Synamedia: ‘Content everywhere = piracy everywhere’
June 4, 2019
Colin Mann @ ANGA COM
Jean-Marc Racine, Chief Product Officer and General Manager of EMEAR at Synamedia, has warned that the current industry preoccupation with ensuring that content is available to consumers on the device of their choice, at the time of their choice, attracts significant piracy risks.
Participating in the International Content Summit at ANGA COM in Cologne, Racine said that with content everywhere, “which we all agree is going to happen,” then he believed the next step would be ‘piracy everywhere’.
“We talk about consumers having difficulty finding content; I can tell you that pirates have no difficulty in finding content. OTT, as it attracts premium content, will attract premium pirates. It is a very tough battle to fight,” he suggested.
“The pay-TV [industry] in the early 90s almost disappeared out of piracy and a lot of money was spent was spent to secure pay-TV, which has now reached maturity from that point of view. I believe OTT has a massive challenge ahead of it, which is to secure content,” he declared.
According to Racine, that is “very true” for live sports streaming. “If the content provider wants to keep being paid, they are going to have to spend the money to make sure that it remains secure. I think that is the next big thing the industry is going to have to look at,” he concluded.