For Harrie Tholen, managing director of Kudelski-owned content protection company NexGuard, securing content means so much more than looking after your bottom line.
“By deploying robust content protection solutions, content owners and providers are not only safeguarding future budgets, but also millions of jobs – in the US alone, there are 22 million people employed in the arts and entertainment industry,” he said. “Without the talent of these experts and the budgets allocated to turn creative ideas into tangible productions, the growth of the industry would be at risk – so content protection effectively guarantees the future health of the industry.”
On Dec. 6, Tholen and more than 30 other content protection, cybersecurity and entertainment industry experts will relay best practices, case studies and new technologies crucial to content security, at the eighth annual CDSA Content Protection Summit (CPS). More than 300 industry leaders are expected to attend.
Here’s a look at what’s on tap for the main stage of the full-day event:
• Kai Pradel, founder and CEO of MediaSilo, Guy Finley, executive director of the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) and the Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA), Martin Porter, executive director of CDSA, and CDSA chairman Ben Stanbury, will open up the CPS conference with a look at the strategic importance of CDSA and the Summit itself within the media and entertainment industry.
• Wendy Frank, principal of strategic technology for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will share findings from PwC’s Global State of Information Security Survey 2018, which reveals how entertainment and media executives are enhancing security to align with changes in technology, improving privacy measures, business processes and strategies. She’ll share how the data makes a case for business-focused security and content protection programs within companies.
• In the presentation “The New Normal of Cyber Threats: Protecting Content in the Digital Age,” Paul M. Rosen, partner with law firm Crowell & Moring, will offer up advice on how companies can not only protect their assets in today’s increasingly connected world, but also make sure copyright violators can be tracked and held accountable.
• The first keynote of the day has the top brass from Larson Studios tackling the topic “Responding to Third-Party Vendor Threats,” and sharing insights into how content owners can avoid having their most crucial assets exposed. Finley will moderate the panel with Larson’s’ CEO and president Richard Larson, chief engineer David Dondorf, SVP of finance Jill Marshall Larson, and digital systems director Chris Unthank.
• John Yeoh, research director of the Americas for the Cloud Security Alliance, will offer attendees a look at the latest ecurity techniques and methodologies in cloud, IoT, devops, and AI, o help protect those environments, in the presentation “Future Proofing Your Connected World.”
• Ted Harrington, executive partner with Independent Security Evaluators, will offer attendees a look at the ways core media workloads move to the cloud, and the underlying security implications of a multi-tenant public cloud environment, in the presentation “Cloud Workflows: Achieving Studio-Grade Security, Part I.” Harrington will lead a second presentation on the subject during a breakout session toward the end of the day.
• The panel discussion “Creative vs. Security: Getting on the Same Side of the Struggle” sees representatives from all corners of the industry looking at how to bridge the gap between those who create and produce content and those who responsible for protecting it, with the two rarely on the same page. Jeff Blair, CISO for Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Kowsik Guruswamy, CTO for Menlo Security, Janice Pearson, director of content protection strategy and operations for Warner Bros. Entertainment, and NexGuard’s Tholen will be on hand, with Lulu Zezza, founder of One-Simple and CDSA treasurer, will moderate.
• David Würgler, senior director of anti-piracy litigation for NAGRA, will share his thoughts on the growing adoption of Kodi, how it’s impacted content owners around the world, and what can be done do to mitigate the piracy threat the open-source software presents, in his presentation “Kodi Brings Pirated Content to the Big Screen – How to Overcome the Challenge.”
• The second keynote of the day — “Fighting Giants and Reimagining Our Industry’s Future” — brings Jonathan Taplin, director emeritus of the Annenberg innovation Lab at the University of Southern California, on stage to challenge content companies to rethink their legacy approaches to content distribution online.
• Elisha Lawrence, AVP and general counsel for global anti-piracy and content security at ABS-CBN International, will share a case study on how the Philippines’ largest entertainment and media conglomerate is going after content pirate regardless of where they live and how they operate, in the presentation “Across Borders: Getting the Guilty in Jail.”
• In the presentation “Community and Partnership with the FBI” Michael Sohn, supervisory special agent with the FBI, sharing how law enforcement agencies, from local to federal, are helping to protect media and entertainment companies against today’s cybersecurity threats.
• Victoria Espinel, president and CEO of BSA The Software Alliance, will deliver the keynote presentation “Charting a Collaborative Course for Software and Cybersecurity,” offering a global view of cybersecurity laws and international practices, and their impact on government policy.
• In the presentation “The Hidden Enemy: Building Awareness for Unseen Vulnerabilities,” Spencer Stephens, a production and media technology expert, will highlight some of the more obscure ways you may already unknowingly be compromised.
• The final mainstage panel of the day sees Bob Gold, principal with Bob Gold & Associates, moderating a discussion on the state of digital screeners today, with writers Randee Dawn Kestenbaum and Rob Owen joined by Jared Vincenti, product manager for MediaSilo and Screeners.com. They’ll tackle the challenges that exist when it comes to offering pre-release content to critics securely, but without technology hiccups.
The Content Protection Summit is produced by MESA and CDSA, presented by MediaSilo, and sponsored by Independent Security Evaluators, Aspera, the Digital Watermarking Alliance, Menlo Security, Microsoft Azure, NAGRA, NexGuard, Convergent Risks, HGST, PwC, Thinklogical, Avid, Militus Cybersecurity Solutions, Amazon Web Services and Bob Gold & Associates.
To register, or for more information, click here.