Video watermarking – A key anti-piracy tool for live sports content

All online video watermarking services originate from legitimate sources let alone rights holders. The rapid growth and value of live streaming services has attracted the attention of professional pirates and multi-national crime syndicates.

Illegitimate live OTT sports services have proliferated in many regions reflecting the global demand for streaming services, which has accelerated partly as a result of the pandemic lockdowns combined with the ease of access to such content on all kinds of consumer devices.

there is a proliferation of Kodi-based STBs, in and of themselves not illegal since Kodi is a free and open-source media player application. Unfortunately, unscrupulous third-parties advertise “fully loaded” Kodi-boxes, which have been pre-loaded with software for accessing illegal streaming services.

Virtual Private Networks (VPN) is another method often used to circumvent regional broadcasting restrictions, labeled geo-location fraud, and there are even VPN providers who advertise such capability to consumers.