While no-one pretends the big-screen movie experience can be replicated outside of cinemas, there’s no getting away from the opportunities – good and bad – laid bare by the pandemic-enforced shift in-home and the stratospheric leap in streaming activity. In the latest of an occasional series about the tech behind the evolving in-home entertainment experience and environment and what it means, ContentAsia spoke to Arivan Govindan, Synamedia Asia Pacific’s head of new business. 

From a platform perspective, are the security implications different as a result of the higher value of streaming services? “Pirates zero in on where there is money to be made. As OTT providers are increasingly acquiring the rights for premium live sports and movie premieres, they are becoming major targets. Streaming apps are particularly vulnerable to attack, which intensifies the threat as more and more viewers are using mobile devices for OTT viewing. The challenge is made harder because pirates are using highly sophisticated technologies and are nimble enough to move quickly to avoid detection. Today they use apps such as Telegram to share, exchange and sell stolen premium content, as well as the dark web to share and sell OTT subscribers’ stolen credentials. But they are nimble enough to switch quickly to other distribution methods in this game of cat and mouse.” 

Have you noticed any changes in the way rights holders are thinking about security? “The sheer scale of streaming piracy poses a real threat to the value of sports and movie rights. When OTT providers come to negotiate exclusive rights with rights owners for a particular country or region that has been impacted by piracy, they will not want to pay premium rates if guarantees on exclusivity cannot be made. Mandating that OTT providers adopt anti-piracy technologies, such as watermarking to protect content, is important. But rights holders need to go much further, collaborating more closely with the wider ecosystem – including technology vendors, payment platforms, advertising agencies and law enforcement agencies – to avoid the large-scale erosion of rights values over time. Deploying a blend of anti-piracy measures that combine data-driven detection methods with human intelligence and monitoring services is the way forward.” 

Are the security threats bigger in the new streaming environment? “Streaming piracy is now on an industrial scale. A case in point was Disney+’s streaming of the live-action remake of Mulan, which became the most pirated movie in the world during its launch weekend last September. The revenue leakage around this movie alone has been substantial, demonstrating that speed and scale are required to combat these threats. Our anti-piracy experts have noticed a sharp uptick in investment by pirate networks to make their platforms look legitimate. They’re adopting the latest technologies, spinning up sophisticated user interfaces, and working with brand-name payment platforms and cloud providers; and many even have their own customer service teams. With such an impressive façade, it’s understandable that many consumers are fooled into thinking these services are legal. And because pirate networks are unencumbered by content rights and other costs, they can easily undercut on price. To survive and thrive, legitimate OTT platforms should adopt the latest generation of intelligence-driven anti-piracy services that can demonstrate a ROI on their anti-piracy spend.”

Should platforms be thinking differently if their main audience is in-home rather than theatrical? “Content is still king but with competition for viewers at an all-time high, even studios with D2C platforms and a loyal following will need to refine and personalise the user experience to boost engagement. Previously they captured data on the box-office success of theatre releases, but now that movies go straight to streaming they need insights to predict which content will play out best to which audiences – and how to promote it to maximise ROI. By extracting insights from behavioral and viewing data, platforms can now do this.” 

Published in ContentAsia May 2021 magazine