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Tag: Piracy

  • GUEST COLUMN: How to combat streaming piracy with OTT’s broken protocol?

    GUEST COLUMN: How to combat streaming piracy with OTT’s broken protocol?

    Mumbai: With vast sums of money to be made, it’s not surprising that streaming pirates are continually upping their game to keep their highly profitable illegal businesses afloat.  A recent global study conducted by Ampere Analysis for Synamedia found that sports streaming piracy alone is worth over $28 billion and the Global Innovation Policy Centre places the global TV industry’s losses from digital piracy between $39.3 to $95.4 billion per year.

    From Bollywood and Hollywood blockbusters to LIVE sports including IPL and women’s football, streaming piracy has reached an industrial scale in India. Within minutes of release, stolen content is circulated, exchanged and sold on open internet sites and social media platforms, such as Telegram and WhatsApp, as well as on closed subscription-based pirate networks and dedicated OTT applications. Some illegitimate, subscription-based pirate services are now so good that consumers think they are using the brand’s own service, damaging the brand of the legitimate service and preventing upsell opportunities.

    But with superior intelligence and the appropriate technology and legal procedures in place, the industry can stay one step ahead, protect its revenue streams and stop criminals siphoning off billions in revenue that rightfully belong to content owners and services providers.

    Pirate profiteers raise the stakes

    Although low quality pirate content filmed surreptitiously in cinemas is still available, as more consumers switch to digital platforms, pirates are using increasingly sophisticated ways to steal content – and deliver it in pristine quality.

    And the pirates’ methods have advanced considerably since they simply exploited “the analogue hole”: in other words, stole content from the HDMI ports of Set Top Boxes. As license owners and operators have increased their protection methods, cracking down with a combination of source-detection and disruption technologies as well as legal action, pirates have been hunting for new and more concealed ways to source content and find the weak link in the chain.

    From Digital Rights Management (DRM) hacking as seen recently with Widevine, to bypassing client watermarking and manipulating legitimate OTT applications, today’s streaming pirates have found ways to steal not just high-quality content but entire OTT services, including redistributing directly from the service provider’s content delivery network (CDN).

    Sourcing, aggregating and distributing content

    A quick Google search will quickly take you into a world of organised crime: industrial scale professional hackers, criminal technology experts with content aggregators, content wholesalers and content resellers conducting the biggest criminal heist the world has ever seen.

    Current anti-piracy approaches – such as DRM, client hardening and concurrency restrictions are simply scratching the surface of OTT piracy and pirates continue to profit.

    Using the intelligence provided by our operational security team and with access to pirates’ scripts, we have unearthed the root source of this problem – the OTT protocol is broken. The technology of OTT delivery makes it simple and cheap to set up as a pirate operator. Pirates don’t necessarily need to break the DRM to steal content. Using pirate servers and clients, pirates are hacking the OTT protocol to get the DRM license and redirect pirate clients to legitimate service and content providers’ CDNs.

    With little to no acquisition or content costs, pirates have become ultimate media super-aggregators. They can bring highly-sought after content together at an unbeatable price with no geo restrictions or competition law challenges – and then redistribute the stolen content to their paying customers at the expense of the video service provider by using their infrastructure undetected. 

    Protecting content across the ecosystem

    With an understanding about the methods used and insight into how pirates operate, Synamedia has developed the industry’s first solution to systemically address the inherent weaknesses that make it easy for pirates to not only steal content but also entire OTT services, including gaining access to the service provider’s CDN.

    Synamedia OTT ServiceGuard makes it possible to securely distribute content on open platforms by validating that only legitimate subscribers and applications are granted authorised access and receive content. It gives each client a unique identity that is not cloneable and allocates secure keys for signing service requests, ensuring all client messages are validated for their authenticity and origin. This has a critical role to play in protecting content, but tackling piracy requires an all-round team approach, blending pre-breach approaches with proactive detection and disruption technologies and solutions.

    Synamedia’s unrivalled intelligence-based model leverages AI technologies alongside human intelligence – including undercover investigators and cyber security, psychology, criminology, and sociology experts – to monitor and map the piracy supply chain, detect, deter and disrupt piracy and orchestrate anti-piracy activities and legal and technical takedowns.

