PARIS—Viaccess-Orca (VO) and ATEME have announced a contribution watermarking solution with a pay-per-use business model that eliminates the complex pricing traditionally associated with watermarking and in the process enables faster technology adoption.
"Piracy is evolving. Hackers are exploiting new techniques to illegally access and redistribute video content, and the industry needs an accurate, scalable, and cost-efficient solution to identify the source of leaks," said Mathieu Harel, product director of watermarking at Viaccess-Orca. "Collaborating with ATEME, we've developed a smarter method for tracking piracy: one that focuses on the full content path as opposed to just the end points. With our solution, content owners and providers can protect their content and revenues in a way that was never before imaginable."
As part of the solution, VO's software-based dynamic watermarking technology is embedded and ready to use within IRDs and encoders from ATEME, enabling content owners and providers to precisely identify the source of video piracy leaks within various distribution channels.
VO's dynamic watermarking technology features multiple, dynamic algorithms with the ability to track and change watermarks in real time. As content owners distribute live content to multiple affiliates, the solution tracks its path through different channels — including satellite and IP — injecting an invisible watermark on the video at each distribution point. The solution offers a portal to VO's Anti-Piracy Center, where content leaks are closely monitored and then quickly identified so that content owners can fight back against piracy, the companies said.
The new solution's pay-per-use business model eliminates licensing, maintenance, and service fees, allowing content owners and providers to pay for contribution watermarking technology only when they use it. The dynamic watermarking technology is software-based, allowing content owners and providers to scale the new solution rapidly as they address piracy concerns, the companies explained.
"By 2022 the cost of online video piracy is expected to reach $52 billion, and this problem is only going to get worse without an effective solution," said Julien Mandel, solution marketing senior director at ATEME. "Teaming up with Viaccess-Orca, an industry leader in content protection, we've created a free solution that liberates content owners and providers from sizing their network, so that they can focus only on tracking the path of leaks throughout the distribution workflow. Before this, content providers were limited to only identifying the end point of leaked content, so this solution is a real game-changer for the industry."
The companies also noted that the new solution supports BISS-CA encryption, an open protocol that enables real-time entitlement management for content streams over any network. When used in conjunction with dynamic watermarking, BISS-CA simplifies content owners' ability to trace the source of illegal streams and safeguard their content, making this new watermarking solution especially advantageous for live sports streaming applications.
More information about VO and the new contribution watermarking solution is available here.
