GeoGuard boost for MultiChoice anti-piracy
August 12, 2021
Fraud prevention and cybersecurity solutions specialist GeoComply Solutions has confirmed that MultiChoice Group, Africa’s leading entertainment company, has deployed its GeoGuard VPN and proxy detection solution to combat content piracy.
With GeoGuard integrated on its streaming platform, MultiChoice is now blocking tens of thousands of pirate viewers each month while nearly eliminating the creation of suspicious user accounts. This dramatic reduction in piracy has freed up infrastructure capacity and cut CDN costs.
GeoGuard is protecting MultiChoice’s DStv App, which streams live and catch-up content in countries across sub-Saharan Africa. MultiChoice went live with GeoGuard in February 2021 through the Amazon Marketplace, using the ‘turn on and go’ capability provided through GeoGuard’s integration with Amazon CloudFront.
“As for all OTT broadcasters, geo-piracy is a major concern, and it was a real coup when we deployed GeoGuard and quickly achieved a great return on investment,” declared Greg van Wyngaard, Senior Engineer at MultiChoice’s Connected Video division. “We have been impressed by GeoGuard – it works seamlessly in the background to safeguard our content for legitimate users, ensures territorial exclusivity and helps us comply with our content distribution obligations with rights owners. From an OTT broadcaster perspective, the cost savings and efficiency it’s providing in our streaming infrastructure is a huge bonus.”
“While many OTT operators know that pirates weigh down their infrastructure – and cost them money to boot – it is hard to calculate the full impact until the pirates are blocked,” added James Clark, Director of Global Sales, GeoComply. “With GeoGuard, MultiChoice has cut geo-piracy and account sharing dramatically and realised impressive savings on infrastructure costs. Plus, it can now support more than double the number of concurrent users for live-streamed events, resulting in a better quality of experience for its paying subscribers.”