When Brian Baker, CEO of Widevine Technologies, showed media company executives how fast a person can take a video clip, strip out the commercials, and put it back online, they knew they needed the technology the company offers for online video copyright protection.
The response of the network executive? “Wow, we need protection now!” Baker said. “Major television operators are seeing their offerings re-posted on the Internet, often times with the advertising stripped out.”
Right at the time when major media companies are putting their offerings up online, new technology has emerged which they fear will undermine their efforts, thus the opportunity for Widevine.
The ability for people to use online video recorders to download any video content from the Internet is increasing, with major companies about to release simple tools that make it even easier to do.
VeohTV has just revealed its new digital video recorder for use on the Internet which enables users to find content anywhere on the Web and store it. This may be challenged in court, because the content will be shown next to ads sold by Veoh on its network.
RealNetworks is introducing a new media player this week in beta. It allows one-click recording of video streams. While it does have some protections in place, it doesn't stop all recording of copyrighted material.
Adobe Systems may be the smarter of the three in that they're working with media companies so they can have control of how to serve their ads and track the video usage. They also add the ability to download video for offline viewing.
Adobe is probably the smartest of the three here in that they are working with the major companies from the start. If I was these other companies, I would have waited until the lawsuits with Google's YouTube were decided before I rolled it out indiscriminately across the Internet. It's a big chance to take if they're ruled against.
As far as the Widevine technology goes, it encrypts the digital content of the company's algorithm which will then identify if a user is recording content from the portal. When it is identified, the streaming video will then stop. The major advantage of this is it will ensure that a commercial cannot be interfered or tampered with.
James McQuivey, a Forrester Research analyst thinks media companies don't understand the importance of online digital video recorders, and should embrace, rather than fight it.
“Ad-supported video is the way that the Internet video world is going to explode. The question is how far will you let your content go in order to increase your advertising revenue,” said McQuivey.
I do think that McQuivey is right overall in his assessment, although I would say that it is a legitimate concern on where your content may end up. There are consequences on it being put up next to content that the brand may not want to be indentified with. Not just the video content, but the embedded ad content as well.
If Widevine technology works like it says, it could be a major step toward easing the concerns of at least one major problem facing the major media companies.
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