Video piracy’s a big, tricky thing for content creators, streaming platforms, and studios. Annually, the cost of imposters passing programming off as theirs can soar into the billions of dollars.
One way to sink pirates is to use video watermarking — an invisible, often unnoticeable technology that helps trace and secure the treasure of video content. Video watermarking makes illegal sharing more difficult, so your valuable media assets remain safer.
So let’s dive in.
And just for kicks, we’ll explain how Unified Streaming’s tech helps content owners use watermarking effectively. (Not to market to you, naturally, but to let you know how to get optimal security and control for your content.)
What’s video watermarking?
CONTENT OWNER 1: Our content’s been taken.
CONTENT OWNER 2: Taken? Well, as long as it’s not being used and distributed.
CONTENT OWNER 1: It is being used and distributed!
CONTENT OWNER 2: In an unauthorized way?
CONTENT OWNER 1: In a very unauthorized way!
CONTENT OWNER 2: Tell me we watermarked it. Please.
CONTENT OWNER 1: What’s ‘watermarked’ mean, again?
Watermarking in video streaming embeds unique identifiers within video files that can be detected and traced, even if the content is redistributed, recorded, or reformed. Unlike traditional visual watermarks (like logos), streaming watermarks stay hidden from viewers, but contain valuable tracking info.
These watermarks can track the source of pirated copies, as each watermark is unique to an individual viewer or account.
Watermarking can be done in one of two main ways.
Visible watermarking
Visible watermarks like logos or text are super-obvious to viewers, so they often deter casual recording. Far more common for pre-release content such as screeners for review, visible watermarking does not really suit brand-name streaming services, because they prefer unobtrusive watermarks. See #2.Forensic (invisible) watermarking
This method embeds a unique, invisible identifier within the video data. The overwhelming choice of high-end streaming services, forensic watermarking doesn’t interfere with the viewing experience, but still provides effective tracking if someone tries to pull a fast one and attempt unauthorized distribution.
A brief (thank God) history of watermarking
Watermarking’s been around.
If you lived in thirteenth-century Italy, maybe you would have noticed papermakers using watermarks to authenticate a paper’s origin. Watermarks back then were simple physical marks, crosses with circles.
Dear old thirteenth-century Italian papermakers. When it came to paper, they didn’t play!
In the 1990s digital watermarking hit the scene, protecting rights to audio, video, and image content. Good thing, too, cause the Spice Girls were hitmakers and didn’t deserve to be ripped off, no, not by anyone.
As the digital media industry grew in the early 2000s, forensic watermarking took off. Content owners and studios sought out the method to squash piracy and ID sources of leaked or shared content.
Streaming services began to assert their dominance in the 2010s, as you know. To prevent unwanted access and distribution of digital content, companies adopted invisible forensic watermarking.
Today, watermarking’s a crucial part of streaming security, especially for premium content like movies, sports events, and exclusive TV series. More and more, streaming platforms, studios, and sports broadcasters select forensic watermarking so they can secure content, detect leaks, and pursue piracy, armed to the teeth with evidence.
How’s watermarking work in streaming?
Typically, invisible watermarks are added at the server level and encoded into the content as it’s delivered. They may vary from session to session, making it possible for streaming companies prosecuting instances of piracy to get granular, or pinpoint unauthorized copies all the way down to the level of the individual account.
Watermarks can be inserted either:
🏁 at the source, creating a unique identifier for each copy distributed; or
🏁 at playback, dynamically, so that each time content is viewed, a unique watermark is inserted.
The dynamic approach works for streaming, where content can be watermarked on-the-fly to create unique identifiers without messing with the original file.
Unified Streaming and watermarking: what fine, flexible facilitation
Unified Streaming facilitates the use of advanced watermarking solutions that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows, enabling dynamic, forensic watermarking for both VOD and live streaming.
Unified Streaming’s tech is designed to support content owners in protecting valuable assets across platforms, while allowing flexibility in how watermarking is applied.
Here’s how Unified Streaming’s watermarking support works. In a nutshell, anyway.
1. Dynamic watermarking with Unified Origin
Unified Streaming’s Unified Origin pairs well with dynamic watermarking solutions, meaning each stream generated from the server is uniquely watermarked at the point of playback.
This approach is highly efficient for large-scale streaming cases, since embedding watermarks in each individual copy would be terribly time-consuming and resource-intensive. This method allows real-time, session-specific watermarking for individual viewers without modding the original content file.
2. Integration with DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems
Unified Streaming’s facilitation of watermarking is compatible with major content security providers, allowing integration with Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems and forensic watermarking technologies.
This ensures that watermarking works in tandem with DRM to create a comprehensive security layer, securing content both at the level of access control (with DRM) and traceability (with watermarking).
3. Adaptability for wildly different streaming scenarios
Unified Streaming facilitates watermarking for both VOD and live streaming, allowing content providers to secure movies, TV shows, real-time sports, news events, etcetera.
For VOD, Unified Streaming’s tools can insert unique watermarks into each viewer’s session.
For live, dynamic watermarking guarantees that each live stream is marked with session-specific information, which can be traced back if need be. (So, if recordings are distro’d illegally.)
4. Compatibility with common streaming protocols
Unified Streaming’s integration with watermarking technology supports DASH, HLS, and other widely-used streaming protocols, making it easy to add watermarking within existing streaming workflows. This compatibility ensures that streaming services can implement watermarking without overhauling their infrastructure. This sympatico relationship keeps implementation costs low and security high.
Why watermarking counts in today’s streaming climate
Look, streaming platforms continue to grow. High-profile releases go straight to streaming. It happens all the time. Since we’re arcing toward, not away from, a digital-first world, then the need for secure, efficient, and non-intrusive watermarking technology trends upward, too.
(That said, if this were 40 years ago, the problem of piracy wouldn’t be solved by forensic watermarking tech. It would be solved by a teen. That teen would be tasked with stopping that one guy from sneaking into the cinema with a camcorder and a square of black duct tape he’d use to cover the blinking red ‘record’ button.)
For studios and other content owners, watermarking provides a comfy sense of assurance that valuable assets are protected.
For streaming platforms, watermarking helps to maintain trust with content owners, who are increasingly selective about which security measures the platforms put in place. Of course, stream security isn’t limited to watermarking, but watermarking does act as a crucial coating that repels maliciousness. (Watch this Unified blog space to read about more solutions that’ll make your streams impervious to prying.)
Very non-pirated conclusion
With Unified Streaming’s strong, adaptable, and efficient facilitation of watermarking solutions, content owners and streaming platforms can implement forensic watermarking easily within their workflows, ensuring that every viewer receives a unique, traceable stream without skimping on quality or user experience.
Unified Streaming’s dynamic watermarking support suits both VOD and live streaming. Oh yeah — and it also integrates seamlessly with major security providers, offering content providers a powerful tool to fight piracy.
So, content providers, next time your content’s been taken, relax. If you’ve watermarked it, it should be a cinch to catch the culprits. Wanna talk? Email us.