January 20, 2023

 

Content protection is important for every media asset when some sort of monetization is used. For AVOD scenarios you would like to prevent your viewers to skip watching the ads, for SVOD or TVOD scenarios any unauthorized access will result in revenue loss. Quite often protection requirements are defined by content owners, especially for premium content.

In this article we provide the guidance on the available features for content protection available for our customers.

 

Protection methods

There are different methods how you can protect your video-on-demand videos and live streams.  Here you have the description of the content protection measures you can utilize in our platform.

 

Geo-blocking

Geo-blocking allows adding countries in which playback is allowed. This is necessary to define when copyright and licensing restrictions are enforced by content owners.

 

VPN/proxy detection and blocking

This feature is an additional check to IP address geolocation detection and prevents viewers to utilize public VPN/proxy services to access the content from territories where the viewing is not allowed, to ensure compliance with licensing and regulatory mandates.

VPN/proxy user blocking feature is not included in Standard pricing plans, it is billed additionally. Please purchase this add-on via the Billing section or contact tms@tet.lv if you are an Enterprise plan user to activate this in your account.

 

Token for playback

We suggest using token for playback by default for paid content VOD services. Token provides video playback protection for all supported streaming protocols, using a security token that is verified by the CDN. The token prevents sharing playback URLs with another user. Multiple session parameters are encrypted in the token effectively preventing the fraudsters to watch the content on the devices other than those where the session was originated and outside of the specified time slot.

Additional option Use token for sub-manifests and chunks protects all stream components, not only the main manifest. To use this option, it is necessary for the player to supply the token received in the main manifest URL to the URLs of sub-manifests and chunks before retrieving the content. The player included in the Videosher embed code supports this feature automatically.

The validity duration of the token should be set for the time of the expected length of the streaming session with possible pauses and buffering. New token is generated on each initialization of the playback session when embed code is opened by the viewer.

 

Token for embed code

This feature is to protect the embed code against re-embedding in conjunction with Restrict embed in Domains field. Every time embed player is loaded for end-user you need to generate a token thru the API.

The domain embedding restriction feature works quite fine alone for general public, but skillful hackers can spoof the domain in the request referrer field and in such cases this feature will prevent that.

After choosing this setting an option Only use for disallowed countries will appear. This sets the token enforcement only for geo-blocked countries. It is used to allow content access for registered users outside of allowed regions, e.g., EU.

The token duration for embed code can be set quite short as it is verified only once when the embed code is opened.

 

Restrict Embedding in Domains

Control where your videos can be embedded by adding certain domain addresses.

website.com; otherwebsite.eu

For full protection use this setting together with Token for embed code.

 

IP Blacklist

This feature blocks specific IP addresses from accessing the video.

 

IP Whitelist

This feature allows specific IP addresses to access the video overriding other settings like Geo-blocking.

 

DRM

DRM stands for Digital Right Management, which is the highest-grade media encryption method to protect copyrights of your videos on different platforms and prevent stealing, piracy.

DRM is approved by major studios and is the right solution if you want to prevent manipulation on the device playing your video. For instance, if your video is unencrypted and has been playing in a browser, the user might download video fragments and play them locally. DRM will prevent this as only an authorized player will receive the keys to decrypt the content.

Widevine and Playready are supported natively by Videosher. Apple Fairplay support is possible but due to Apple policy, the holder of the content rights must acquire the license directly from Apple. You can find the DRM compatibility with different devices and platforms here: https://www.buydrm.com/keyos-compatibility-matrix

In many cases, content providers/owners require to have DRM as mandatory in the licensing agreement for streaming video.

DRM feature is not included in Standard pricing plans, it is billed additionally. Please purchase this add-on via the Billing section or contact tms@tet.lv if you are an Enterprise plan user to activate this in your account.

 

AES-128

AES stands for Advanced Encryption Standard, which is a simple media encryption method to protect against stealing and piracy and guarantees access to the stream to authorized users only and enables to stream the content securely.

This is the easiest way to protect your content. AES-128 encrypts the content by generating a special key. If someone tries to intercept it, they will see only encrypted data.

AES-128 in comparison to DRM is a slightly less secure protection algorithm with limited support from major studios but more widely supported by older devices.

 

DRM with AES-128 as a fallback

If DRM is enabled in your account, we suggest using this version. You can set this, to have a backup protection method. If the DRM is not supported by some browser or device or any other reason it does not work, the AES-128 protection will be applied for the stream.

 

Conclusion

All content protection features are handy for different use cases but keep in mind that the stricter the protection is the bigger the possibility that some legitimate users cannot watch it because of their device limitations. Especially DRM is quite often not supported by some devices or because of user preferences chosen on some systems that ask users to allow certain features, and also in cases when users refuse to update their systems and applications to newer versions. Choose the options wisely depending on requirements from content providers and evaluating the commercial and legal impact of the illegal content access in every case versus the potentially higher revenue from content usage by wider audience.