The world has become a smaller
place with digitization and increasing internet penetration. A video or show
released in one part of the world needs only a few hours to get viral in
another. With the ease of access and increasing consumption of streaming content,
it has also become important for creative studios to implement robust security
strategies to avoid piracy. Approaches such as using DRM protected content and forensic watermarking are helping content providers
prevent unauthorized access to video assets as well as deter and track piracy.
Apart from these approaches, content owners can also use a technique called
“geofencing” to restrict and optimize programming in different geographic
regions.
Sometimes, content providers might need to block video assets from being
viewable in specific territories. The reason for this move could be that
because they have licensing rights for a video only in some territories and
need to prevent the videos from being watched outside them, or due to security
reasons. This mechanism of blocking videos in specific geographical territories
is called geofencing.
Geofencing also allows studios
to release content at the right time to different regional audiences. For
example, a studio might want to offer a movie at cheaper rates or package it
differently for a certain location. It also prevents localized content from
reaching irrelevant viewers, thereby preventing a bandwidth crunch. Geofencing
works by blocking digital media through a subnet of IP addresses. The local ISP
(internet service provider) assigns a unique IP address to every device which
effectively ties the device to the user’s physical location. The IP addresses
where content distribution is to be restricted can be blocked to deny them
access to the video.
However, pirates tend to
defeat this logic by making pirated content available in restricted regions.
This is where video
watermarking comes into play. Forensic
watermarking can be combined with geofencing approaches to track the leakage of
content outside its intended boundaries. In the event of infringement, the
watermark embedded into the premium content can be extracted and detected by a
watermark detector to identify the exact source of leakage. Necessary actions
can then be taken against the vulnerable distribution channels or malicious
users.