Feature: Global distribution of premium content - September 2005  

The internet opens up a world of new opportunities for distributing premium content of high value and global importance, writes Ciaran Quinn, vice president and GM Europe for Entriq, a technology company that secures high value audio and video content for delivery over the internet and mobile telephones. Yet the internet’s wide-open nature also creates problems regarding end user quality assurance, media copyright protection, theft protection and the geographical control required for rights management. These problems, which were insurmountable a year or two ago have been largely solved today. This article describes the challenges faced by media owners and rights holders in making full use of the internet for content distribution. This is especially relevant for owners of sports, music and television content.

Global and local holders of rights of premium content now have the potential to reach more people, inspire more lives and have their content enjoyed in more ways than ever, as people now have the opportunity to fully leverage the global communications capabilities of the internet.
Already the internet has dramatically improved access to sporting events news and information. People all over the world depend on the web to check World Cup results, follow Tour de France races and find out if their favorite Olympic athlete medaled. Many websites also provide a glimpse at the event itself in the form of video clips.
The logical next step of using the internet as a full-fledged distribution channel for premium media has yet to be taken advantage of fully. To date, such initiatives have been blocked by serious technological and policy management obstacles. These obstacles have now been overcome.
One of the most important issues is to controlling the geographic availability of videos as they are distributed over the internet. This is especially important because the internet is inherently a border-free structure. A sports league may have sold TV rights in a certain country, and so want to block or delay the games being viewed over the internet in those countries, but allow them to be seen live in other territories. Ensuring that geographic control is properly implemented for internet distribution is an absolute requirement for many rights holders.
Another problem facing rights holders is the problem of having different sets of rights for different territories or distributors. In the traditional TV world one would enforce these rights contractually. But with the internet, it is important that the rights are also enforced technically, without the rights holder having to personally monitor every single bit of video that is distributed over the internet.

The people factor

At the heart of all of this is the ability to meet consumers’ desires to watch content when they want and where they want. The people who tune into a TV broadcast at a scheduled time represent only a portion of the potential market. An increasing number of viewers today want control over their viewing experiences and the convenience of watching programming of interest at a time and using the method of their choosing. In addition, consumers have a wide range of particular interests, which means there is substantial potential for niche marketing archived content. Rights holders would like to expand their audience as long as such expansion does not damaging existing business relationships, especially those who distribute to TV markets, given the level of fees paid by TV broadcasters for certain rights, especially for movies and sports.
Assuming that one can technical control the issues mentioned above, a rights holder will then need to manage the complexities of multiple distribution channels that these new technologies enable. The job of orchestrating media distribution licenses and policies becomes geometrically more complex when the internet  (and wireless telephony networks) are added to existing broadcast, cable, satellite and retail channels.
All of these challenges can be addressed today by current technologies and available services. Media owners and rights holders no longer need to wait for the means to securely and efficiently distribute their content over the internet. The means are available now.
Media owners can reach broader audiences - and serve a broader range of audience requirements and preferences - than at any other time in history. The value of media properties will increase accordingly. A wide range of supplementary content, which might otherwise not be feasible to develop and market, also becomes financially interesting. The winners ultimately will not only be the creators and rights holders, but consumers.

About Entriq
Entriq is part of MIH/Naspers, a media and technology group that has interests in pay-TV, security technology, internet and press. Entriq recently ensured that the Athens Olympic competition videos could be viewed over the internet throughout Europe and the US by customers of the respective broadcast rights holders, without infringing on the rights of broadcasters from outside of the relevant territories. Through Entriq, sports properties such as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) give their fans access to pay-per-view events online. WWE makes use of key security policies offered by Entriq such as geographic restrictions, media usage timing policies, as well very flexible business models including recently launched subscription services. This provides WWE the assurance they need that their media will be completely safe and profitable for online distribution.

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