    The financial rewards on offer and the ease of set-up – combined with the low risk of arrest or meaningful punishment – means the problem of piracy will not go away.  But, by making life as difficult as possible for both pirates and viewers of illicit streams and making legal subscriptions more attractive, content owners and rights holders can not only protect their content investments, but video service providers can cut infrastructure costs and create the opportunity to capture new subscribers.

    (Deepak Bhatia is general manager and head of sales, India at Synamedia. The views expressed in this column are personal and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them)

     

  • Hyderabad-based IT engineer arrested for copyright violation of Viacom18’s content

    Hyderabad-based IT engineer arrested for copyright violation of Viacom18’s content

    New Delhi: Maharashtra Cyber Police has arrested a 28-year-old Hyderabad-based IT engineer for alleged copyright violation of Viacom18’ content using a standalone pirated application called Thop TV.

    According to police, the accused named Satish Venkateshwarlu was allegedly relaying and transmitting the network’s content without authorization at a discounted price through a mobile app called ‘Thop TV’, and thus causing a substantial revenue loss to the network.

    The accused was arrested under Sections 43, 66 and 66B of the Information Technology Act, 2000, Section 63 of Copyright Act, and Section 420 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He was produced before the court which remanded him to six days of police custody for further investigations.

    The probe was initiated after Viacom18 filed an official complaint with Maharashtra Cyber against the “rogue, standalone” mobile application, which was relaying and transmitting their copyrighted content such as movies, TV shows and VOD content at a discounted rate, thus causing substantial revenue loss to the company.

    Superintendent of police, Sanjay Shintre said, “After the initial technical investigation, it was noticed that the accused, a highly educated IT engineer from Hyderabad developed a mobile application named ‘Thop TV’ and pirated Viacom18’s content through Telegram, a social media intermediary. The app has lakhs of viewers, including 5,000 paid subscribers, thereby generating massive revenue for the app.”

    Speaking on this development, a Viacom18 Spokesperson said, “Piracy is a matter of grave concern for the media industry and one that needs to be addressed constantly. It is important to acknowledge that digital piracy is a serious offence which causes huge losses to the digital economy. Viacom18 will continue to fight this menace and secure its content through all means available under law. We are grateful to the Office of the inspector general of police Maharashtra Cyber for their constant vigilance and timely support towards curbing piracy and copyright violation.”

  • GUEST COLUMN: How Telegram is fuelling streaming piracy

    New Delhi: The popular messaging app, Telegram, is fast becoming the leading source of pirated content throughout Asia – and the cause of substantial revenue loss for content providers and operators.

    Users of the platform, which provides end-to-end encryption, can conceal their identity to share texts, videos, or other files relating to copyrighted content. Given that Telegram is popular with millions of active users, intuitive, and offers its users privacy, it is no surprise that streaming pirates exploit Telegram.

    The latest Telegram statistics reveal that in January 2021 it had over 500 million monthly active users – 38 per cent from Asia – and it was also the most downloaded app across both the App Store and Google Play globally with more than 63 million downloads. According to App Annie, it is the most popular social networking app in Malaysia and ranks third in India.

    Telegram appeals to pirates because it allows them to disseminate information easily and speedily to huge, encrypted private chat groups – as large as 200,000 people – and its channels can attract millions of subscribers. Video and movie channels are amongst the most popular with pirate sites like Hindi HD Movies attracting well over two million followers.

    From newly released movies and popular live sporting events to lesser-known, critically acclaimed documentaries with subtitles, pirates have circulated, exchanged, and sold illegal copies and video clips on Telegram. The scale of this for-profit piracy is siphoning off billions of dollars that rightfully belong to content and streaming providers and rights holders. Analyst firm Nera Consulting places the global TV industry’s revenue losses from digital piracy at between $39.3 to $95.4 billion per year while a recent global study conducted by Ampere Analysis for Synamedia found that sports streaming piracy alone is worth over $28 billion.

    Synamedia has been fighting TV and video piracy for decades, providing services and technology to protect $70 billion in operator revenue every year. By adopting an intelligence-first security model, marrying the very best human intelligence with

    cutting-edge cybersecurity and AI technologies, we have disrupted pirate services and brought many criminals to the attention of law enforcement officials.

