euro news_news 21/05/2015 18:34 Page 5
Strong DRM needed for OTT battle
aintaining a high
level of security is
essential for payTV operators looking to take
their share of the lucrative
OTT market, according to
Tom Jahr, Conax’s EVP,
products and partners
(right).
Addressing a conference
session at TV Connect in London
on ‘Lowering OTT Cost Barriers,
without, Sacrificing Security’,
Jahr told delegates that many
operators struggle to make money
in OTT, with high investment and
operational costs, as well as stiff
competition, for example Netflix,
HBO, GO/NOW and Viaplay, a
particular challenge.“Many of the
operators that approach Conax
are frustrated with high
investment cost and high
operational costs when they are
struggling with finding the actual
cash in a new OTT service,” he
advised. “Most operators are
crunching numbers trying to
figure out how to find profitability
in OTT but we see that achieving
a good return on potential OTT
investments is not that easy.”
Despite these challenges, Jahr
noted that short format content
had proven that there is
significant money to be made
from OTT content – YouTube
giant Blame
Society
Production’s
channel has more
than 110 million
views, while
American
filmmaker Casey
Neistat achieved
five million views
on his Make It
Count film within
10 days of its
release. With
these impressive
figures comes real
earning potential
through
advertisement,
merchandise and even ‘meet and
greet’ opportunities for the
viewer, while overheads are kept
relatively low.
According to Jahr, the key to
taking advantage of this
opportunity is to tap into
consumers’ ever-growing demand
for convenience with a TV
Anywhere Service and a strong
digital rights management (DRM)
solution across multiple
platforms.
“TV used to be
fantastic – great
margins meant
that return on
investment was
easy to calculate,
but that has
changed,” said
Jahr. “This is a
case of evolution,
not revolution. The
migration to digital
did not do
anything to the
linear model – it
just added more
channels. But now,
any operator that
wants to compete needs to go
beyond that and offer multiscreen
solutions to avoid losing
customers. Return on investment
in pay-TV is now based heavily
around customer churn rather
than margins.”
Jahr stressed that consumers
are expecting operators to reach
their existing Smartphones and
tablets, regardless of
manufacturer and operating
system. Operators need to
support the vast majority of active
consumer devices in their market
– all of which are unmanaged and
bought and maintained by
consumers, creating a huge
number of legacy devices and
operating systems.
“If operators are to be truly
successful in the OTT market, it is
essential they secure the content
within the rules of the content
owners with the implantation of a
strong digital rights management
(DRM) solution across multiple
platforms,” he declared.
Security is the foundation of a
profitable OTT solution,
concluded Jahr. “Managing
service and content protection,
while maintaining quality content
available over all devices, is
becoming increasingly important
in an age where the consumer is
more demanding than ever.”
Advertising fuels
pirate websites
malware adverts typically do
not mention the advertiser in
the initial ad. Instead, these
adverts trick users into
downloading potentially
unwanted programmes or
accessing harmful links.
Adverts for adult content
sites and services accounted
for 10.4% of all advertising.
According to Simon Baggs,
managing director, Incopro,
advertising revenues provide
an economic incentive for
websites in the infringing
ecosystem. “Often, the
‘advertising’ will cause harm
to a user’s computer or take
the form of promoting goods
and services that are harmful,
for example adverts for
unrestricted adult content
websites. If brands, agencies
and authorities collaborate to
disrupt advertising revenue
streams, we can restrict the
lifeblood of these sites,” he
advised.
The report, which was
commissioned by the Motion
Picture Association (MPA) also
examined the main
advertising intermediaries
that distribute adverts on
behalf of companies and
brands across the sites in the
study.
Gambling advertising
accounted for 18.1% of all
adverts – the highest
proportion of any sector
across all the countries
examined.
The creative and
advertising industries in the
UK have been working closely
with the Police Intellectual
Property Crime Unit (PIPCU)
on the Operation Creative
initiative. The scheme deploys
a variety of tactical options,
including the use of an
Infringing Website List (IWL),
which have successfully
addressed instances of many
major brands appearing on
illegal sites. PIPCU and the
Federation Against Copyright
Theft (FACT) are now actively
engaged with the Gambling
Commission to ensure that
gambling operators licensed
by the Commission do not
advertise on these sites.
The report follows an
earlier Digital Citizen’s
Alliance study, Good Money
Gone Bad, which found that
infringing websites globally
make a projected $227m in
annual advertising revenue.
The 30 largest sites that
profit exclusively from
advertising averaged $4.4m
annually, while the most
heavily trafficked BitTorrent
and P2P portal sites topped
$6m every year.
M
Findings from online rights
protection firm Incopro
indicate that 88% of the
most popular websites used
to obtain infringing
copyright content use
advertising as a key source
of funding. The report –
Revenue sources for
websites making available
copyright content without
consent in the EU – analysed
the top 250 websites used
in each of the five key
European Union countries
(France, Germany, Italy,
Spain, and the UK) to obtain
infringing content.
The largest proportion of
advertising on the sites
(31.5%) was categorised as
‘Trick Button’ and malware
adverts. ‘Trick Button’ or
“This is a case of
evolution, not
revolution.” ()UI=5%