Learning Center

The many streaming video security technologies available can make it difficult to determine the right approach for your organization. The answer depends on your online video strategy and the types of content you publish.

• Some videos, like those intended to support marketing, ecommerce, or issue advocacy, should be easily accessible to viewers across networks, geographies, and platforms.
• Premium content often needs to be restricted to fully paid subscribers according to specific entitlements.
• Training, partner communications, investor relations, and other videos intended for a more narrowly defined audience need to be protected from unauthorized access or sharing.

You may also need to take into account the security implications of important new channels like mobile apps, mobile Web, connected TV, and over-the-top devices.

As a starting point to develop the security model for your online video, it helps to understand the options available and the types of control and protection they provide.

The Security Spectrum: From Unlimited Access to Strict, Policy-driven Control
The security spectrum begins with the most open, unrestricted option for your content: unlimited access. This is the default setting for Brightcove Video Cloud, and makes your online videos available to the largest audience possible without restricting viewers' ability to copy, re-share, or alter your content.

Watermarking, or applying an identifying mark to your video, ensures that your video remains associated with your brand wherever and however it is viewed. While watermarking in itself does not restrict the distribution or usage of your video, some third-party solutions can help you trace the usage of your video to discover unauthorized copies and their path.

As you seek to increase control and protection of your content, the first set of technologies to consider allows you to determine where and by whom your content is being viewed:

• Geo restriction lets you limit viewing of your content to one or more geographic territories, helping you comply with licensing agreements and protect your intellectual property.
• Domain restriction limits viewership to specific network locations. This enables you to keep in-house communications from being accessed beyond your intranet, control the context where marketing content appears, and keep paid or exclusive content from being shared beyond your company's own site.
• IP restriction provides an even higher level of control, limiting your player to specific offices or networks within your organization.
• Protected pages allow individualized access control over your content by placing password protection or other authorization techniques on the web page that presents your player.

Many types of content, especially sensitive internal communications or paid content, need to be protected against theft or inappropriate viewing.

• RTMPE adds encryption to the RTMP protocol to protect your video as it travels to its destination, ensuring secure video streaming by preventing streams from being captured, redirected, or republished.
• SWF verification limits playback of your content to pre-approved players and prevents it from streaming to unknown or unwanted players where it might be stolen or otherwise compromised.
• TTL tokens let you set an expiration date for your content to prevent users from viewing outdated content or videos that are intended for viewing only during a specific window of time.
• HLS encryption enables media companies and other premium content providers to deliver long-form video securely to iOS devices such as the iPhone®, iPad®, and iPod Touch®.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) and user authentication technologies provide the highest level of security for your content and let you control how consumers engage with it.

• Anonymous DRM, supported by Adobe® Flash® Access™, secures content at its origin and allows you to enforce viewing and distribution policies wherever and however it is accessed. This helps protect non-public content from unauthorized viewing and can also support subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) models.
• Advanced DRM, also supported by Adobe Flash Access, support more sophisticated content protection and video monetization models across platforms based on the individual authentication of each viewer.
• User authentication, supported by Adobe® Pass, enables you to recognize customers no matter what device they use to access your content, and apply the terms of your pay relationship consistently across channels. This is a key enabling technology for "TV Everywhere" business models.

Security across channels
As people stream online video across more and more devices, from tablets and smartphones to the TV in their living room, you need to be able to meet the expectation for any-screen viewing without compromising security and control.

• Mobile video can be delivered through either mobile websites or mobile apps. Content delivered to browsers on iOS-based devices can be secured though HLS encryption, as described above. Mobile Web platforms that support Adobe Flash, as well as mobile apps that support Flash or Adobe® Air®, can best be secured through Flash Access DRM.
• Living room experiences, whether delivered via connected TV (CTV) or an over the top (OTT) device such as Roku or Xbox360, can also be built as either native apps or browser-based portals, and can be secured in a manner similar to mobile websites and apps.

To learn more about online video security, and to understand how to identify and implement the right measures for your organization, we encourage you to download our free, in-depth white paper on Online Video Security 101. We'll keep adding new security resources to the Learning Center, so check this page frequently to keep your security model up-to-date with the latest technologies and solutions.