The development of video-streaming services around the world has prompted the deployment of digital rights management (DRM) technology, which enables these companies to better manage user rights, combat piracy, and maintain control over file resolution. The majority of media platforms have moved away from utilising the one-time encryption strategy since it is vulnerable to hacking and has the potential to quickly leak premium content to the market for piracy. In order for users to be able to decode the video clip, they need to input encryption keys independently. This makes it very difficult to utilise. The users, who have paid a substantial sum to gain access to the content, have their watching experience degraded as a result of this process.
Even though the DRM technology may, in theory, alleviate these issues, it actually creates numerous new problems for OTT platforms to deal with. For instance, it is difficult for them to predict the kind of gadget the end user would use to access their information. It is dependent on factors such as regional shifts, the cost of mobile devices, the percentage of the market share held by mobile application developers, and so on. The mobile phone operating systems that have the most market share are iOS and Android, whereas Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge are the browsers that have the most market share. The desktop space is dominated by distributions of Windows, macOS, and Linux. The abundance of options gives the consumer the ability to pick how they want to see premium streaming content, but it is up to OTT players to deal with the problem of content leakage despite the fact that all of these factors are possible leakage points. The fact that the companies that are responsible for these variables – Google, Apple, and Microsoft – each have their own DRM offerings, known respectively as Widevine, FairPlay, and PlayReady, makes the situation more complicated. Over-the-top (OTT) players need to be able to accommodate these offerings in order to develop a complete product.
These problems can be solved without the end user recognising the regularly shifting steps of a complex workflow or having to make any intervention, such as entering the encryption key or switching browsers, when using a multi DRM service solution. This is because the solution is seamless. In order to prevent content leakage and effectively administer user rights, video-streaming platforms should only implement a multi-DRM strategy and the highest level of protection that is practically feasible. It includes engaging in the following practices:
- You can pay for the services you use as you go if you subscribe to an optimum plan given by a provider of multiple DRM systems. The price of a flexible plan is connected to the number of users, thus selecting this type of plan benefits both smaller producers and major studios. Therefore, the manufacturer only has to pay more money when there is an increase in the number of people using their product.
- Utilize the multi-DRM online interface to upload the video file so that it can be encoded, and then generate the output in DASH and HLS so that it is compatible with a variety of devices.
- Choose a security suite that not only protects video playbacks from screen capturing but also controls multiple digital rights management systems (DRMs) supplied by the main three. The addition of forensic watermarks to video files provides an additional degree of security for the recordings.
- You should choose a service that encrypts your files using AES-128 or a greater degree of cryptography.
- Make use of a multi-DRM SaaS that connects DRM licences to the particular device keys.
A strong multi-DRM suite should have the ability to do all of these things and more, in addition to providing security features inside a single workflow.