BT and ATEME Move to Tackle Streamed TV Broadcasting Piracy

Communications provider and UK ISP BT, which through their TV division have established a sizeable broadcasting business, has today moved to tackle the rising piracy of premium content transmitted via satellite by harnessing technology from video infrastructure company ATEME.

At this point you might well be wondering why BT are talking about Satellite links, particularly when BT TV is a largely broadband based content delivery platform (ignoring BT TV via Sky). The reason is because a lot of the broadcasts themselves, such as from international sport, still get sent via satellites and those can be intercepted (resulting in a lot of illegal internet video streams).

In order to combat this BT will implement ATEME’s encryption techniques to protect satellite uplinked content (they’ll also offer this to their media and broadcast customers around the world to help reduce the number of illegal streams). Essentially BT is the first in the UK to provide the industry with ATEME’s encoder, which uses BISS-CA (Basic Interoperable Scrambling System Conditional Access) encryption.

ATEME’s encoder can also be used across a variety of systems and software and determines the origin of an illegal stream with content being watermarked. Media rights holders can also grant and revoke receiving rights in real-time, securing broadcasts from the source to its end destination.

Dominik Wrona, BT Head of TV Outside Broadcast, said:

“For BT it’s imperative that we protect broadcasters from the threat of illegal piracy and ensure that those watching the content legally are getting the best viewing experience possible, wherever they are in the world. By incorporating ATEME’s encoder in to our satellite solutions we’re able to provide customers with the greatest efficiency and security while also maintaining the highest video quality standards for content in the UK.”

BT first used this encoder during BTSport’s transmission of the FA Community Shield at Wembley Stadium on Sunday 4th August 2019 and it has continued to be used to protect each of BTSport’s Premier League live broadcasts this season.

TV piracy remains an escalating problem, and according to anti-piracy company MUSO, nearly 190 billion visits were made to illegal piracy websites last year alone (it’s unclear if they excluded bots from that). Of this number, 5.75 billion came from the UK and 17.4 billion from the US. Piracy is especially prevalent in the sports industry and allegedly costs Premier League clubs around £1m in sponsorship money every game.

Admittedly there are other ways of creating illegal streams but it looks like this may help to tackle one of the bigger problems.