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Hardware enabled-piracy
The decrease in the average price of set-top boxes across platforms over the years has been the result of price competition and saturation in the pay TV market. While, price erosion has undoubtedly meant pirates can procure an access point to pirating content at a lower price, it does not remain the sole factor contributing to piracy.
There is no definitive correlation between the rate of piracy based on the price of STBs in developed or developing countries, however, the STB market does have a large proportion of cheap STBs, made in developing markets such as China and India, where component and manufacturing costs are low. While these boxes were mainly used in developing markets, they are now also being sold across the globe in developed markets, a possible result of the increasing price of pay TV. These cheap boxes are sufficient enough in terms of hardware to be repurposed for pirating content by pirates. The majority of these STBs are built on open source standards to maximise device compatibility and because they are cheaper to implement than proprietary standards. This makes them not necessarily more vulnerable to hacking but the lack of control makes them more subject to manipulation when compared with expensive STBs and their sophisticated content security systems.
Most significantly is that some cheap boxes are now also connectable, in order to leverage the open-source standards and access to apps. Connectable boxes could be considered the more substantial factor on piracy, prices of connectable boxes in developing markets is considerately less compared to developed, and now 53% of STBs* shipped globally in 2014 are now connectable.
Satellite STBs have historically been cheaper compared to other platforms because of its transmission method. Although the low price of a satellite box can be an incentive for pirates, it is mostly the one way nature of satellite transmission, which has made it attractive to pirates. Unlike other platforms, satellite has no physical infrastructure to enter like cable or IPTV. The “break once run everything” scenario of satellite and the ability to access a wide variety of premium content has resulted in satellite being more likely to be hacked.
Control Word Sharing
Control word sharing is a way of allowing multiple clients to access encrypted content with one set of decryption keys, also known as control words (CW). In a typical use case a legitimate receiver is equipped with software which allows it to share the control word over the internet to pirate set top boxes (STB), this allows them to access the content as if they had their own subscription. In addition, control word sharing also allows for the retransmission of content itself.
Part of the popularity of control word sharing is that the control word for DVB-based services is only 64-bits long and shared across all legitimate subscribers of a service. The short length of the key makes sharing this across public and private groups a trivial affair. STB manufacturers offering internet-connected STBs with software that manages the internet-delivered control words have boosted control word sharing. Control word sharing occurs in both commercial and non-commercial areas.
Control word sharing is largely a problem for satellite operators for a number of reasons. The large geographic reach of satellite transmissions makes signals available to people with no legal means of paying for decryption. Satellite broadcasts also contain large numbers of channels increasing the pay-off from decrypting the signals. The one-way nature of the transmission makes it difficult for broadcasters to monitor control word sharing.
Broadcasters can frustrate users of these systems by increasing the frequency of control word changes, up to every few seconds. The extra stress this places upon the control word sharing system can disrupt it causing frequent missed viewing periods.
Smart Card cloning
Cloned smart cards are copies of a legitimate smart card, which are then distributed to enable users of the pirated smart card to gain unauthorized access to broadcast signals. Pirated smart cards contain all the encryption coding present on the original card, and makes the STB believe that it is reading a legitimate card.
Broadcasters operate a 4-5 year replacement cycle for smart cards used for conditional access, in part to limit the impact of cloned cards and the inherent shortage in permutations of encryption keys.
Mobile Video piracy
The growth in smartphone application stores can also enable access to new forms of content piracy. This is particularly the case on Android devices as unlike Apple’s more tightly controlled content and device ecosystem, Android is more open. Android device users can choose to download content from any source and so efforts to prevent content piracy are limited. Google and other application store owners can try to limit any illegitimate content from being distributed via their stores, but they still distribute mobile applications that provide tools such as torrents to download, stream, and view pirated video content. The advances in mobile technology in terms of network bandwidth, content distribution, and device size and quality are driving demand for video content and making access to pirated content easier.
Mobile devices and applications can also enable different forms for piracy including:
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Screen recording and sharing: Some smartphones from leading manufacturers provide built in screen recording functionality which can be used to capture and then share copyrighted material.
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Live broadcasting apps: These include recently launched apps from Periscope and Meerkat as well as some built in live streaming apps which enable users to broadcast video content directly from their mobile devices over mobile and Wi-Fi networks. This could be used to stream copyrighted live broadcast content from other devices.
Limits on data plans and mobile network quality, however mean that most piracy is likely to take place on Wi-Fi rather than cellular networks. In this context, beyond using mobile apps as a way to access sites that provide pirated content, the nature of most mobile video piracy is similar to online video discussed above.
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