    Gaming the system

    Tackling Telegram streaming pirates is a 24×7 battle, requiring continuous monitoring and intelligence gathering not just within Telegram but across all social media platforms to profile rogue players and detect connections and cross-platform relationships. Armed with these insights, Synamedia employs AI-based content recognition crawlers to infiltrate Telegram channels, tracking and identifying specific pirate streams by combining the metadata of a target video – and/or live feeds via platform APIs – with advanced deep machine learning models.

    Here, we can share some of our observations about how streaming pirates exploit Telegram:

    Prized Piracy Booty:

    Hotly anticipated Bollywood blockbusters, newly-released content, and live events – particularly sports fixtures stolen from legitimate streaming sites – are the main attractions. One live sports event can spawn several hundreds of pirated channels with links to watch the illegal streams. But older VOD content is still valuable, as we witnessed during lockdowns when live events were on hold.

    Masters of Disguise:

    With no embedded player inside the platform, pirates use Telegram channels and groups to distribute text and M3U links to consumers and to upload videos for free to Telegram’s hosted cloud services. To maximise appeal, pirates even include subtitles in different languages and use legitimate payment systems like PayPal and Bitcoin. Pirates hide keywords relating to the event they are stealing or use code words to weave a web of intrigue by embedding references to new private pirate channels inside their messages.

    Masters of Strategy:

    Pirates act fast, in real-time. Minutes ahead of a live sporting fixture, for example, they will proliferate new channels on Telegram with new links to illegitimate content. They have backup channels ready to switch up at a moment’s notice – sometimes pre-warning consumers which channel to use should the first pirated live stream be removed. They even have their own virtual crow’s nest or ‘lookouts’ for monitoring during an event. We saw a case where a streaming pirate changed the name of the video midstream due to a tip-off from others in the chat group.

    Jumping Ship:

    Pirates will flaunt that a Telegram channel has been disrupted due to copyright and distribute guidance on how to follow a new one. They also encourage consumers to jump ship to other platforms and pirate sites, providing links to the open web or links to other platforms with players.

    Stealing the stream:

    Not satisfied with stealing streams of live or on-demand content, pirates also offer OTT subscribers’ stolen credentials, pirated APKs, and hacked IPTV emulator channels which give consumers a link to live channels without the need for a set-top box.

    Anti-piracy game-changer

    Fighting streaming piracy requires solutions that demotivate pirates at every point along the video distribution chain. That’s why Synamedia’s anti-piracy monitoring solutions extend far beyond social media platforms to the outer reaches of the openw web– as well as closed subscription-based IPTV networks.

    Building an anti-piracy strategy requires a painstaking, forensic, intelligence-led approach to map out the increasingly intricate and sophisticated pirate ecosystem in multiple layers to cross-reference data, spot piracy behavioural patterns, unravel approaches, and understand trends. And to win against the pirates, the media and entertainment industry needs to collaborate not just with tech providers but also with governments, regulators, and law enforcement bodies. It requires governments across the globe to mandate the use of technologies such as watermarking and introduce tougher legal penalties.

    Streaming piracy is an existential threat. In light of the eye-watering amounts of money spent on producing content and purchasing sports rights, providers have a right to be confident that they are covering their costs and bringing in enough revenue to build sustainable business models because revenue leakage due to piracy is simply not viable in the long term.

    As well as deterring and disrupting piracy, using a model that offers incentives encouraging viewers of pirate streams to move back to legitimate services is often overlooked but equally important. With an appealing mix of access and payment models, content providers, and operators can turn the tables on the pirates and play the system to their advantage, encouraging consumers to pay for legitimate services instead.

    (Avigail Gutman is the vice-president of Intelligence & Security Operations at Synamedia. The views expressed in the column are personal and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.)

  • MIB seeks public comments on the draft Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill 2021

    New Delhi: The government has sought public comments on the draft Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill 2021 which proposes to penalise film piracy with a jail term and empower the Centre to order re-certification of an already certified film in case of complaints.

    The general public can send their comments on the draft bill by 2 July.

