M+E Connections

“Everything in this world is digital” now so video content companies need to make sure that their viewers, “100 percent of the time,” can trust the content, digital transactions and systems being used, according to Scott Carlson, head of digital asset security at Kudelski Security.

When it comes to security, there continue to be some companies that take the position of “let’s watch what happens and try to enforce at some point in the future,” he said June 14 during a session on “Emerging piracy use-cases and anti-piracy countermeasures” at the online 2022 Video Security Summit.

“I’m sad that some people act like this: very defensive and they are like, ‘Where did my content go? Oh, look, it’s over there. Now what do we do?’”

“I don’t think we should have this posturing anymore,” he continued, pointing out: “The bad guys are really, really good at their job. We are really, really good” also.

Therefore, he said: “Maybe we should look to some more technology controls … and apply them in a different way because you could argue some of the traditional things we are doing are like Whac-a-Mole. So maybe we should look at some other kind of things.”

During the session, Carlson explored the gap between content protection and anti-piracy and how a holistic approach can help close it.

Today, he pointed out, “people want to consume wherever they are on the planet, using any device they have, at any time they want.”

Meanwhile, because of the pandemic, “every single possible security exposure has just happened because people want it their way all the time,” he said. As a result, content companies are “no longer in control of where the content is, the distribution channel or the distribution method,” he noted.

It is still a challenge to combat the “kill chain” – the system that the “bad guys” use to compromise a company’s security, he went on to say.

“The best thing we can hope for in security, honestly, is to make it so hard that they go to the next guy.” And companies need to keep upping their security game to achieve that, he said.

There are new technologies that companies can use against the bad guys, he noted, pointing to blockchain as one example.

However, blockchain can also make it harder to stop pirates. After all, Carlson explained, if a pirate puts a company’s content on a distributed ledger, it can’t be deleted because those who control the ledger are the ones with the key and there is nobody who can clearly be identified to sue to take the content down.

“You can’t sue a decentralised thing,” he noted, adding: “All of our levers for enforcement suddenly go away. And that’s not OK.”

Content companies can’t just rely on one technology to combat piracy. A holistic approach to security is crucial, Carlson said, noting that will often include watermarking and smart legal contracts.

The session was moderated by Steve Hawley, managing director of Piracy Monitor.

The event was presented by Piracy Monitor and nScreenMedia, produced by MESA, with sponsorship by Akamai, Verimatrix, FriendMTS, and Intertrust ExpressPlay, and was held in association with the Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA).