M+E Daily

New technologies create excitement and opportunity for every part of the creative environment but they often tend to create new and previously unforeseen security challenges, Nicole Little, head of Antipiracy Strategy and Technology at Amazon Prime Video, said May 23, during the Hollywood Innovation and Transformation Summit (HITS) at The Culver Theater.

Speaking during the session “The Give and Take of Innovation & Security,” Little said: “Technology and innovation move at an astounding pace. They usher in new ideas, new concepts, new modalities, new ways for us to create content, and it’s always really exciting to see how somebody can apply technology into the future.”

Specific technologies she addressed included the explosion and popularity of Web3, blockchain and cryptocurrency-tied distribution.

Artificial intelligence (AI) content generation, meanwhile, has revealed new avenues for creation and distribution but with that comes a wide variety of new considerations around intellectual property, ownership and consumer privacy and security.

Little has been in the security space her entire career, and security and innovation is one of my favourite subjects, she told attendees.

“What I’m hoping you’ll get from this” presentation are a few main points, Little said. “Obviously, I don’t know your legal environment. I don’t know your security environment. But what I can always recommend is: Be familiar with intellectual property and your legal teams. Be familiar with your security teams and know when to call them in, even if it’s for guidance or recommendations. Each step that we take forward into these new spaces [is] always exciting … but it also uncovers a lot of new unknowns. There are a lot of potential pitfalls … and, as a result, we must take care when we engage in this space considering the long reaching impacts of our creative efforts.”

She then took a short journey back in time, noting: “The past couple of years have given us massive amounts of data, information, new areas for us to work and create content in a way that we’ve never had access to before. It’s really democratised a lot of accessibility and it’s made it so that we can present our ideas in a way that works better,” even for those who aren’t very technical, she said.

“We have so many different areas that kind of fall into this space in and of itself,” she said, noting: “You have blockchain. Then you have the blockchain distribution. How do you even use blockchain to distribute content? What does the blockchain even mean? You also have Web3, which is tied into blockchain. You have the concept of the metaverse and then you have AI and AI generative content. You also have to consider things like new hardware to present this content.” Then there are also 3D video players and other new pieces of hardware to get, she said.

“In the past four or five years, we’ve focused a lot on decentralisation using Web3 [and] blockchain technologies to kind of move the needle forward when it comes to innovation,” she told attendees.  “Thankfully that’s kind of had its time to shine and now we can move forward into other areas where it’s a little more applicable to the creative process rather than just strictly the distribution aspect of this.”

The latest technology offering potential opportunities is AI generative content, she went on to say, noting: “The current iteration of the metaverse [is in a] very diluted form now. It doesn’t really mean anything because of the desire and excitement for technologists to kind of jump in and try and find ways to put their own spin on this idea of a holy encompassing digital world where you can be somebody else and do something else…. The metaverse is still a pretty nebulous term these days and the underlying concepts provide a really fascinating space for us to move as creative and distribution partners.”

There are now opportunities to “create things” and “find easier ways to not only democratise access and bring equity in technology to communities that were previously underserved because they didn’t have a way to access these communities [but] then find a way to also have a solid foundation for a business use in this space,” she explained.

The Hollywood Innovation and Transformation Summit event was produced by MESA in association with the Hollywood IT Society and presented by Amazon Studios Technology, with sponsorship by Fortinet, Genpact, Prime Focus Technologies, Signiant, Softtek, Convergent, Gracenote, Altman Solon, AppTek, Ascendion, Coresite, EPAM, MicroStrategy, Veritone, CDSA, EIDR and PDG Consulting.