no reason for this disparity in the law.”

Read Cooper’s full blog on The Free State Foundation website. 

LONDON—A key strategy in the fight against sports piracy is to provide the right incentives to those illegally accessing content so that a legal service is their best option, according to a new report from Synamedia.

“Tackling Sports Piracy in an IP World” from Synamedia features research from Ampere Analysis and provides new strategies for sports rights owners and pay-TV providers to combat streaming piracy, as well as proposing how to bring sports fans to legal services.

There are two primary reasons that viewers become deterred from pirating sports streams, per the report—fear of disruption to their viewing and the risk of legal and social consequences; each answer was cited by 84% of pirate services users. The study also found that three-quarters of respondents already believe that sports piracy is morally wrong, but they still do it. 

One way to combat that is to make pirate streams unreliable through deterrents, including identifying, interrupting and taking down illegal services. This can include disrupting pirate services funding, which can unwittingly come from advertisers, or DNS providers and hosting services that Synamedia say “appear to turn a blind eye,” or online payment providers that process illegal transactions.

Another strategy is to provide viewers incentives that make the legal options easier and in some cases more affordable. Flexible pricing is one such strategy, with Synamedia citing NBA TV, which offers subscriptions plans for the season, a month, a game or just for audio commentary. There is also the method of offering a slightly delayed service for those unwilling to pay; French football Ligue 1 games are offered for free for near-real time streams.

Synamedia says that sports rights owners and rights buyers need to work in lockstep to combat piracy. Recommendations include rights owners being wary of agreeing to exclusive terms with operators that do not offer a viable multiscreen experience; they can also negotiate content protection into deals that allow licensees to recover some investment if levels of piracy in their market exceed defined limits.

“To remain financially viable in the face of the double whammy of COVID-19 and hyper-piracy, sports rights owners need to impose stricter contractual requirements on streaming services, while investing in their own monitoring, intelligence and automated take-downs,” said Simon Brydon, senior director, Sports Rights Anti-Piracy at Synamedia. “To quote one operator interviewed for this report, its ambition is to make IP sports piracy harder than selling fake designer handbags.”

The full “Tackling Sports Piracy in an IP World” report is available online. 

WASHINGTON—There’s a different kind of side effect that has come about as people are quarantined at home during the COVID-19 pandemic—the increase, and potential impact, of malware issues via cyber attacks, particularly through illegal piracy devices.

This is according to a survey conducted by the Digital Citizens Alliance, which found that one in four of Americans who use piracy devices—like a Kodi Box or a jail-broken Amazon Firestick—in their home say they had a malware problem in the last three months; 49% have had a malware problem in the last year.

DCA says that these findings present a larger problem than normal because of how much people are relying on their home devices and internet for their daily lives during quarantine. During the pandemic, 53% of Americans have said the internet is essential to their lives, according to a Pew Research study; also, 60% are using personal devices to do their work at home, per Cyber Readiness Institute. Beyond work, DCA found that 70% of people are watching more TV than usual during this period.

PLUS: 51% of Global Sports Fans Watch Pirated Sports Content

It’s not just the greater use of piracy devices, cyber attacks have increased as well. DCA cites VMware Carbon Black that ransomware attacks are up 148%, and the United Nations has reported malicious emails have risen by 600% since the pandemic started.

“Now more than ever, all of us need to find ways to be less vulnerable,” said Tom Galvin, executive director of the Digital Citizens Alliance. “Reliance on piracy sites and apps is one of the easiest changes one can make to improve online security dramatically.”

Steps that individuals can take to protect themselves from this rise in cyber attacks, according to DCA, are: 

• Use apps that are licensed to sell or rent movies and TV shows; 
• Avoid knockoffs and copycats; and
• Be aware that services that offer free content but require personal information or control of a device are risky

For more information, visit www.digitalcitizensalliance.org. 

LONDON—Sports fans want to catch all of the action so much that even while nearly all of them subscribe to a service that would offer sports content, more than half pirate content at least once a month, according to a new report released by Synamedia.

