Theft of video content has been an issue since the dawn of pay television (TV). Since that dawn there has been a continual security cat and mouse game between operators and pirates, with the technology actively evolving with it. Most of this technology has, however, focused primarily on protecting the video pipeline with the assumption that control ends at the playback device.
Within this paper we look at content beyond the device, after it has been played back, pirated and distributed over the Internet. We’ll first look at the common methods of obtaining pirated content; then, we’ll look at some of the state of the art techniques be used to combat these.
Indeed, the next generation of content protection must move beyond the device to understand and mitigate the path of active online piracy.