    “The ministry of information and broadcasting proposes to introduce the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2021 which will make the process of sanctioning of films for exhibition more effective, in tune with the changed times and curb the menace of piracy,” it said in a statement.

    Age-based film certification

    Among the proposed changes, there are provisions relating to certification of films under ‘unrestricted public exhibition’ category which are proposed to be amended so as to further sub-divide the existing UA category into age-based categories – U/A 7+, U/A 13+ and U/A 16+.

    The draft also adds a provision to grant revisionary powers to the government on account of violation of Section 5B (1) (principles for guidance in certifying films) of the Act. “Since the provisions of Section 5B(1) are derived from Article 19(2) of the Constitution and are non-negotiable, it is also proposed in the Draft Bill to add a proviso to sub-section (1) of section 6 to the effect that on receipt of any references by the Central Government in respect of a film certified for public exhibition, on account of violation of Section 5B(1) of the Act, the Central Government may, if it considers it necessary so to do, direct the chairman of the Board to re-examine the film,” said the ministry.

    Prohibition of unauthorized recording

    The release of pirated versions of films on the internet, causes huge losses to the film industry and government exchequer. “In most cases, illegal duplication in cinema halls is the originating point of piracy. At present, there are no enabling provisions to check film piracy in the Cinematograph Act, 1952 making it necessary to have a provision in the Act to check film piracy,” said the ministry in a press statement.

    The draft bill proposes to insert section 6AA which prohibits unauthorised recording, according to which, no person shall, without the written authorization of the author, be permitted to use any audio-visual recording device in a place to knowingly make or transmit or attempt to make or transmit or abet the making or transmission of a copy of a film or a part thereof.

    “If any person contravenes the provisions of section 6AA, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than three months but which may extend to three years and with a fine which shall not be less than Rs three lakh but which may extend to five percent of the audited gross production cost or with both,” it added.

    The Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019

    The government had introduced the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in the Rajya Sabha in February, 2019 to impose strict penalties against unauthorised duplication of films in cinema halls. The draft Bill prohibited a person from using a recording device to make a copy of a film, without authorisation and made it a punishable crime with an imprisonment of up to three years and a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh, or both.

    Later, the standing committee on information technology (2019-20) presented its report on the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha on 16 March 2020.

    “The observations and recommendations made by the committee in the report have been examined and it is proposed to suitably revise the clauses in the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019 based on the recommendations,” said the ministry.

    The comments may be submitted at the following email address: dhanpreet.kaur@ips.gov.in

  • Radhe streams on pirated websites, Zee files complaint at Cyber Cell

    Radhe streams on pirated websites, Zee files complaint at Cyber Cell

    Mumbai: Hours after its release, the much-awaited movie Radhe got leaked on pirated websites, compelling the producers to take action. After appealing to the public to say no to piracy, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEE) has now filed an official complaint at the Cyber Cell against the pirated version of the film.

    According to an official statement from Zee, a pirated version of the film is being circulated across messaging platforms, including WhatsApp and Telegram. The officials are now actively tracking down the phone numbers involved in this act of piracy, taking the required legal actions, it said on Sunday.

    ZEE has also appealed to the public at large, seeking their support in bringing an end to piracy, not just for the film Radhe, but for any kind of content. “Films create livelihood, employment and a source of income for millions of people working in the industry. They also contribute to the economy with the taxes paid to the government. People engaged in spreading the illegal version of the film are not just embracing piracy, but are also negatively impacting the growth of the industry and the livelihoods of people working round the clock,” said Zee as it appealed to all people to consume entertainment content only through official platforms.

    Actor Salman Khan also took to Twitter on Saturday night to warn people against watching pirated versions of the movie.

     

     

    The first-ever multi-platform release of its kind, Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai was released on 13 May on Zee5 with ZeePlex, theatres worldwide keeping the Covid protocols in mind, and across all leading DTH operators – Dish, D2H, Tata Sky, and Airtel Digital TV. The movie had garnered 4.2 million views across platforms on Day 1.

  • Synamedia partners with Akamai to speed up pirate takedowns

    Synamedia partners with Akamai to speed up pirate takedowns

    KOLKATA: Independent video software provider Synamedia has integrated its security and watermarking solutions with Akamai to protect customers’ streaming OTT content.