Synamedia’s “Charting Global Sports Piracy” report, which is based on a survey conducted by Ampere Analysis in 10 countries with 6,000 respondents, finds that 89% of sports fans have either a pay-TV or an OTT subscription service, yet 51% still pirate sports on a monthly basis. In addition, 42% of those who pirate sports content watch it on a daily basis, more than 60% higher than the average sports fan.

PLUS: ESPN: Fans Want Live Sports on TV to Return ASAP

Additional data found from the report also noted that 31% of those who watch illegal content regularly do so because the event they watch isn’t shown locally. Also, 29% of those using illegal sites and services paid for access. Overall, just 16% of online sports fans say they never watch via illegal sources.

The Synamedia report also classified respondents into three segments of fans and detailed their attitudes and behaviors regarding sports content.

The report found 26% of respondents were “Loyal Stalwarts,” who disproportionately are found in nations where soccer is popular. These fans often watch pay-TV sports and believe it is wrong to watch pirated sports content, yet 35% still do so at least weekly. However, they say they would upgrade their sports subscriptions if they could access more legitimate content at home and on the move.

“Fickle Superfans” made up 31% of respondents. These fans were primarily from developing markets and all consume pirated content, 89% of them doing it weekly. They say they might pay more for legitimate sports services if they could access more flexible packages, a broader range of sports or multiscreen services with flexible terms and frictionless onboarding.

The final, largest group is the “Casual Spectator” (43%). These respondents mostly only follow major sporting events like the Olympics or the Super Bowl. They are the least likely to pay for a legitimate sports TV subscription, while 17% watch illegal content on a weekly basis. They reportedly could be drawn away from pirate streams with “light” access to tournaments, flexible payment models and play-to-play access of big events.

“Global spend on TV sports rights is set to total almost $50 billion in 2020. Protecting these revenues and keeping sports on screens requires a deeper understanding of the evolving piracy landscape and a cogent response,” said Simon Brydon, senior director, Sports Rights Anti-Piracy at Synamedia. “This initial research into what motivates sports fans to access illegal streams establishes a baseline for a more nuanced and targeted approach to combatting piracy. Our ambition is to help sports rights holders and operators apply a more forensic approach that drives up legitimate revenues, reduces sports’ fans reliance on illegal streams and takes the wind out of the pirates’ sails.”

The complete “Charting Global Sports Piracy” report is available for download. 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Akamai has announced a range of new steps aimed at protecting streamed broadcast content, including a provision giving rights holders the ability to execute immediate shutdowns of unauthorized streams or the source of piracy. 

In a blog posting, Akamai’s Chris Nicholson laid out the content protection strategy, including the immediate stream shutdowns. 

“Access Revocation can work on its own or integrated with either the Friend MTS or NAGRA watermarking solutions to be part of a formidable ‘prevent-discover-enforce’ content security posture,” wrote Nicholson.

Immediate halts to illegal streams are particularly important for live sports where the rights holder’s ability to make the most money from the event being covered normally is greatest during “a narrow window of competition,” he said.

Nicholson quoted from an interview by SportsPro with BeIN Media Group Chief Executive Yousef Al-Obaidly underscoring the urgency with which pirate sites must be shut down, particularly when it comes to sports. “You either make your money now or you don’t make money,” the blog quotes him as saying in the interview.

According to the blog, the company has taken other steps to fight piracy, including protecting against credential theft, system hacking, rebroadcasting, stolen streams and VPN abuse. Akamai has also signed on various partners with unique watermarking solutions to its content security ecosystem. They include:

• ContentArmor forensic watermarking; 
• Friend MTS ASiD watermarking; 
• INKA Entworks PallyCon forensic watermarking; 
• Irdeto TraceMark; 
• NAGRA NexGuard forensic watermarking; and 
• Verimatrix watermarking, StreamMark version 

The same ecosystem also has the ability to protect linear/simulcast streaming and video on demand, Nicholson added. 

DALLAS—Pay-TV and OTT operators in the U.S. took a hit of $9.1 billion in 2019 due to consumers sharing accounts and pirating content, according to a report from Parks Associates. Looking forward, Parks says that it expects the value of pirate video services to exceed $67 billion worldwide by 2023.

