Interviews with Digital Media Thought Leaders
Protecting Video Streams from Piracy
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on April 14, 2008
If you would like to know how to protect video streams from piracy, this interview is for you.
Subject: Our guest today is Barrett Lyon who is a Co-Founder of BitGravity which is a video-centric Content Delivery Network (CDN). His company characterizes itself as a CDN for today’s Internet, as opposed to the older ones designed to deliver the static web pages of an increasingly bygone era.
One way BitGravity distinguishes itself is via a service announced today that will protect video streams from piracy. Traditionally, DRMs protected videos delivered as files for downloading whereas video streams are often unprotected owing to an assumption that they will not be copied since there is no file to download. However, in an (apparently) increasing number of cases the assumption is invalid because software is readily available to construct a digital file from the stream. One example is the RealPlayer. Today’s announcement from BitGravity introduces a technique that can prevent such reconstructions.
Another way that BitGravity stands out is its expertise in more generally in video delivery. They even have clients delivering High Definition video over the Net.
Phil’s Take. Although BitGravity’s new technique may guard video streams from software that will reconstruct digital files, it does not prevent screen capture software from copying the video. Such software is also common because it has many legitimate uses. However, when a digital watermark is added, BitGravity can place a unique identity on such copied streams thereby creating a deterrent to the illegal use of screen capture software. Nonetheless, some critics argue that watermarks require too much processing power and since I am not an expert, comments are welcome.
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: Barrett Lyon, BitGravity, digital media, DRM, High Definition Video, Internet video, Phil Leigh, Piracy Protection
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Phil- looks like they are positioned as a limelight for the next generation? I don’t understand the peer to peer comment. Peer to peer is not just bittorrent protocol, its an architecture, not a protocol. And, its all about limiting the source from a server. Look no further to why Akamai has such dominate market share against all the CDNs, you have to move the content closer. The real home run is global and a server based architecture will never work at scale, unless someone is willing to deploy 25,000 servers (or however many akamai has). Kind of basic when its all said and done. Problem with basic is the capital cost. Harvey
Well, I don’t recall my comments about P2P. However, I have assumed that P2P is a competitive delivery architecture that may provide better results, since a great number of peers can essential function as the 25,000 Akamai servers.