    Synamedia’s solutions now detect and disrupt pirate streams in real time over the Akamai Intelligent Edge Platform and redirect viewers to legitimate services. The integration of Synamedia’s Streaming Piracy Disruption (SPD) managed service with Akamai’s platform gives rights holders and content owners an added layer of anti-piracy enforcement and revenue protection.

    The digital and OTT streaming industry has expressed concerns over the epidemic of piracy, which has only grown more widespread and resilient over the past year as demand for content shot up with people cooped up in their homes and production and cinema halls shut down. The collaboration between Synamedia and Akamai is aimed at dealing a decisive blow to pirates who engage in broadcast content theft.

    Taking advantage of Synamedia’s intelligence-first security approach, Synamedia EverGuard  counter-piracy operations center predicts which client devices will be used by pirates to leak content and determines the effectiveness of different actions, including quarantining agents and prosecution, to cause maximum pain. SPD uses resilient watermark injection and verification technologies as well as smart agents embedded in the headend and client devices to deliver the industry’s most comprehensive end-to-end solution.

    “When illegal streams are disrupted, particularly during live sports, viewers tend to give up on pirated streams and switch to legal services. Akamai’s platform is used by many of our pay-TV and OTT customers and this integration will strengthen their ability to combat piracy at speed and scale,” Security Synamedia senior vice president Yael Fainaro said.

    Akamai media product management Amit Kasturia explained the network’s scalable and secure edge watermarking integrations are intended to help customers identify pirates’ attempts to capture content and minimise illegal distribution. “The seamless integration of Synamedia’s intelligence-led security solutions with our platform can offer customers a quicker way of shutting down illegal streams, which is critical for the success of streaming rights for live sports,” he added.

    Synamedia is now a member of Akamai’s Media Technology Partner program. The program is designed to foster interoperability, and referral agreements between Akamai and best-of-breed third-party solutions providers to give customers a range of options in selecting workflow components that work seamlessly with Akamai solutions deployed on its platform.

    Synamedia has 30+ years’ experience in video security solutions, and developed the longest unhacked solution on the market. Since its inception, Synamedia’s operational security team has brought many criminals to the attention of law enforcement officials. Synamedia protects approximately $70 billion in operator revenues every year.

  • ‘Den of pirates’: Why OTTs should tackle Telegram soon

    ‘Den of pirates’: Why OTTs should tackle Telegram soon

    KOLKATA: There is no dearth of OTT platforms in India, and which one is the most popular is a matter of debate. But what is very evident is Telegram’s overwhelming popularity as an alternative to providing free access to any new movies or shows launched on these platforms. The wide availability and easy access to pirated shows is making the messaging app more appealing day by day to a section of internet users. Even as OTT platforms burn mounds of cash to roll out premium content, such piracy could eat up a significant revenue going forward.

    Soaring popularity of Telegram

    Make a list of all recent popular shows or original movies that dropped on streaming services – Scam 1992, Mirzapur Season 2, Ludo, Naxalbari – and you’ll already find every single one of them on Telegram. Students who don’t earn yet but are keen to watch these programmes, thus, go the pocket-friendly way by downloading the Telegram app. And another section of users who have subscription to a few OTT platforms but don’t want to shell out money to watch just one show on a different, unsubscribed platform, use the app as well. Moreover, the simplicity in downloading content both in terms of mechanism, required time and data – unlike Torrent – has made it a den of pirates.

    “Telegram is a vast source of VOD content; many groups offer updated content of newly released movies and series, even with subtitles in different languages. We have seen certain titles appear on Telegram within a few hours of release. Pirates are increasingly using such groups as a way to easily share, exchange and sell this content without being exposed to malware prevalent on the dark web,” Synamedia chief intelligence manager-security Ted Rose said.

    During a webinar hosted in late October by Indiantelevision.com, SonyLIV technology head Manish Verma also acknowledged that Telegram is evolving as a potential threat. He added that it is very important for the platforms to stop piracy with content acquisition and content production costs increasing – be it for original content or live sports events.