A 2019 Parks Associates report detailed U.S. operators’ $9.1 billion loss revenue in 2019, about which $2.5 billion was lost directly because of pirating; across North America, pirating generated $8.4 billion in losses. Pirating methods that Parks highlighted in its report include theft of video content from production, from distribution, from jail-broken consumer devices and from hosting by other pirates.

However, Parks found that the most antipiracy efforts in the U.S. focus on detecting and reducing credential sharing and account abuse. A Parks survey of U.S. broadband homes found 5% used someone else’s credentials to access a pay-TV service, while 6% did so to access an online video service. Another report from Hub detailed how prevalent password sharing is, particularly among teens and young adults, 80% of which have said they have shared or have used a shared password for streaming services.

“Credential sharing falls into two categories,” said Steven Hawley, contributing analyst at Parks Associates. “Most sharing is casual, with no intent to profit. But the bigger risk is from pirates that purchase large stolen consumer databases via the ‘Dark Web’ and use automation to discover penetrable end user accounts.”

Overall, Parks says that 12.5 million pay-TV households accessed pirated video in the U.S. in 2019, but that number is still low compared to the Asia and Pacific region.

The full “Video Piracy: Ecosystem, Risks and Impact” report is available online.

BURBANK, Calif.—Disney+ is only a little more than 24 hours old, but it’s been quite the start for the brand new streaming service. The much anticipated platform that features Disney classics, Marvel and Star Wars movies as well as original programming exceeded even The Walt Disney Company’s expectations with first-day sign ups, but with that came a few bumps in the road.

DownDetector, a company that tracks outages for telecom and streaming companies, registered more than 8,000 trouble reports early morning on Nov. 12 in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands. Some subscribers weren’t able to login, experienced playability issues and some were not able to access all or specific content.

“The consumer demand for Disney+ has exceeded our high expectations,” Disney said in a statement. “We are pleased by this incredible response and are working to quickly resolve the current user issues. We appreciate your patience.”

Most of Tuesday afternoon saw a decrease in reported issues to under 1,000, according to DownDetector, though it peaked over 2,000 around 8 p.m. As of Wednesday morning, fewer than 300 issues were being reported.

Beyond subscribers’ ability to access the new streaming service, it also saw its first instance of pirating. After concerns were expressed about pirating of Disney+’s original content, specifically the Star Wars series “The Mandalorian,” it came to fruition as the first episodes of “The Mandalorian” were pirated within three hours of the platform’s launch, according to Comparitech.

Most of the torrenting of the show came from Spain and the U.K.—countries that will not see the launch of Disney+ until 2020—though some originated in the U.S. and Canada.

With Disney’s new streaming service finally launching in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands today, Nov. 12, there are still millions (or even billions) of viewers who won’t be able to access its content, in some cases for at least four months.

Disney+ has been promoting its exclusive original content for months, whetting fans’ appetites with glimpses of a new live action “Lady and the Tramp,” “The World according to Jeff Goldblum,” and new Star Wars TV series “The Mandalorian.” But with the announcement that the new SVoD won’t launch in western Europe until the end of March 2020, how does Disney protect content that many fans would give Darth Vader’s missing right hand to watch now?

“High-value shows like 'The Mandalorian' will drive incredible consumer demand, and just like 'Game of Thrones,' will be a target for pirates,” Tim Pearson, senior director, product marketing, at NAGRA tells TV Technology's sister publication TVBEurope.

“In today’s increasingly fragmented digital world, there is a segment of the market that will just pick up their smartphones and search for what they want to watch and find illicit options. For providers like Disney+, competing with such free alternatives is just not sustainable.”

“With the right technologies in place, service providers like Disney+ can identify which legitimate clients the stream is leaking from, and then stop the distribution through that point,” Pearson continues.

“In the case of 'The Mandalorian,' preventing leaks and, if needed, identifying the source of any leak is critical. Anti-piracy actions can also be taken to bring down pirate resellers and illicit streaming services. Finally, in markets where it is legally possible, blocking access to pirate services is another effective approach to stopping piracy.”

At heart, it appears content is the main reason behind Disney’s decision to hold back its launch in the U.K. and western Europe, as Futuresource’s principal analyst David Sidebottom explains: “If it were to launch simultaneously globally, it would have differing content line-ups in different countries, due to the existing licensing deals that are still running in most countries with third-party pay-TV and/or SVoD providers.

