The staggering statistics may appear intimidating, but the reality is that video piracy could cost the global OTT platform economy a staggering USD 52 million by 2022. Furthermore, this number is expected to skyrocket in the coming years if necessary measures aren’t taken to address digital loopholes.

The loss of revenue poses a serious threat to the survival of streaming services and should not be taken lightly. While security protocols and access measures can be implemented for secure video delivery, it is the effectiveness of reinforcing these measures that can protect OTT content from prying eyes.

Addressing OTT Streaming Loopholes: Enhancing Security Measures

The world is experiencing significant digital growth, but with technological advancements, there is also an alarming increase in piracy, hacking, and video attacks. Did you know that pirated content has accumulated over 230 billion views, with TV shows, movies, and web series being the most commonly watched illegally?

OTT services face several drawbacks due to piracy, including revenue losses, compromised ownership, devalued content, damaged reputation, decreased viewership, and dropped subscriptions. These reasons highlight the importance of prioritizing security when launching a streaming service intended to thrive against all odds.

Here is a list of best practices for ensuring secure OTT video delivery:

1. Exercise Domain Control: Implementing domain control is the primary step in ensuring that your streams are delivered securely and restricted from playing on unauthorized websites. By limiting your videos to trusted domains, even if a hacker attempts to embed the video on a prohibited site, the restriction prevents anyone from accessing it.
2. Impose Geographical Restrictions: Geographical restrictions are commonly used to limit access to specific regions when streaming regional content. Geo-blocking can be applied at the content level or by restricting the entire platform (website or app) from appearing in countries not whitelisted using attributes like IP addresses or email addresses. We are Video streaming services Providers in India
3. Foster Token-Based Security Systems: Token authentication is a top security standard that verifies whether a user attempting to access the OTT video is authorized. When a viewer clicks the playback button, two scenarios can unfold: if the user is legitimate, the server sends back a unique encrypted authentication token that allows playback until the user logs off; if verification fails, the user receives an unauthorized message.
4. Carry Out Software Updates: While software updates may seem trivial, using the latest versions of streaming formats, plugins, and encryption updates can prevent digital attacks. These updates often address vulnerabilities and security loopholes present in previous software versions.
5. Establish Secure Payment Processing: The success of a streaming platform depends not only on safeguarding content but also on securing user information and payment details for reliable transactions. OTT services that monetize videos must prioritize securing the payment gateway with SSL/TLS certificates, ensuring encryption throughout the credit card transaction process.
6. Embrace Encryption Algorithms: With the black market of piracy posing a serious threat to content owners, particularly when videos are transmitted over the internet, tighter security protocols are a must. AES encryption encrypts raw video into a random sequence of numbers that can only be deciphered with a private key from an authorized user, rendering the content useless to digital attackers. We are OTT platform providers in India
7. Use HTTPS for Video Delivery: HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) plays a vital role in protecting in-transit video streams from potential attacks. When videos are delivered over an HTTPS connection, they are masked for privacy, ensuring the authentic transmission of data over the internet. OTT platforms utilize HTTPS for video delivery to restrict video alteration, maintain content integrity, and protect against Man-in-the-Middle and phishing attacks, thanks to digital certificates and encryption keys.
8. Prevent Free Trial Abuse: Free trials are an effective marketing strategy for acquiring subscribers, but they can be prone to abuse. To curtail free-trial abuse, streaming platforms can employ measure such as mandating the user’s phone number, tracking IP addresses, installing cookies on the viewer’s browser, or acquiring credit card information during sign-up.
9. Educate Audiences on the Illegality of Piracy: A significant reason for the growing prevalence of piracy is the casual attitude of viewers towards consuming stolen content. Measures should be taken to educate the audience about the illegality of piracy and the unethical nature of watching content through unauthorized means. Highlight the downsides of streaming content illegally while emphasizing the benefits of accessing premium content through legitimate platforms.
10. Fortify Copyrighted Content: Reproduction of original content has become a major form of piracy, compromising the integrity of the work and impacting revenue streams for content owners, publishers, and distributors. By distributing content through a white-label video platform equipped with DRM (Digital Rights Management) tools, the legitimacy of copyrighted content can be maintained, preventing replication breaches.

In conclusion, ensuring secure video delivery is a multi-step process that requires the implementation of evolving measures throughout the content production and distribution journey. Partnering with comprehensive streaming platforms that offer advanced security tools, encryption standards, paywall integration, and content protection practices, such as Mogi, can significantly contribute to piracy-free video delivery to audiences of any scale.