    How pirates use the platform

    Synamedia’s Rose shared that streaming pirates are increasingly using Telegram groups as a way to distribute links to consumers. In fact, streaming of live events can be found on the messaging app as links that direct users to open internet streaming websites. The app can only share files that are stored on its cloud service or links to other sites.

    On the other hand, there are Telegram groups that share stolen M3U links to different subscription-based pirate IPTV networks. These links are updated daily and usually contain information on the content available on each pirate network. Rose went on to share that pirates have taken to Telegram, as well as the dark web, to share and sell OTT subscribers’ stolen credentials.

    “It is really a game of cat and mouse. If there are repeated claims of infringement, Telegram will shut down a group. Removal of a channel can be more difficult for a pirate to recover from, although some pirates can pre-empt this by notifying consumers in advance of backup channels they can use should the first group or channel be removed,” he added.

    Surge in piracy during Covid2019

    With a massive uptick in the use of streaming services during the pandemic, Telegram piracy has also seen a huge surge as well. As sporting events came to a halt in the wake of the crisis, pirates were scrambling for other ways to fill the revenue gap. As a result, OTT providers with premium VOD content and originals emerged as hot targets at that time.

    According to data shared by Markscan, a firm that provides digital IP protection to entertainment companies, piracy on telegram skyrocketed by 1092 per cent, or about 11 times, during lockdown.

    How can the law help?

    Although there are anti-piracy laws in India, it is tough to track the breach happening on Telegram due to encryption. Moreover, it becomes more difficult to take legal steps as the platform itself is legitimate despite the fact that there is pirated content available, according to Kaushik Moitra, partner at Bharucha and Partners.

    Moitra explained that Telegram is not under liability to take pirated content off until someone files a complaint. Hence, it is not possible for Indian law enforcement to actively track the infringement. He noted that the onus is on individual OTT platforms to track whether or not any illegitimate link is being circulated on the messaging app so the latter can take it down immediately. However, he mentioned that Telegram will be put on notice if the OTT platforms opt for John Doe order for pre-infringement injunction.

  • OTTs gear up for battle against content pirates

    OTTs gear up for battle against content pirates

    KOLKATA: With the tectonic shift in technology, piracy has found new ways to expand its reach and impact. And given the ongoing lean period in TV and movie releases, pirates are charting new waters for prey. Streaming platforms, which are investing heavily in premium content, offer easy pickings. While stringent regulation is the need of the hour, major over-the-top (OTT) platforms are devising comprehensive techniques to check this threat.

    One of the leading OTT services in India, SonyLIV, is now moving away from basic solutions to a 360 degree approach. SonyLIV technology head Manish Verma said in a webinar hosted by indiantelevision.com that the platform is now looking at advanced measures like watermarking, fingerprinting and code protection to safeguard its content. It is now in the process of evaluating how they can utilise some of these tools to reduce piracy.

    Read more news on SonyLIV

    Presently, DRM is the preferred mode of encryption for the platform. But Verma admits that DRM has certain loopholes as well, especially when it comes to screen mirroring. Hence, the platform is in talks with vendors and partners to find out other ways to counter piracy. As part of its enhanced security measures, SonyLIV recently started a two-way authentication with username and one time passwords, instead of the traditional login with password system.

    According to ZEE5 India technology head Tushar Vohra, creating a barrier is very important, as is instilling the fear of getting caught among pirates. To this end, tracing the source of a breach can be helpful. For example, ZEE5 will launch a forensic watermarking for its web player this month itself and later across all devices. This step will enable the platform to track the source of pirated content. Hence, Vohra is hopeful that there would be a decline in piracy rate within six months.

    Echoing Vohra’s bent of mind, Verma said: “We need to put deterrence in terms of making it difficult to pirate the content, degrading the experience for pirated content. When a consumer is not getting that experience of premium content on illegal sites, they will come back to our platform.”

    Both tech experts concurred that there is no particular trend of piracy in the Indian market. But Vohra mentioned an interesting fact: premium Indian content is being pirated more outside the country. Some contradictions do exist. While ZEE5 saw an increase in piracy during the lockdown, SonyLIV’s Verma said that the tendency to pay for premium content went up during the same period.

