OTT Question Time #17 – OTT Piracy & Content Protection

As viewers increasingly shift from watching linear to OTT, piracy and content protection become ever more important topics of discussion for broadcasters, film studios, operators and service-providers. This isn’t just an “interesting” conversation – one industry vendor, for example, told us that “In some countries, the scale of piracy is such that it matches the revenues of the local pay-TV market”. Commercially, strategically, and technically, content security is a big deal. 

That was the focus of OTT Question Time last week (24th September) where, together with beIn Media, Sky, Verimatrix and Ampere Analysis, we explored:

• The overall scale of OTT piracy – both in and of itself and compared to OTT revenues
• The types of content that are most susceptible to piracy (e.g. live sport, new movies and TV shows etc.)
• How OTT content can be protected – technically and in terms of organisational mindset
• How consumers feel about piracy. Is it a victimless crime or does the (relatively) low price point of the major SVODs encourage people to pay for content?  
• The “arms race” going on between service-providers and illegal streamers

Joining our panel were: Cameron Andrews, Legal Director, Anti-Piracy, at beIN Media Group, Kieron Edwards, Group Technical Director, Content Protection at Sky, Lu Bolden, Chief Revenue Officer at Verimatrix and Minal Modha, Consumer Research Lead at Ampere Analysis. 

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