“The most high-profile content is movies in the first pay-window, particularly given Disney’s stellar Box Office line-up in 2019, therefore it is set to hold out launching in a country until it can offer these first run movies,” he adds.

In the U.K., Sky currently has exclusive rights for Disney’s first run movies, with the deal thought to run well into 2020. “Therefore, for first run movies, it should have little bearing on piracy,” says Sidebottom. “But on the Disney+ exclusive 'The Mandalorian,' it won’t be available until 2020. Given the likely pent-up demand to watch the show, it will be interesting to see how fans react or choose to access the shows if they can’t wait.”

Sports has been famously referred to as the “battering ram” for global expansion of pay-TV subscriptions. With recent advances in live streaming technology and the introduction of new OTT sports viewing options such as subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) packages, sports fans are moving from traditional broadcast to online streaming services.

However, not all live OTT sports services are from legitimate sources. Piracy of live OTT sports broadcasts has proliferated with rising global demand for streaming and the ease of access to this content on consumer devices. Estimates from research firm Parks Associates peg the cost of video piracy this year for pay-TV and OTT providers at $9.1 billion in lost revenue. Consider that NBC agreed back in 2011 to pay $4.38 billion for the rights to broadcast the Olympics through the 2020 games—the most expensive broadcasting rights deal in Olympic history. It all adds up to an unparalleled need for comprehensive content protection and anti-piracy solutions.

But protecting the revenue of a premium live sports broadcast or streaming service with legacy conditional access systems (CAS), or even modern digital rights management (DRM) technology, may not be sufficient to block piracy services and redistribution of live sporting events. Pirates effectively restream live sporting content, after it has been decrypted, using various circumventions such as screen-recording software, external camera recording or HDMI-capture devices with a high-bandwidth digital content protection (HDCP) “stripper.”

CONTINUING THE INNOVATION

As the competition heats up and improvements in technology bring the live OTT viewing experience closer to broadcast TV, live OTT sports service providers are starting to innovate in other areas as they look to attract and retain new viewers. Consequently, as with other streaming media technologies, there are certain well-accepted platform considerations that guide delivery.

For example, consumer interest is growing worldwide in lockstep with pervasive use of IP networks and global cloud-based platforms such as AWS, Alibaba, Azure and Google Cloud. At the same time, local CDNs allow content to be served from the edge, putting resources closer to users and providing a superior user experience. DRM technology is an essential enabler for OTT video as content delivered at the edge must be encrypted at rest and played on trusted clients.

Scaling for peak viewing is also a factor. Live sports are appointment-driven viewing, creating peaks in traffic during major events. Scalability for millions of simultaneous viewers is daunting, and DRM is not trivial to master. A poor implementation results in a frustrating viewer experience, and ultimately may lead to costly subscriber churn. With live events, this challenge is compounded by the need to quickly deliver a large number of DRM licenses to a global audience on a broad range of devices. A managed multi-DRM service is one alternative to in-house development.

Advancements in delivering live OTT sports, streaming services continue to experience latency, potentially leading to spoilers and ultimately subscriber attrition. Recent industry innovations, such as low latency Common Media Application Format (CMAF) and Low-Latency HLS (LHLS), provide an “equivalent to broadcast” transmission delay of 3-5 seconds versus 10 times or more in typical adaptive bitrate encoding and delivery scenarios.

Traditional broadcast services, using managed networks, have honed their high-availability performance. In order to retain subscribers, OTT live streaming must match and exceed that performance and OTT services look to achieve this by utilizing a scalable and redundant architecture that is deployed across multiple data centers and CDNs for performant access to content, and a reliable and scalable solution for DRM license delivery.

FORENSIC WATERMARKING AND PIRACY MONITORING

Pirates typically use screen recording software or an external camera to record and restream the content. Acting as a crucial complement to CAS or DRM, user-specific forensic watermarking technology embeds a unique identifier for each session, enabling identification of the device that is “leaking” or restreaming the content. This allows for real-time shutdown of the illegal redistribution or the ability to take other actions subject to the service provider’s policy.

