irdeto_irdeto 30/09/2013 15:53 Page 1
Fighting Piracy – “Business As
Usual” Is Not Sustainable
identified threats to make informed business decisions. Identified threats need to
be investigated and prioritized accordingly, and new anti-piracy techniques must
receive thorough analysis to ensure they
suit the needs of the business
Executives at Irdeto address topics vital to combating
piracy and protecting revenues.
nterest in online video is at an alltime high – according to Experian,
the UK alone made over a billion
visits to video sites in February
2013. From viewers searching online for
the latest episode of Mad Men to the
launch of major file-hosting sites such as
Mega, consumers are becoming more
accustomed to accessing video content
wherever and whenever they want – and
are likely to take the path of least resistance to get it.
It’s no surprise therefore that the changing
video landscape has also resulted in a significant increase in business complexity.
Traditional methods of content distribution,
such as via broadcast networks to set-top
boxes, which allowed the operator to have a
good deal of control over security policies, are
no longer dominant in many markets. Today’s
complex content environment offers numerous
networks for video delivery across multiple
devices and applications. In many cases, content delivered to consumers is out of the operator’s hands, making the fight against piracy
extremely difficult.
The changing battle-lines against piracy certainly reflect this – in 2012, control word sharing was identified as the number one piracy
threat according to Farncombe’s Security and
Piracy Survey, where pirates steal the secret
key used to decode content on broadcast networks. However, the survey also sheds some
interesting light on where issues will lie in
future, with 42% of operators surveyed highlighting “content redistribution over the
Internet” as the biggest growing threat for
either broadcast or downloaded content. And
with 88% of operators expecting wide adoption
of complementary devices, the trend of consuming content over the Internet shows no sign
of waning.
Premium quality content has always been
the bread and butter of pay TV providers, but
as rising levels of piracy jeopardise future revenues, pay TV operators need to look beyond
the traditional analysis, tools and education to
deal with these emerging threats.
I
Business as usual?
Traditionally, many operators approached the
growing issue of piracy in a very linear manner:
l Invest in an increasing array of products
to deal with the “latest crisis”
l Continually grow the number of internal
security staff
12 Content Security Special
l Allocate bigger budgets to security
When the battle against piracy was limited to
regions or technologies in operators’ control,
this was a secure and often successful
approach. But with consumers now demanding more, both in terms of content availability
and breadth of accessibility due to more ubiquitous bandwidth and broadband-connected
devices, these traditional methods are no
longer sustainable as piracy goes global and on
the Internet.
Numerous elements feed into the piracy
battle – whether it’s education around copyright laws, prioritising by identifying and protecting critical assets, integrating people and
Pirate circumvention devices confiscated
following an investigation with
MultiChoice Africa in July 2012
process with technology or weighing the benefits of outsourcing security functions to trusted
partners – and these elements must be considered to tackle piracy at the root of the cause.
l Enforce:
o Ensuring the shutdown of illegal operations is the final front in the fight against
piracy. Establishing sustainable countermeasures that provide continued protection against piracy, permanent disruptions to content supply chains or criminal
convictions all provide concrete resolutions to the issue of piracy and should be
the ultimate aim for any pay-TV operator.
A holistic approach to a growing
problem
The plethora of high quality content and appealing consumer devices now available has created
a fierce race between both legal rights holders
and pirates to offer the latest release to consumers any time, on any device. Operators
must have a dynamic, proactive anti-piracy
st