(19 April 2008 12:00 pm)

MUMBAI: In order to protect valuable audience reach and revenue, content owners need to distribute premium content through legitimate channels within a window of 12-18 hours.

This was part of the suggestion given by a study conducted by Akamai Technologies and Vobile.

The results showed how quickly broadcast content is pirated online. According to the study, illegal versions of a popular US-based primetime television show were available online within minutes of being broadcast, leading to thousands of unauthorized downloads.

Content owners can do two things to mitigate this risk: syndicate and post content directly to their site, as well as pre-arranged partner sites; and take security measures by fingerprinting and registering their content with companies like Vobile to prevent the broad propagation of their copyrighted content across the Internet.

Vobile provides video content identification and management services. Akamai Technologies, on the other hand, works in the area of powering rich media, transactions and enterprise applications online.

The goal of the study was to determine how quickly a piece of premium content can propagate through illegitimate distribution channels, thus impacting its revenue potential. Vobile used its fingerprinting technology, called VideoDNATM, to identify and track the episode.

The results show:

* Unauthorised consumption of a popular TV show is relatively low in the first 12 hours, but shortly after that a major consumption spike occurs.
* Consumption begins the morning following broadcast airtime and gets progressively larger throughout the day.
* In the first several hours, thousands of views take place
* By lunchtime the following day, the number has increased five per cent
* By the third day, the number is in the hundreds of thousands
* In 72 hours, unauthorised consumption can erode nearly 20 per cent of the online audience for an average primetime TV show
* When translated into hours of programming lost for a typical primetime show distributed online, this can represent tens of thousands of dollars of lost ad revenue - just for a single episode.

Akamai says that content owners that act quickly to syndicate assets through legitimate channels will have a better chance of mitigating the negative effects of piracy by directing audiences to their approved content distribution channels – protecting valuable revenue, audience and premium content rights.

In order to be successful, content owners must leverage as many distribution channels as possible in order to direct consumers to legitimate content - with the right rules and policies attached.

Vobile notes that for media companies, audience control and channeling users to valuable premium content assets are paramount. Speed of distribution matters to preserve revenue and audience.

Standing between revenue-generating content and online audiences is a complex set of technical and business tasks – everything from capturing, transcoding and distributing video, to managing associated metadata to setting policies and ensuring compliance with geographic restrictions. Hitting the instantaneous online distribution window successfully requires a streamlined, automated media distribution workflow that includes a system for managing business rules and policies.

With its Stream OS media management suite, Akamai says that it provides a quick, automated way to upload content. Content owners can meet the necessary time window and reduce the likelihood of content being pirated across illegal channels. The solution allows content owners to easily add assets, apply business rules, and publish content in a controlled way across traditional syndication models and viral distribution across the Internet.

Vobile’s VideoDNA content identification technology, which analyzes video and audio content frame-by-frame, can help solve the issue of unauthorised consumption. VideoDNA quickly and effectively identifies infringing content, and therefore can remove it before the content propagates through illegitimate distribution channels. This time-efficient and effective process alleviates uncertainty and encourages audiences to turn to legitimate content, preserving revenue streams for content owners.