The global video streaming market is dominated by over-the-top (OTT) providers like Netflix and Amazon Prime, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue every minute. Content owners do not want to put their high-definition premium content on portals that aren’t as strict with security. For premium content, the OTT industry relies on digital rights management (DRM) technology and forensic watermarking solutions to ensure its integrity.
Only users who have been given permission by the OTT platform to view DRM protected content streaming content can access it. For an OTT platform or a content owner to implement a DRM scheme, they will need to use a multi-DRM software that can securely define the scope of access. Using this software, the content owner can also control the availability of video streams in browsers and devices.
This software encrypts video content right up until it reaches the user’s computer or other mobile device. Even if the video asset is encrypted, the licence key required to decrypt the content is frequently stolen. To decrypt premium video files and distribute them to piracy servers, a pirate would need this key.
The primary function of a multi-DRM system is to authenticate a user with the right decryption key in a secure manner, which requires verifying it from the DRM technology provider’s server. This server could be a Google, Apple, or Microsoft server, as these are the three most popular DRM technology providers in the world.
Videos are protected with video watermarking, which are a second line of defence for content owners. Encryption of premium streaming assets can also include metadata about the file, session ID and user information in each frame of the video. The video asset could theoretically be available to a user in a decrypted state during playback and a clever hacker could extract the entire video file by targeting its individual blocks.
In spite of this, each frame contains a forensic watermark that ensures that piracy will take place. This information can be gleaned from a pirated video file and compared to the watermark database to determine if the file is genuine. To find out who leaked the premium video asset, content owners can use this method.
Due to the necessity of storing two copies of each encoded video in the similar A/B watermarking technology, the server costs are prohibitive for this method. Because only a copy of the altered video is required, bitstream watermarking has a distinct advantage. As long as the video has this watermark, content owners can easily match it with their database and identify the user responsible.
Multi-DRM vendors keep a database of these kinds of watermarks. Multi-DRM vendors can be used to extract forensic watermarks and compare them to the database of watermarks in the event of video piracy. They can use it to track down the original source of the leak, whether it was a computer or a mobile device.