philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Content Protection for 4k Video

[Spencer] Stephens’s wish list included such elements as:

• Title-by-title diversity, so that  a technique used to hack one movie title doesn’t necessarily apply to another
• Requiring players to authenticate themselves online before playback, which enables hacked players to be denied but makes it impossible to play 4k content without an Internet connection
• The use of HDCP 2.2 to protect digital outputs, since older versions of HDCP have been hacked
• Session-based watermarking, so that each 4k file is marked with the identity of the device or user that downloaded it (a technique used today with early-window HD content)
• The use of trusted execution environments (TEE) for playback, which combine the security of hardware with the renewability of software

...Stephens’s remarks were a bit of fresh air.  They are an invitation to more open dialog among vendors, studios, and service providers about the types of content protection that they may be willing to implement when it comes time to distribute 4k content to consumers.

In the past, such discussions often happened behind closed doors, took the form of unilateral “unfunded mandates,” and/or resulted in implementations that plainly did not work.  As technology gets more sophisticated and the world gets more complex, Hollywood is going to have to work more closely with downstream entities in the content distribution chain if it wants its content protected.  Spencer Stephens’s presentation was a good start in that direction.

See the full story here: http://copyrightandtechnology.com/2013/07/02/content-protection-for-4k-video/