Content security: how watermarking and blocking are helping to combat the pirates

Broadcasters and media service providers now have more options than ever before in terms of technologies and techniques to combat illegitimate activity propagated by organised crime groups and, increasingly, nation-states. Two of these mechanisms include watermarking and blocking.

The former is not particularly new, of course, but is now increasingly prevalent across streaming services, especially those involving premium content such as sports and tentpole dramas. But the way in which watermarking is delivered is continuing to mature and evolve, with ‘as-a-service’ models now commonplace.

The rise of blocking, however, is more recent and has attracted some controversy because of perceived drawbacks like the possible inadvertent obstruction of legitimate services. For instance, the recently launched Pirate Shield project in Italy, which aims to protect the big sports rights holders – such as DAZN, Sky, Prime Video and Infinity – by blocking unauthorised viewing of live events has attracted criticism from some ISPs, VPNs and consumers. At the least, further refinements would seem to be inevitable.

Flavours of blocking

“There have been some instances in Europe where the definition of what can be blocked has perhaps been overzealous” Robin Boldon, Friend MTS]

Of course, the reality is that no broadcaster or content service can really afford to place its faith in one method alone of combating illegal activity. A multi-tiered approach that combines a range of anti-piracy technologies and techniques is now de rigueur, and one that an increasing number of vendors accommodate in their solutions offering.

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Advanced video security and anti-piracy specialist Friend MTS’ recent project on behalf of UK broadcaster ITV is a case in point. It sees Friend MTS utilising several of its leading technologies – including a fingerprinting solution – to protect ITV’s linear channels, which are distributed across the terrestrial network and streaming platforms. The company’s remit includes the monitoring, via its 24x7 Global Monitoring service, of live channels in real-time; hence, when piracy is detected, it immediately sends a takedown notice to the pirate service. In addition, Friend MTS’ compliance teams work with infrastructure providers to “drive compliance and improve responsiveness”.

The company continues to develop new technologies, including dynamic blocking, which it has been deploying with broadcasters, content producers and sports rights owners for the past seven years. Sports applications for this type of blocking span the full range of content from football finals to boxing events, which could only last a matter of minutes.

Robin Boldon, Head of Product at Friend MTS, explains the different ‘flavours’ of blocking: “In very simple terms, a blocking order compels the ISP in a target country to block their subscribers from getting access to certain defined pirate infrastructure. There are quite a few variations, too, so for instance, it’s quite common to see domain blocking, although pirates often don’t need to use domain-resolvable infrastructure. Another, more dynamic variation on the theme is an IP-based block, which enables the verification of pirate infrastructure down to that level and have IP addresses blocked in the same way. [This approach] has the effect of disrupting access to those pirate or unauthorised services, and has a very material impact on their ability to deliver to their users.”

Friend MTS offers both domain blocking and – to use its specific terminology – dynamic delivery server blocking as part of a “portfolio of blocking services”, although the company acknowledges that blocking does have to be applied in a very scrupulous way (a recent blog on the Friend MTS website explores the perils of ‘overblocking’).

“There have been some instances in Europe where the definition of what can be blocked has perhaps been overzealous, and that absolutely can cause problems,” notes Boldon. “But if it’s calibrated and constructed properly, sticking very precisely to the scope and type of targets you’re after, then you can have a very effective blocking mechanism in place. [In the case of Friend MTS] we’re very proud of the fact that we’ve not overblocked in any of the engagements we’ve had, and again that’s because of that rigorous focus in ensuring that the criteria are very narrowly defined and [the blocking is] carefully managed.”

Watermarking-as-a-Service

“I would not be surprised if pirates find a way to use AI to accelerate the algorithms” Alain Pellen, Harmonic

Watermarking – which involves the embedding of a marker in media content to identify and authenticate content – has been part of the Viaccess-Orca offer since 2020. Today, its solution range is headed up by Dynamic Watermarking (which is provided in real-time as-a-service form) that allows the source of pirated content to be identified and taken down in seconds, with specialist campaign management teams available to remove illegal broadcasts during live events.

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“Pirates are really well-organised now, and there is potentially a lot of money for them to make – as well as a lot for the media industry to lose in terms of attacks on its revenue,” says Mélanie Langlois, Product Manager, Anti-Piracy Services at Viaccess-Orca. “That’s why you really need solutions such as watermarking, in particular to protect against the live redistribution of content.”

Foremost in the minds of the R&D team was the need to minimise latency and ensure automatic detection. “We knew that media users required a system which didn’t introduce any latency because of the live distribution; a lot of operators are focused on reducing live latency [in any case]. Also, the detection had to be automatic because if you need manual intervention when you detect a new link, it’s not going to be efficient enough. We also had to ensure that the solution was very robust to attack, especially collision, because pirates [are always seeking] new tools that might allow them to modify watermarks.”

Collaborations between vendors to optimise protection of premium content, especially sports, are quite prevalent in this area of the market. For example, Harmonic and Viaccess-Orca have integrated the latter’s Dynamic Watermarking technology into Harmonic’s VOS 360 Media SaaS, offering content owners and provides a simple, scalable solution for quickly identifying piracy sources and stopping content restreaming (more info here).

Alain Pellen, Senior Market Manager pay-TV at Harmonic, indicates that partnerships like this can make sense for media vendors due to the cost and research involved in developing and deploying watermarking technology. Of the collaboration with Viaccess-Orca, he remarks that it’s “easier to deploy because it’s all pre-integrated. It’s also cheaper because the customer can just activate the watermarking-as-a-service during the event or sports game when they want to be able to identify the pirate source.”

 Pellen alludes to recent moves in the US, including an open letter drawn up by multiple leading sports federations, and Europe encouraging governments to take a more proactive role in terminating illegal services. He also agrees with the suggestion that AI will likely be both part of the piracy problem and solution in the near-future.

“I would not be surprised if pirates find a way to use AI to accelerate the algorithms, but I am confident that the industry will react and find ways [to stay ahead of them],” he says.

Always-changing adversary

Piracy is the very definition of a moving target, so it’s to be expected that a commitment to identifying potential new areas of risk, and then targeting them with strong R&D, seems universal among security solution innovators.

“As you can imagine in this space, your adversary changes on a very regular basis, so a strong R&D programme is absolutely essential,” confirms Boldon. “That means you are always looking at new vulnerabilities and how pirates might exploit those in order to [continue evolving] a platform that can help make the overall industry more secure. I would also add that exploring how the data we collect can be better used to deliver insight for our customers is another clear area [of priority] for us.”

“We have a team that is always monitoring the field,” says VO’s Langlois. “In fact, as part of our solutions, we propose audit services for our customers that [include our] security experts behaving like pirates do and attempting to create streaming sites for their content. So yes, there is a major focus on knowing how pirates are working, watching a lot of different sources to ensure we are up-to-date with their new forms of attack, and constantly evolving our solutions to face the new threats.”

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