OSN, the region’s leading pay-TV network, eliminated over 60 per cent of the illegal links of the top matches at the recent 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup as part of its anti-piracy efforts.

It also interrupted illegal viewing for over 50 per cent of the audience who were accessing pirated content.

OSN worked with Viaccess-Orca, a global leader in the protection and enhancement of content services, for a ‘proof-of-concept’ project to combat the real-time distribution and viewing of illegal content, using its Eye on Piracy solution.

“OSN is at the forefront in fighting the menace of TV piracy, which stifles the growth of the industry. As the region’s definitive ‘home of cricket,’ we have invested significantly in ensuring high quality transmission of the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup live to our subscribers,” said Mark Billinge, Chief technology officer at OSN.

“Being one of the most sought-after live events, the tournament was highly targeted by unauthorised content distributors. Addressing it was imperative to ensure that the best interests of our subscribers were not compromised and also to dissuade any act of TV piracy that is a blatant violation of intellectual property rights.

“Collaborating with Viaccess-Orca, we successfully monitored and took down a significant number of illegal streams during the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup to protect OSN’s content rights,” he added.

Viaccess-Orca’s Eye on Piracy solution enabled OSN to adapt its content protection techniques to dedicated sport events in order to achieve optimum results. For example, during this year’s ICC Cricket World Cup, OSN could monitor specialised web sites, forums, blogs, social network posts, and more, surrounding the event, said Billinge.

Designed to complement security measures enabled by CA and DRM systems, Viaccess-Orca’s Eye on Piracy actively monitors live video re-streaming over the Internet in a series of stages. First, the anti-piracy solution monitors where piracy occurs, the amount of piracy that is taking place, and who is actually watching the illegal broadcasts. Then it sends legal notices to pirates to cease and desist in addition to using technical methods to prevent pirates from rebroadcasting premium content.

Eye on Piracy also enables the gathering of legal evidence about the pirated activity. This evidence can be submitted to local law enforcement or government agencies to close pirate operations.

“Piracy is not a new phenomenon, but it is evolving by taking advantage of over-the-top technologies and infrastructures to illegally distribute content. As people consume premium content on more devices and the value of content grows, content owners and service providers need an intelligent and flexible strategy for protecting live content,” said David Leporini, EVP Marketing Products and Security, at Viaccess-Orca.

“During this project, we demonstrated the effectiveness of Eye on Piracy as a tool for providing smart discovery of pirated content and removal of illegal content streams, giving OSN a viable method for preserving their revenue for live sporting events.” – TradeArabia News Service