31 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE VUALTO
IF CONTENT PROVIDERS CAN’T BUILD A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSMODEL, IT’S GOING TO AFFECT THE END USER
have separate encryption keys for these devices any more. They all use the same encryption, then when it gets decrypted it uses the specific protocols for PlayReady, FairPlay or Widevine.” VUALTO is ready to guide clients through securing their content across any and all platforms. A content owner may already be set with Widevine and FairPlay protection, but unsure of how to best implement PlayReady. The client can acquire the whole package from VUALTO or pick and choose which DRM solutions they need. BROADCAST CHALLENGES The company does a lot of work with national broadcasters for whom the issues of content rights management need careful handling. “They run their regulatory obligations to reach as large an audience as possible,” says Femke Schurer, VUALTO product delivery manager. “We sometimes have to convince them to make their platform more secure than perhaps they would like, even though it means losing some of the audience – for example, people who are using very old devices that don’t support the latest DRM providers.” Mitchell adds: “It’s up to us to educate the broadcaster and say, ‘We can do that if you want, but these are the risks involved, and if you want to deliver content to this device it’s not secure.’ It’s been quite the challenge at times to convince them because they are under legal obligations to reach a percentage of the population.” At the same time, broadcasters have a legal obligation to content owners to deliver content without its being pirated. It’s a tightrope that must be walked, with an underserved audience on one side and a jumpy content owner on the other. Fighting against piracy is an ongoing war, but DRM has proven an effective tool in protecting its corner of the anti-piracy battlefield. “DRM is now so good that increasingly pirates are having to search out different parts of the system where the stream might not have DRM protection,” says Schurer. If this is a concern to a client then VUALTO, as well as offering additional protection, such as active piracy
detection, blacklisting and geolocation restrictions, can also advise a client on the entire system’s potential vulnerabilities. This can simply be consultancy or a client can utilise other VUALTO products, such as the VUALTO CONTROL HUB. Territory- specific content rights can be difficult to manage when the entire world potentially has access to a piece of content, so VUALTO also offers a geolocation service, which allows broadcasters to identify if users are employing VPNs or Tor networks to access content from locations where there are georestrictions in place. “If you go back to the old broadcasting world, and how piracy worked then, hybrid platforms were limited by satellite footprint, or cable network, or terrestrial signal,” says Schurer. “Now there’s a global threat; anybody in the world could potentially hack into your stream. This geolocation cuts off VPN access or a DNS proxy. It’s helpful in reducing that stress.” THE END USER While we inevitably think of content protection as focused on the wallets and well-being of the content owners and distributors, loss of revenues through piracy or illegal viewing has a profound effect on the audience, too. “Good DRM protection allows content providers to turn the money back into producing better shows,” says Mitchell. “If you’re watching Netflix, for example, and there are five of you watching five different shows, but you only pay for one account, that reduces Netflix’s ability to produce good content because it’s going to get paid less for delivering more.” Schurer agrees. “Production of premium content is expensive; if content providers can’t build a sustainable business model, it’s going to affect the end user.” FREE TRIAL To trial VUDRM for free, email info@vualto.com quoting: FEEDVUDRM0719.
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