Forensic watermarking can be applied either at the head-end during content processing and delivery (server-side) or within the client device and video player (client-side). For live sports OTT services, avoiding latency when adding a forensic watermark is crucial. Server-side technology requires heavy integration with the live encoders and CDNs, and can add additional latency to live events.

On the other hand, the major requirement for addressing the piracy of sports content is the capability of the fast, real-time extraction for the embedded watermark. Therefore most vendors are focusing on client-side watermarking technologies as the best approach for live sports. This does not require significant watermarking integration nor add to system overhead, which is currently required for server-side solutions.

It is important to note that the first step in combating live sports piracy is to detect the pirated service. It is essential to also take advantage of monitoring services and web crawling tools, in conjunction with session-based watermarking. Combining digital fingerprinting technology, which is required for automatic content recognition (ACR) applications, with session-based forensic watermarking will achieve the most effective end-to-end anti-piracy service. This combined approach enables monitoring of known piracy sites for pirated streams and ultimately the detection forensics required to prosecute pirates and take action to disrupt the entire value chain from illicit source to consumer.

CAPITALIZING ON ALL THIS INTEREST

OTT technology offers a unique opportunity to deliver live sports without regard for geographical borders, allowing global audiences to access content on a broad range of devices, platforms and networks. By way of example, with the ubiquitous ExpressPlay DRM platform, the service provider can employ any monetization method, including pay-per-view, subscription or freemium. As an integral element of content protection, it allows for forensic watermarking of live, linear and on-demand OTT services to prevent piracy.

It is also possible to build on DRM to reduce copyright infringement and minimize losses. While traditional and streaming broadcasters have long used both conditional access and DRM to protect content, particularly live sports, technology cannot be the only line of defense. Tackling piracy also requires pursuing offenders through legal remedies, such as in the courts, sending a message to others. In addition, collaborative efforts to monitor the web, as well as closed pirate networks for content leakage, must be front-and-center in the response.

As the business of delivering live action to sports fans around the world changes rapidly, new challenges take the field for media and broadcasters. Ensuring that OTT content is received by the intended user in a secure, high-quality manner and based on subscription service, device and location can be complex. Content publishers, network operators, and broadcasters must be supported by technological means to receive their full media monetization, so they can continue delivering live OTT sports content to eager fans.

Ali Hodjat is a director of product marketing for Media Solutions at Intertrust Technologies. He has extensive experience in leading product management and product marketing activities in the fields of pay-TV security, multimedia, watermarking and anti-piracy solutions. Before Intertrust, Ali worked at Verimatrix for seven years as a senior director of product management and at Broadcom for six years managing security certification with major CAS and DRM partners. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UCLA, and an MBA from the University of California at Irvine.

NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES—Fox and Charter Communications have announced they’ve reached a long-term distribution agreement that will keep Fox’s entertainment, news and sports programs on Charter-owned stations. As part of the agreement, the two sides will also cooperate on policy to protect content against piracy.

Covered in the renewal are the distribution of Fox TV stations, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network and Fox Deportes, as well as video on-demand and TV Everywhere for those networks.

“This agreement allows continued access to all of the Fox programming for our customers and Fox viewers, but it will also amplify our mutual efforts to address piracy and abusive password sharing issues,” said Tom Montemagno, executive vice president of programming acquisition with Charter. “We appreciate Fox’s desire to further collaborate as the video landscape continues to evolve.”

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

CHESEAUX, Switzerland & PHOENIX—Now in its fourth year, the Pay-TV Innovation Forum, organized by NAGRA and MTM, has released its global findings based off of industry executives in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. The Forum focused on a number of key industry trends, including OTT services, next-generation content aggregation, piracy and pay-TV digital transformation, among others.

On the surface it seems that pay-TV and OTT services are opposing entities, but a majority of industry executives that took part in the forum actually see OTT technology having a positive impact on their business. Seventy percent of those polled shared this view, while 21% see a negative impact. While new streaming services like Apple TV+ and Disney+ will soon be rolled out, they are not seen as a significant threat to pay-TV and can actually be an opportunity to adopt a super-aggregator model for these services. Super-aggregator platforms could emerge within the next five years, according to 77% of executives. However, combined services—like what Disney will offer with a bundle of Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+—could prove as a significant competitor.

