The popularity of OTT platforms has also increased the risk of piracy of premium video content they stream. Content producers and OTT owners grapple with the deluge of forensic watermarking services that offer to protect their content. However, they need to follow certain guidelines to get the right SaaS provider onboard. Following are some of the best practices that content owners and distributors must can use while selecting a watermarking service:
Strength Against Attacks: A good watermarking service provider must not only keep up with the latest piracy schemes but also stay ahead of them. Pirates constantly upgrade their techniques and might not be easily identifiable on the surface. Many a times, they use legitimate subscriptions and easily available screen-recording software for screen scraping or even cheap witches that can remove the HDCP. Professional pirate distributors can also capture the video output, re-encode, and redistribute premium DRM protected content using their own infrastructure to earn revenues from stolen content. Hence, one must make sure to choose a watermarking service that is adaptable to the ever-evolving pirate attacks.
Speed: In the age of live entertainment and sports, it is crucial for watermarking services to be quick in action as a delay in identifying and disabling content leakage could lead to huge losses. In addition, the watermarking solution must be able to process the video data in real time during playback which has become increasingly challenging with the adoption of 4K UHD and HDR content. The solution should also be universal to work equally well for all types of content, be it live, pay-per-view or on-demand.
Deployment: While choosing a video watermarking service, it is also important to see how extensively the service has been deployed. Experience in the content protection space ensures credibility, effectiveness and reliability. Hence, one must go for service providers with a proven, demonstrable track record in detecting and deterring piracy across multiple distribution channels.
Multi-CDN Service: OTT services usually have enough complexities and expenses. It is therefore necessary to find watermarking services that are cost-effective and efficient. Hence, the services should ideally incur no additional expenses for multi-CDN delivery.
Global Reach: With the increasing reach of the internet and the world-wide circulation of all types of content, OTT and VoD providers need to ensure content protection in markets throughout the world. Even if a video asset is only meant for circulation in just one country, pirates can act without any borders and attempt to steal the content.
