Digital Rights Management
It’s Smart and Safe…
DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT
“Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems provide you the ability to control how people can consume your content”
- The unrivaled reach of the internet and the advancement of technological trends have driven digital innovation virtually at every corner of the media industry.
- From music streaming apps to the current video streaming platforms, the way content is consumed has radically changed.
- Every aspect of media distribution has become more streamlined in a manner in which we purchase.
For example, Movies, books, and music are now replaced with on-demand services.
Hackers are using more advanced methods to access online content, like content tampering, deep linking, cache stealing, link sharing, and much more.
So, do you think security is important in the streaming industry?🧐
- Yes, the protection of digital content is of utmost priority as most of the digital media industries today are losing their revenue due to content piracy and unauthorized file sharing.
So, what is the solution for content protection?
There are a few important digital content protection solution, like :
- Digital Watermarking
- DRM
- Access Management
- Server Side Security and firewall
But DRM stands out amongst all in content protection so, let’s dig deep into DRM
History of DRM
- DRM is not a new thing, this “content protection” concept was implemented way back in the old floppy disks era to prevent unauthorized usage of copyright holders.
The early 80s-
- Electronic publishing resource, Inc., attempts to create DRM
The early 90s-
- Digital watermarking became prevalent.
- Digi box uses DRM to control access media.
- IBM introduces crypto lope software
- Secure digital music launched to share encrypted music
- DRM technologies continue to evolve and are applied across media
What is DRM?
- Digital rights management (DRM) is a technology that helps to protect copyrighted material from being used, read, or shared without the proper rights.
To Simply put...
Ever try to watch a video from OTT platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Disney or Amazon and it says that you don’t have access to it and need to upgrade your subscription? They are doing that with a DRM standard to protect those video assets.
Why DRM?
- The purpose of DRM is to prevent piracy and protect the original content.
- It adds an extra layer of protection to prevent unauthorized sharing of your copyrighted work.
- DRM Enables Content Creators to Get Paid.
- DRM can prevent owners from making copies, selling, giving away, repairing, or modifying their products, leading to increased revenue.
How Does DRM Work?
- A DRM setup needs specific encoding, encryption, authentication, and playback. But Encryption and authentication play an important role in the working of DRM which is explained below.
In Figure1 it’s clearly seen that encryption is the key feature in securing DRM.
1.Encryption: It relies on encryption to protect the content and to ensure that only authorized users can unlock the files. When encryption is applied, DRM scrambles the data in a file making it unreadable without the appropriate unlocking key.
2. Authentication: Authentication system stands between users and the decryption keys, ensuring that only people with the proper permissions can obtain a decryption key.
Main requirements to DRM platforms
- An effective DRM technology must provide a smooth and effective user experience for content use and must implement strong security measures to prevent unauthorized use of content.
- These requirements could be implemented by hardware and/or software means.
So, what is hardware and software DRM?
Hardware DRM-A hardware DRM is content protection enforced by electronic components. Two main reasons to use hardware-based security is:
- Better overall robustness
- Improved user experience
Examples of hardware DRM
- Smartphones DVD and Blu-Ray
- Printers
- TVs
- Appliances
Software DRM: Software DRM is another type of content protection enforced by digital technology.
Examples of software DRM
- Digital music, video, and books
- Apps
- Software and video games
Introducing a software DRM — vDRM :
vDRM — “Scalable, Reliable, Easy to use Digital Right Management as a service for all OTT providers”
Here is the simple flow of DRM for OTT providers
How does vDRM service work?
vDRM can protect your content by digital rights management (DRM) license key distribution through our robust cloud-based service.
Step 1: Upload the content- Vendors who wish to take our DRM software can upload the content once registered.
Step 2: Encryption & Packaging: Before you distribute your video, it must be encrypted. While encrypting, the content key and metadata need to unlock the video which is ingested into our secure DRM database for future delivery to the end-user.
