It has become a major source of revenue loss in the entertainment industry since major Hollywood studios and other global production houses have moved to the OTT space. There are a variety of reasons why people choose to access content through pirate networks rather than official ones. DRM protected content is a real problem for the entertainment industry, with content owners and OTT platforms on one side, and pirate networks and their users on the other.
Viewers outside of Europe and the United States are extremely price-conscious, which is the biggest challenge for the OTT industry. If they find a better deal, they can easily switch services. Furthermore, they do not want to pay for the entire year at once. Instead, they opt for smaller monthly subscription fees. They turn to the piracy market because of their price sensitivity.
The piracy market filled a supply gap before OTT streaming platforms became a reality. CDs and DVDs from major Hollywood films that had not been released in developing countries were used by piracy networks. Despite the fact that a new OTT show can be released simultaneously all over the world, OTT companies prefer to tailor their content for specific markets. Networks of piracy take advantage of the mainstream OTT players’ business models to distribute their piracy-related content and profit handsomely from it.
Video watermarking is a separate component of the multi-DRM suite, which is used to control piracy in these regions. The video asset must be decrypted in order for pirates to stream it. The video asset cannot be decrypted without a licence key, which requires a legitimate user account, due to the robustness of the DRM technology.
At this point, content owners can track down piracy. forensic watermarks contain hidden information such as device ID, session ID, username, copyright information and more. When a video asset is leaked, content owners can use watermarks extracted from any frame of the video to identify the leaker and take appropriate action against them.
There must be some compromise between the watermark’s robustness and its imperceptibility. In order to maintain a fluid and secure experience for the viewer, a delicate balancing act between these two aspects is essential. Overzealous security measures can impede the viewing experience of legitimate customers, so content providers must exercise caution. It is an indication of the success of a watermarking service that its watermarks are both imperceptible and resistant to piracy, as this addresses both security and smoothness issues.
As with most other online content sites, pirate websites charge for advertising space on their pages. Scammers frequently use branded campaigns to trick ad networks into displaying their ads. This strategy allows them to profit from both ad impressions and the number of times pirated content is viewed (if advertising is present within the audiovisual file itself). Additionally, there are techniques like “Pixel Stuffing” in which an ad is displayed in an unobtrusive manner on your website, but it still counts as a legitimate view.
