NAGRA April 20 announced it’s NexGuard streaming forensic watermarking solution has been integrated with the Akamai Intelligent Edge Platform, adding another level of protection for live and VOD OTT content.
The partnership gives NAGRA the increased ability to take down pirated streams illicitly sourced via forensically watermarked OTT services, and increases the traceability of premium assets.
Jean-Philippe Plantevin, VP of anti-piracy for NAGRA, said the partnership is especially important during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with more piracy occurring due to stay-at-home orders throughout much of the world.
“Partnering with Akamai Technologies was a natural evolution to our anti-piracy activities given the global reach and volume of high value content being distributed through their network,” he said. “The unique combination of our NexGuard streaming forensic watermarking technology with Akamai’s access revocation ensures rights holders and content owners have a robust and scalable solution to guard against commercial piracy of their high value live and VOD content and enables us to increase the volume of takedowns of pirated OTT streams.
“This is particularly important in today’s unprecedented times as content owners shift their distribution strategies opting for early release of their content via streaming.”
NexGuard Streaming allows content owners and pay TV operators to identify the source of a content leak in just minutes, with targeted anti-piracy actions to put an end to illicit content restreaming almost immediately, by embedding a session-specific forensic watermark for both premium OTT VOD and OTT live channels, including sports. The offering works with any OTT streaming device and client application, removing the need for any device-side integration.
“The addition of NAGRA to our ecosystem will give Akamai customers more options to tackle the rebroadcasting of stolen streams and reinforces our new access revocation capabilities,” said Amit Kasturia, senior manager of media product management for Akamai. “NAGRA has been a committed partner in identifying new ways in which we can work together to be more effective in the fight against piracy. We were impressed with the way they embraced our API approach and helped accelerate the initial launch of these capabilities.”