iWorld
OTTs gear up for battle against content pirates
KOLKATA: With the tectonic shift in technology, piracy has found new ways to expand its reach and impact. And given the ongoing lean period in TV and movie releases, pirates are charting new waters for prey. Streaming platforms, which are investing heavily in premium content, offer easy pickings. While stringent regulation is the need of the hour, major over-the-top (OTT) platforms are devising comprehensive techniques to check this threat.
One of the leading OTT services in India, SonyLIV, is now moving away from basic solutions to a 360 degree approach. SonyLIV technology head Manish Verma said in a webinar hosted by indiantelevision.com that the platform is now looking at advanced measures like watermarking, fingerprinting and code protection to safeguard its content. It is now in the process of evaluating how they can utilise some of these tools to reduce piracy.
Presently, DRM is the preferred mode of encryption for the platform. But Verma admits that DRM has certain loopholes as well, especially when it comes to screen mirroring. Hence, the platform is in talks with vendors and partners to find out other ways to counter piracy. As part of its enhanced security measures, SonyLIV recently started a two-way authentication with username and one time passwords, instead of the traditional login with password system.
According to ZEE5 India technology head Tushar Vohra, creating a barrier is very important, as is instilling the fear of getting caught among pirates. To this end, tracing the source of a breach can be helpful. For example, ZEE5 will launch a forensic watermarking for its web player this month itself and later across all devices. This step will enable the platform to track the source of pirated content. Hence, Vohra is hopeful that there would be a decline in piracy rate within six months.
Echoing Vohra’s bent of mind, Verma said: “We need to put deterrence in terms of making it difficult to pirate the content, degrading the experience for pirated content. When a consumer is not getting that experience of premium content on illegal sites, they will come back to our platform.”
Both tech experts concurred that there is no particular trend of piracy in the Indian market. But Vohra mentioned an interesting fact: premium Indian content is being pirated more outside the country. Some contradictions do exist. While ZEE5 saw an increase in piracy during the lockdown, SonyLIV’s Verma said that the tendency to pay for premium content went up during the same period.
“We have put in machine learning through which we can detect multiple users logging in or consumer consuming content for a longer duration of time. We can do a token revocation; we can go from the back end and revoke the token if we see some sort of abnormality in the behaviour. I think we are making it difficult to pirate the content,” Verma added.
The panellists agreed that rationalising cost structure for security will lead to higher adoption of technology solutions. ZEE5, which is already investing five-seven per cent for data and application security, has now developed a full-fledged security team, due to join in December.
iWorld
X launches XChat messaging app on iOS with calls and encryption
Standalone app marks shift from “everything app” vision, adds E2E messaging.
MUMBAI: From one big app to many small chats, X seems to be splitting its ambitions. X has rolled out its standalone messaging app, XChat, to iOS users, opening up a new front in its evolving product strategy. The app allows users to connect with existing X contacts through private and group messages, file sharing, as well as audio and video calls. The launch follows a limited beta phase, where the platform tested the product with a smaller user base to refine the experience. Now available publicly, XChat marks a notable pivot from earlier ambitions championed by Elon Musk to turn X into a single “everything app” combining messaging, payments, commerce and more.
Instead, the company under xAI ownership and backed by SpaceX appears to be building a suite of standalone applications, each targeting specific use cases while expanding its broader ecosystem.
At launch, XChat includes end-to-end encrypted messaging, PIN-based access, disappearing messages, and features such as message editing, deletion for all participants, and screenshot blocking. The company has also said the app is free from advertisements and tracking mechanisms, positioning it as a privacy-first alternative in a crowded messaging space.
However, security claims around the platform are likely to face scrutiny. Earlier iterations of XChat drew criticism from experts who argued it fell short of established encrypted platforms like Signal. With the wider rollout, the app is expected to undergo fresh evaluation to assess whether those concerns have been addressed.
Beyond messaging, XChat will also house X’s Communities feature, which is being discontinued on the main platform due to low usage and spam concerns. Migrating these users could provide an early boost to adoption, effectively turning XChat into both a communication and community hub.
The move underscores a broader recalibration at X less about cramming everything into one app, and more about spreading bets across multiple touchpoints, one message at a time.
