By Siddhant Jain, CEO and Co-Founder, Vdocipher
The digital revolution has transformed content creation, distribution, and consumption in unprecedented ways. However, for content owners, it has also led to a proliferation of copyright infringement and intellectual property theft issues. From movies and music being shared illegally via torrents to research papers copied from subscription journals and redistributed – safeguarding digital assets has become extremely challenging. Over 80% of digital video piracy is now linked to unauthorised streaming, facilitated by piracy devices and applications.
The Need for Effective Digital Rights Management
Annually, the Indian entertainment sector experiences a staggering loss of USD 2.8 billion in revenue due to digital piracy. The escalating prevalence of piracy, coupled with the expanding digital landscape, poses a disproportionate threat to the economy and stifles innovation in an industry poised for transformation. So while pirates drive more users to services, they drastically eat into revenues for actual creators.
Much of this is being driven by a lack of content availability, exclusivity deals, and unaffordability especially across developing markets. However, improving purchasing power globally and the rise of affordable streaming models offer a chance to convert many to legal customers.
This is where the strategic deployment of digital rights management (DRM) frameworks becomes essential. DRM refers to access control technologies that protect copyrighted hardware and work from unauthorised usage and duplication.
Let’s see some of the key mechanisms and solutions driving the rapid mainstream adoption of DRM:
Built-in DRM Capabilities
Many modern digital streaming and media platforms now incorporate proprietary DRM abilities for tight access restrictions and control. For example, Netflix encrypts and wraps all content delivered to users via its apps. Only paired software can unlock the content for viewing.
While Netflix uses its own SDKs, other services rely on third-party integrations. For instance, Spotify taps Microsoft’s PlayReady DRM tools and Amazon Prime Video uses Widevine DRM provided by Google. These solutions prevent content from being downloaded or captured. Recent reports indicate the DRM software market will likely expand at over 13% CAGR to exceed USD 7.93 billion by 2027.
Third-Party DRM Plugins
Many media platforms are also now integrating reusable DRM plugins from services like Microsoft PlayReady, Google Widevine, and Apple Fairplay. These simplify encryption, key exchange, authentication, licensing delivery, and port the same playback experience across devices. Irdeto, a leading DRM vendor, powers content protection for over 1 billion devices through partnerships with Roku, Twitch, Rakuten, BET+, and BBC.
Blockchain-based DRM
Incorporating blockchain into DRM systems offers revolutionary possibilities for decentralising digital asset rights management. Media platforms are keen on leveraging this technology to establish scarcity and provenance with NFTs, facilitating global licensing through smart contracts, automating royalty distribution via coded contracts, and maintaining transparent records for copyright disputes.
Forensic Watermarking Technology
Watermarking is a key way content creators tag media files to track duplication and leaks in the wild. Video files can hide tracking codes in the pixels to enable monitoring tools to search the web and P2P networks. Early detection allows sending takedown notices to curb virality in the early stages.
YouTube and Facebook already utilise watermarking and fingerprinting to identify copyrighted uploads automatically. However, forensic watermarking takes this to the next level through invisible tailored codes that embed owner info. This makes tracing leaked media back to the source easier. Digimarc provides one enterprise solution.
Emerging Fingerprinting Techniques
Media platforms have also begun leveraging next-gen content fingerprinting abilities to strengthen DRM. Two leading techniques gaining popularity now are:
Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) – Identifies content signals imperceptible to humans automatically using audio, video, and metadata analysis algorithms. Allows tracking syndicated content to enforce licensing deals.
Perceptual Hashing – Extracts intrinsic media fingerprints through generative modelling like AI and deep learning. Minor alterations in the content result in drastically different hash strings allowing dupe detection.
Empowering Online Educators Through DRM
The e-learning market has exploded in growth over the last few years, accelerated further by the pandemic’s impact. As per Market Insights, the e-learning market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 14% between 2023 and 2032.
However, this growth also means widespread copyright violations as students freely download and share paid materials illegally after enrollment. Educational piracy denies creators rightful earnings, diminishing incentives to produce quality lectures over time.
Furthermore, dedicated DRM solutions for digitally delivered teaching assets are emerging, with encryption supporting time-bound, device-specific access policies to safeguard revenue. Blockchain-based platforms facilitate tokenized e-learning marketplaces, allowing instructors to set fees in cryptocurrency and track material usage. Video watermarking and ligature embedding plugins aid in identifying stolen instructional content for effective DMCA takedown requests by online educators.
Conclusion
Nonetheless, advanced DRM systems present the best shot content creators have for monetising works digitally while retaining control. Anti-piracy features like built-in encryption, NFT-based access tokens, blockchain rights databases, and intelligent fingerprinting abilities offer promise. With global cohorts of professional teachers creating their personal e-learning brands now, safeguarding digital materials from unlawful usage will be pivotal to sustainability. Hence advances in DRM capabilities can encourage more high-quality instructional content creation over the long run by ensuring fair compensation.
