Preventing video content piracy using technology

Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata Jnr.

The effects of modern technology have brought forth a mixture of bile and honey. It is bile if technology is affecting you negatively and honey if it is impacting your life positively.

of video content are experiencing both right now as technology has improved the output of videos created while at the same time making it easy to pirate their work.

Piracy is affecting content creators of audio, text, video, software, and others. It is a cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabrics of some industries, especially, the entertainment and knowledge-led industries and this has left participants completely frustrated.

Piracy is clearly a criminal act according to Nigerian copyright law but how enforceable is this law considering our complex judiciary processes?

This issue has always spurred relevant stakeholders to gather over the years to discuss the way forward in tackling the problem. There seems not to be any iota of improvement over the years. Everyone along the down the line in the entertainment industry is affected by piracy – artists, writers, authors, movie producers, music producers, cinematographers and software developers, etc.

I have often asked myself the essence of the Nigerian copyright law. Is it not to offer complete protection, preservation and reservation to the works of creators? It is sad that there is little or no compliance with this law, a situation which has prompted affected parties to call for stiffer punishment for violators.

Several forms of contents are pirated but the focus of this piece is video content because it commands lots of viewership, attracting massive attention. Believe it or not, a number of movies get seen by some ‘lucky’ few before being shown at the cinemas, or even sold to millions for low prices, causing huge revenue losses to the creators.

A Nigerian national daily reported in 2014, quoting professor of political economy and management expert, Pat Utomi, that Nigeria could be losing over $2bn to piracy every year.

What is the role of technology in all of this? There are two dimensions to this. One is that technology has in many ways contributed in worsening the situation due to unlimited access to digital resources. Two is that the same technology can also be used to curb piracy and reduce it to the barest minimum if proper models are implemented efficiently.

Most torrent websites today now get tonnes of traffic from pirates who are always in search of movies and video contents without any desire to pay for them. Torrent platforms mainly allow users to download copyrighted materials such as TV shows, movies, software, and games all for free.

These sites are like unauthorised distribution channels for copyrighted files, causing loss of revenue to original content creators. This is one of the reasons why the US government often ban torrent websites.

Meanwhile, technology still turns off the hands of piracy, if anti-piracy models are implemented. Some technologies such as infrared beams, night-vision goggles and watermarks have been used over the years in movie recording in theatres but some pirates still find their way to make these efforts less effective.

Watermark technology, for instance, helps to identify the source of the pirated content but it does not prevent the recording or copying and spreading of video content. The only advantage is that the content creator will be able to trace, investigate and indict the perpetrator.

Hackershave, even, rendered the Watermark technology useless by adding a fake watermark that will throw the investigators off course. So, even with the watermark technology, hackers still have the brainpower to manipulate the technology.

A practical example of what it means to manipulate the watermark technology happened some years ago when a copy of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, an American adventure comedy-drama, was leaked with the watermark “Property of Ellen Degeneres”, across the screen.

This watermark indicates simply that the copy must have come from somebody who had access to the show’s production area. After series of investigations, it was discovered that the watermark had been added by hackers to throw authorities off their investigation; a scheme that worked perfectly.

A movie producer should, therefore, be able to safeguard the original disk, up to the point of showing at a cinema; this is where most of the recording takes place.

There is a new technology called “Ambient Lighting Solution”, which could help reduce piracy at the cinema. This solution was recommended by Philips Lighting, a global market leader with recognised expertise in the development, manufacturing & application of innovative lighting solutions.

Implementing bthe Ambient Lighting Solution is easy. It requires someone to shine light on the viewers at the cinema from an angle at a particular light frequency. The lighting will cause damages to and degrade the quality of video recording so that it becomes completely unwatchable.

“The solution proposed here is to shine visible light from an additional light source with a predetermined modulation frequency at the cinema screen while the movie plays. When the frequency is chosen well, a camera will not be able to properly film the content because the light source runs out of sync with the camera resulting in stripes running through the movie content,” the patent application reads.

There is also the standard Digital Right Management, another efficient way to protect your video contents from pirates. Nobody is allowed to download your videos unless such person has the security key to access the content because the DRM technology controls the usage, alteration, and distribution of copyrighted works as well as systems within devices that implement these policies.

One of the leaders that provide the DRM technology is VdoCipher. They deliver robust security solutions at every stage of video delivery. Some of the E-learning platforms across the globe try to use this service to protect their video content especially the premium ones.

The crux of the matter remains that most of the video contents are prone to piracy considering the myriads of tech hacks, plugins, and downloaders. However, that does not mean one should not play his or her role in securing and preventing video contents from piracy.

The combination of watermark technology, encryption models, ambient lighting solution and DRM technology can curb the piracy of video content to a significant extent.

This is a clarion call on the government and policy makers as the world has moved on from resource-based economy to a knowledge-led economy and the underlying backbone of a knowledge economy is strong and enforceable intellectual property laws.