LAS VEGAS — Before social media, about the worst way you could spoil a movie for other people was by revealing the ending while walking out of a theater, with others waiting in line to see it.
In an era of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the tiniest reveal has worldwide repercussions.
“Think about the impact of [spoilers] in on our social network world, from a few people in line to a global audience,” said Scott Rose, CTO of SDI Media, speaking April 24 during a Cybersecurity Pavilion presentation at the NAB Show. “People want to share their lives, what they’re working on, and the moment it’s out there, it’s too late, it’s in the universe.”
While content security has long focused on preventing leaks of the content itself, too often productions fail to account for the social media threat: people working on a movie or TV show are human beings like anyone else, and humans sure love to share their lives on social media. The smallest slip — a shot of a screenplay on Instagram, mentioning an unrevealed actor or character on Twitter, sharing a surprise film release on Facebook — can have a massive impact on the investment in marketing and distribution.
“We’re trying to moderate these behaviors,” said Sara Cardone, chief strategy officer for SDI Media. “The risk presented by spoilers isn’t confined to the production facility either. It’s not limited by four walls or firewalls. How do we control that behavior, when not sharing feels unnatural?”
Rose and Cardone shared numerous ideas, including setting strict guidelines for everyone involved in a production, limiting who knows what regarding the production, and balancing fan access to the latest regarding the content they love, while still keeping the surprises intact from those who are overzealous.
Meanwhile, on April 25, Wendy Frank, global and U.S. copyright infringement leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) shared her thoughts on the sticky mess that is finding out who all is responsible after a copyright violation has occurred.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is vague regarding the notification and action responsibilities required on the part of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Online Service Providers (OSPs), who’ve long enjoyed protection from liability for any illegal activity by their subscribers. That may change soon, Frank said, depending on moves made by the federal government.
“It’s a pain for ISPs, and it’s incredibly difficult for content owners,” she said. She pointed to examples where set-top boxes not properly safeguarded against piracy have led to the service provider being culpable in the theft of content by subscribers. And with as much as 42% of pirated content going unnoticed by content owners, it’s the service providers who need a plan of action to better tackle the problem, she suggested.
“Just because you send a notice out, you still need to make sure that infringing content comes down off the [web] site,” she said.
The CDSA Cyber Security and Content Protection Pavilion program (C3830CS at the Las Vegas Convention Center) represented the NAB Show’s first dedicated cybersecurity forum.
Look for more coverage of the CDSA’s NAB Cyber Security and Content Protection Pavilion program at MESAlliance.org.
Here’s a preview of what to expect during Wednesday’s program:
10:30–11 a.m. “Enhanced End-to-End Content Security with Forensic Watermarking” Rajan Samtani, senior advisor for the Digital Watermarking Alliance, will look at the various forensic watermarking solutions available to help companies monitor and detect the sources of piracy today.
11:05–11:25 a.m. “Evolving the Digital Supply Chain from Monolithic to Micro Services” The shift to digital resulted in hastily installed (and unwieldy) applications being string together to help companies manage their supply chains. Steven Sabonjohn, senior manager of OnPrem Solution Partners, will share how independent, autonomous, modular, self-contained applications (i.e. micro services) can be utilized to revolutionize today’s digital supply chain.
11:30–11:50 a.m. “Cognitive Cyber Defense: Machine Learning & Applied AI to Uncover Unknown Threats” Murali Rao, global head of cybersecurity and risk consulting for Wipro, offers up his thoughts on how a cohesive, cognitive cyber defense framework allows enterprises to maximize investments in cyber threat mitigation, and can lead to sustainable cyber defense.
11:55 a.m.–12:15 p.m. “Securing Critical Content in the AWS Cloud” Usman Shakeel, principal technologist-of media and entertainment for Amazon Web Services, will answer the most frequently asked questions and concerns around securely storing, processing, distributing, and archiving digital media assets in the AWS cloud environment.
1:30–1:50 p.m. “Identify, Govern and Protect Data (Including Personal Customer Data)” Gavin Day, VP of data management for SAS, will share ideas for overcoming organizational challenges to data security and data management, and how companies can build a solid data governance foundation. Getting started toward securing an organization’s data, including personal customer data and building a process to comply with PII and GDPR regulations, will also be on the agenda.
1:55–2:25 p.m. “Global Digital Production: It’s All About Cyber and Even More” Lulu Zezza, production executive and founder of 3 Zebra Solutions, shares how media and entertainment companies need to evolve beyond email when it comes to handling communication for production and post production.
2:30–3 p.m. “Security as a Business Enabler: Encourage Speed and Innovation While Maintaining Security in the Cloud” Christine Thomas, senior director of worldwide technical operations and strategic initiatives for Dolby, Ted Middleton, chief product officer for Verizon Digital Media Services, and Matthew Trentler, senior manager of information security for Dolby, will tackle the aspects of security as a business-enabler.
3:05-3:25 p.m. “The Importance of Audits within the M&E Industry” With CDSA set to release its annual revision of the Content Protection Security (CPS) Standard, moves are in place among its board of directors to establish a set of “common controls,” with the goal that vendor suppliers will face a more consistent and streamlined audit assessment process that will be cost effective and cut the time involved. Chris Johnson, global director of anti-piracy and compliance programs for CDSA, will discuss.
3:30–3:55 p.m. “EIDR Content Identifiers Use in Security Solutions” Don Dulchinos, executive director of the Entertainment ID Registry (EIDR), Sefy Ariely, EVP of Americas for Viaccess-Orca, and Mike Witte, EVP of business development and sales for Vobile, will look at the use of EIDR IDs as a component of security and anti-piracy solutions.