    Read more news on ZEE5

    “We have put in machine learning through which we can detect multiple users logging in or consumer consuming content for a longer duration of time. We can do a token revocation; we can go from the back end and revoke the token if we see some sort of abnormality in the behaviour. I think we are making it difficult to pirate the content,” Verma added.

    The panellists agreed that rationalising cost structure for security will lead to higher adoption of technology solutions. ZEE5, which is already investing five-seven per cent for data and application security, has now developed a full-fledged security team, due to join in December.

  • Industry leaders discuss security challenges faced by OTT platforms

    Industry leaders discuss security challenges faced by OTT platforms

    KOLKATA: Of all the challenges, piracy is one major issue that has been bothering the over-the-top ecosystem for a long time. Video piracy tends to eat a major chunk of streaming services’ revenue, advanced security integrations can help the platforms to curb the piracy threat.

    Indiantelevision.com in its next webinar in partnership with Synamedia will host a discussion on security challenges faced by OTT platforms and content owners and how leveraging solutions can reduce piracy and increase platforms’ revenues. The webinar is set to take place on 1 October at 4.00 pm.

    Read more news on OTT

    Some of the esteemed speakers include Synamedia intelligence and security operations vice president Avigail Gutman; ZEE5 India technology head Tushar Vohra; SonyLIV technology head Manish Verma.

    The panelists will discuss different types of streaming piracy, how to employ a layered security approach using a strong conditional access and OTT security baseline along with other issues.

    Don’t forget to tune in to know more! Register here

  • Huge decrease in levels of streaming piracy seen in Malaysia over last 12 months

    Huge decrease in levels of streaming piracy seen in Malaysia over last 12 months

    KUALA LUMPUR: A new study of the online content viewing behaviour of Malaysian consumers, has found a massive 64 per cent decrease in consumers accessing piracy websites over the past 12 months. The survey commissioned by the Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) and conducted by YouGov, found that 22 per cent of online consumers currently use piracy streaming websites or torrent sites to view pirated content, substantially less than the 61per cent from a similar survey conducted in August 2019. The YouGov survey also found a 61 per cent reduction in the number of consumers who use an illicit streaming device (ISD) when compared to the August 2019 survey. 

    More than half (55 per cent) of online consumers had noticed that a piracy service had been blocked by the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (MDTCA). This would appear to have had an impact on consumer attitudes towards piracy, with 49 per cent stating that they no longer accessed piracy services and 40 per cent stating that they now rarely accessed piracy services as a result of not being able to access blocked piracy sites. 11 per cent of consumers said it made no difference to their viewing habits. 

    TVB International general manager Desmond Chan said: “We are encouraged by the efforts of MDTCA in fighting online piracy with their site-blocking campaign. Malaysia is an important market to our content distribution business. TVB’s programmes are popular in Malaysia and have always been the targets for piracy. The swift anti-piracy measures provided by MDTCA will foster a business environment in which we will continue investing.” 

    LaLiga global audiovisual director Melcior Soler said: "This substantial reduction in online piracy in Malaysia is a sign of the success of the actions undertaken by the MDTCA. Piracy only benefits the criminal organisations who operate the websites and illicit applications and harms society as a whole, especially those who work every day to generate content and entertainment for everyone. LaLiga will continue to fight against the problem of online piracy.” 

    The continual site blocking has had an impact on consumers viewing habits who are now more likely to access legal content services. 20 per cent of consumers who said they were aware of the government blocking piracy websites and illicit application domains, have since subscribed to a paid streaming service; 15 per cent said they now spend more time viewing free (AVOD) local streaming services; and 65 per cent now predominantly watch free (AVOD) international streaming services. 

    AVIA’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) general manager Neil Gane said: “We applaud the MDTCA for disrupting piracy website networks which are being monetised by crime syndicates. Consumers who subscribe to illicit IPTV services or access piracy streaming sites are wasting their time and money when the channels and websites stop working. Piracy services do not come with a ‘service guarantee’, no matter what their ‘sales pitch’ may claim.” 

    When asked about the negative consequences of online piracy, consumers placed funding crime groups (57%) , loss of jobs in the creative industry (52%) and malware risks (42%) as their top three concerns.