However, pay-TV execs still recognize that certain things have to change in their industry to appease customers, and one such solution could be the restructuring of traditional pay-TV packages. Over the next decade, 91% of respondents believe innovation in product pricing and packaging will be key to attracting and retaining customers, especially the next generation of consumers.

One thing that they don’t expect to change, however, is the importance of keeping tier-one sports on pay-TV. OTT services are beginning to challenge pay-TV’s sports dominance with things like OTT aggregators and direct-to-consumer services from leagues, clubs and broadcasters. A total of 85% of respondents believe OTT sports streaming will increase in their country from by 2024. As a result, 93% see sport streaming services as valuable partners for pay-TV providers seeking to aggregate content and services.

Content piracy is still seen as a “challenge” to pay-TV businesses, according to 60% of the forum, with 65% believing that piracy has gotten worse or stayed the same in their countries, with nearly half believing piracy pressures will increase in the next five years. To combat piracy, the execs believe it will take a combination improvements to pay-TV offerings, deeper collaboration across the industry and new technology.

It was also widely believed among respondents (79%) that to compete, pay-TV will need to invest in areas like big data analytics, automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning. They mostly believe that they can be doing more to invest in these data and analytics capabilities.

“This year’s findings illustrate the ongoing need for transformation, as the pace of change across the industry accelerates. The wave of new OTT offerings entering the U.S. market are causing considerable anxiety, but the industry remains confident that it can continue to thrive,” said Jon Watts, managing partner for MTM. “Pay-TV providers will have to continue to innovate, developing better offerings and services that deliver what consumers are looking for. Faced with ever-growing competition, increasing fragmentation and fast-paced innovation, pay-TV businesses will have to decide which opportunities to pursue and which investments to prioritize.”

Find the full report here. 

LOS ANGELES—A group of Hollywood studios has won a permanent injunction against Vader Streams, which they accused of illegally streaming hundreds of TV shows and movies to online audiences in the United States and Canada. The injunction was issued by the Federal Court in Canada against Vader Streams, which also slapped a $10 million fine on the pirate.

The group, which calls itself the “Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment,” includes most of the world’s largest entertainment conglomerates including Sony, Netflix, Warner Bros. and Disney, filed its lawsuit in January 2018.

The group said Vader was a key part of a complicated, IPTV piracy network, which until recently was feeding more than 200 dealers of illicit content with unauthorized access to 1,300 live streaming television channels and a library of up to 2,400 movies and 350 television shows. The unauthorized television streams included live events, sports, pay-per-view and premium pay channels.

The lawsuit was specifically tied to devices that use Kodi “add-on” software to stream content. ACE had also recently scored victories against other Kodi-based streamers including TickBox and Dragon Box.

“On behalf of all ACE members, I applaud the Court’s decision to permanently put an end to piracy operations conducted by Vader Streams,” said Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. “Actions like these can help reduce piracy and promote a dynamic, legal marketplace for creative content that provides audiences with more choices than ever before, while supporting millions of jobs in the film and television industry.”

The injunction issued by the Federal Court in Canada requires Vader Streams to:

• Cede administrative control over the entire Vader piracy infrastructure.
• Permanently cease and desist from developing, operating, promoting or selling subscriptions to unauthorized or unlicensed piracy feeds of any kind.
• Permanently cease and desist from developing, updating, hosting or promoting Kodi add-ons or repositories that enable access to pirated content.

“Today is a significant achievement for ACE in our ongoing efforts to protect the creative content of our members,” said Jan Van Voorn, executive vice president and chief of Global Content Protection at the Motion Picture Association of America. “ACE is committed to an all-of-the-above approach to reduce the theft and illegal distribution of films and television programs. This enforcement action is one of the many legal and operational tools ACE deploys to protect the legitimate market for creative content.”

“This strong and appropriate action by the Federal Court is a clear demonstration that the Canadian legal system is prepared to take the necessary steps to combat content theft,” said Robert Malcolmson, senior vice president, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Bell Canada. “Illegal streaming services like Vader Streams cause serious harm to creators and distributors, the entire broadcasting and cultural sectors and ultimately Canadian consumers.”