Step 3: Content Delivery/Content Distribute: After packaging and encrypting a video file, it’s ready for delivery from your/vendor’s CDN or server infrastructure.
For content to be viewed, DRM must first supply the user’s player with a license key to decrypt the video. Your/Vendor’s content cannot be played without this key. (As shown in Fig2)
Step 4: License Delivery: To acquire a license key, the DRM layer in the user’s player application uses the information in the manifest file to launch a request.
Features of vDRM
- DRM Packing and licensing for Widevine,Play-ready, and FairPlay
- Fully secure REST APIs to automate your DRM workflow.
- Bring your own S3 BUCKETS for added security and privacy.
- Policy configuration for security level, output protection, persistence, renewal, and the license duration.
- Detail metering, metrics, charts, and reports.
- Scalable and reliable SAAS built on AWS cloud and lambda.
- 24/7 maintenance and monitoring.
Multi-DRM
“Maximum device reach is directly proportional to the using of multiple DRMs in parallel”
- Consumers are using an increasing range of devices to watch their favorite programs. In order to grow the OTT business, finding an efficient way to deliver and secure content on all your consumers’ devices is critical.
- This is possible with vDRM as it has a multi-DRM service option that makes it easy and fast to protect content delivered over the top via PlayReady, Wide vine, FairPlay. It allows service providers and operators to deliver OTT services anytime, anywhere
Benefits of using Multi-DRM
- Reduces encryption cost because a single encryption process is used to target different platforms with its native DRMs.
- Reduces the cost of managing assets because only a single copy of assets is needed in storage.
- Eliminates DRM client licensing costs because the native DRM client is usually free on its native platform.
Choosing a DRM and Licensing partner
- Though there are many DRM systems available to protect video content, we only need to worry about the Big Three for supporting the most popular web browsers, devices, and set-top boxes
- These leading players have different capabilities and compatibilities.
What is PlayReady DRM?
- Microsoft PlayReady DRM is a set of technologies that can be used to securely distribute audio/video content over the network and prevent unauthorized use.
What is FairPlay DRM?
- Secure the delivery of streaming media to devices through the HTTP Live Streaming protocol. Using FairPlay Streaming (FPS) technology, content providers, encoding vendors, and delivery networks can encrypt content, securely exchange keys, and protect playback on iOS, tvOS, and Safari on iOS and macOS.
What is Wide vine’s DRM?
- Wide vine’s DRM solution provides the capability to license, securely distribute, and protect playback of content on any consumer device. Content owners, multiple service operators, and digital media providers can utilize Wide vine’s solutions to ensure revenue-generating services keep flowing to whatever device consumers desire.
Embracing DRM in streaming Business
- DRM can be used to manage subscription-based pricing models for streaming licensed content. Even though this model still limits your access to compatible devices, the most successful services (such as Netflix) have done a good job of fostering further compatibility.
- Designing and building a Digital Rights Management (DRM) subsystem for an over-the-top (OTT) or online streaming solution is a complex task. Operators/online video providers typically outsource this task to specialized DRM service providers like vDRM. ( A product from Mobitoics)
vDRM offers: Custom DRM solutions, tap into our DRM services to prevent piracy and revenue loss.
Here is what we can do for you:
- Integrating with Google Widevine, Microsoft PlayReady, and Apple FairPlay
- DRM Packing and Licensing as a service
- Easy REST APIs for integration
- Secure content transfer and CDN Integration
- Real-Time Analytics
- Real-time analytics SDK integration
- Developing a custom DRM system tailored to your specific needs
- DRM Platforms we support are :
Coming to an end …
Mobiotics’ vDRM package is customized to work across all platforms and devices without snags. User authentication is also taken care of, enabling only valid users and subscribers to access your content.
Signup for a 14-Days FREE trial right now with a custom DRM encoding & integrated analytics support to maximize your content’s potential at a Minimal Expenditure.
