Preventing Digital Piracy

IPTV providers are aware that one of the keys to success in the industry is how well they forge good relationships with content providers. Central to building these relationships will be a good understanding of the importance of Digital Rights Management (DRM). In this interview, Steve Oetegenn, Executive VP Global Sales & Marketing at Verimatrix shares his insights into prevention of digital piracy.

Interview with Steve Oetegenn
Sr. VP Global Sales & Marketing
Verimatrix

What's Verimatrix's role in the IPTV industry?
We’re a developer of provider approved, carrier-class solutions specifically for today's bi-directional IPTV networks. Through the seamless integration of patented digital watermarking technology into its best-of-breed encryption solutions, Verimatrix protects content and revenue streams, as well as detects digital piracy wherever it occurs within the distribution chain.

Verimatrix has forged excellent relationships with the major Hollywood studios by providing valuable anti-piracy solutions for the fight against rampant digital piracy. We’ve been in business for five years now, and we were founded specifically as a solutions provider for the emergence in digital piracy. The first foray into that market was with music. At that point in time the music industry didn’t take the threat very seriously, and if they did they weren’t prepared to pay money to combat that threat. I think the rest is history!

How did Verimatrix become involved with video delivered over IP?
Our President and founder, Ross Cooper, was introduced to a number of senior executives from the Hollywood movie industry who were growing very concerned about the state of things in the music industry. They foresaw a potentially lucrative market for video distribution over the Internet, but at the same time were concerned that similar things could happen to the movie industry as were already happening with music.

We very quickly saw the emergence of video over IP networks as being the next big thing and so, working closely with experts from the movie industry, we started designing our system for the emerging IPTV market. That gave us quite a good head start, in particular as we were able to make full use of the bi-directional capabilities of IP. To date, our solution has been accepted for the distribution of video content over the Internet by all major content providers.

What sort of service do you provide?
We provide pre-encryption and key management for Video on Demand and real-time encryption for broadcast content. Furthermore, Verimatrix is a pioneer of the use of digital watermarking in IPTV systems. We are able to invisibly and permanently “fingerprint� content.

So that, in the event that content should escape from an IP network, it can be traced back to the source of leakage. Also, we can actually encrypt the content at the studio itself, and have that content uploaded over the Internet via a satellite link. The keys are transferred via a separate, secure link. If necessary, for very high value content it can remain encrypted through the distribution chain until it actually reaches the m-peg decoder at the set top box. We see ourselves as solution providers, but also work as consultants to both network operators and broadcast / content owners. We have worked closely with the studios on a number of anti piracy initiatives.

What sort of threats are prevalent at the moment in the industry?
There is the threat of digital piracy on peer to peer files. There is also the hardcopy piracy. About 70% of bootlegged DVD’s that are ripped off actually come from within, from employees that work at the studios, PR firms etc. Any serious hacker will not go to the trouble of hacking into a network to steal the movies when they can actually go round the corner buy the DVD off the shelf and basically crack the encryption on that DVD. They are publicly available and they can make copies from that.

One other problem which is often overlooked is theft of service. It is estimated that around 30% of cable and 50% of satellite programming is actually viewed without being paid for. Our system provides excellent clone detection functionality, which ensures that only paying customers have access to services. The problem with IPTV is to keep honest people honest. We’re going to be challenged by these type of hackers, if they can circumvent the system they will, but you need to provide a deterrent.

For more information please visit http://www.verimatrix.com