Friend MTS Collaborates with Akamai to Tackle Real-World Piracy with New Server-Side A/B Variant Watermarking Solution

ASiD OTT Edge-Switched Safeguards Premium Live and VOD Content from Illegal Redistribution

PHILADELPHIA, PA & BIRMINGHAM, UK – April 22, 2021 – Friend MTS, a leading global provider of content protection services, today announced an expanded partnership with Akamai, the intelligent edge platform for securing and delivering digital experiences. The companies will now offer content owners, broadcasters and operators a new smart server-side A/B variant watermarking solution based on the Friend MTS ASiD OTT Edge-switched technology and Akamai’s Access Revocation solution / technology. Akamai customers now have access to an additional method of watermarking premium content with an accelerated watermark extraction. When combined with Akamai’s Access Revocation solution, this provides immediate remediation of live and VOD content streams if piracy is detected. A member of Akamai’s Media Technology Partner (MTP) program, Friend MTS is adding to its existing ASiD 3rd Generation solutions – ASiD Embedded and ASiD OTT Client-composited – with this most recently launched watermarking technique as part of their secure 4th Generation forensic watermarking solutions.

“With Akamai as our long-term valued partner, we continue our important work of developing and deploying content protection technologies at scale that serve to proactively prevent content theft as the media industry increasingly faces highly sophisticated real-world piracy threats,” said Jonathan Friend, Chief Executive Officer, Friend MTS. “Now with ASiD 4th Generation, we’re delighted to integrate ASiD OTT Edge-switched with Akamai’s Watermark Token system to offer maximum protection with ASiD’s end-to-end functionality for all operator and service provider distribution workflows.”

“Our latest collaboration with Friend MTS brings an expanded content protection offering for our joint customers, giving them the ability to rapidly terminate delivery of content to devices that have been identified as sources of piracy,” said Ian Munford, Director, Media Product Marketing, Akamai. “ASiD OTT Edge-switched works well with our wider suite of anti-piracy services, including Access Revocation, which has proven to be very effective in stopping pirate attacks.”

Addressing a wide range of content protection scenarios, ASiD 4th Generation along with the new ASiD OTT Edge-switched proprietary technology works to secure high-value content and revenue across all types of broadcast and OTT devices, clients and apps. The most widely deployed and actively used subscriber-level technology in the world, Friend MTS’ proven watermarking technologies remain fully compliant with the MovieLabs Specification for Enhanced Content Protection, and enable the industry to proactively prevent content theft and other business-affecting activities, such as credential or account sharing, by revoking access to compromised accounts.