On the matter of IPTV, high technologies are truly important. Since the world has become a copy-paste community, it is easy for environments where people can steal and use works of art for their benefit to be formed. For this reason many governments emerged who interpret any activity over the internet as piracy. We have seen many laws legislated, legal interactions carried out, even police activity to battle piracy. However most of these endeavors end up falling shot of adequateness. The main reason for this is piracy being a very easily duplicable technology.
Even though IPTV seems to bring some of these technologies to the front, I believe that it will be a serious operation against piracy. This is because we have seen that piracy cannot be stopped by prohibitions and the usage of extra devices. To understand the difference IPTV will bring to the war against piracy, you need to have a grasp of the subject of piracy itself. The first methods of piracy in the world were with computer software. What began with duplicating and cracking the keys of software seized the music industry and spread to the video industry, thus enabling most movies to be sold in an illegal way. Obviously one of the most important tools of battling piracy is the viewer. In the process many efforts were made to prevent viewers from showing interest in piracy, starting with raising awareness and explaining the importance of works of art. But the main reason of these efforts ending up in vain just might be the knowledge that distribution systems make the most money in the industry. Viewers all around the world know that most of the money they pay will go to the distributors, so they can’t maintain their level of respect for the works of art.
“We can easily say that prohibition is not a successful method in the war against piracy.”
One of the most prominent problems with works of art is that when you buy a tape, you know that most of the money goes to distribution services and logistics costs. Now and then there were costs due to tax liabilities. However, over time music distribution over the internet started to spread. Bands prepared their own albums and duplicated it over a website. One of the best examples for this is Apple’s Itunes. With Itunes, people saw the benefits of downloading music over the internet, one of which is the low costs. With distribution and logistics costs lowering, people are less interested in piracy proportionately. Because when you reach songs and productions you can find in the internet by piracy, you see that they are of low quality. Of course the quality of a song you download from Itunes cannot be like that, because it has the guarantee of a company behind it. On this topic, we can talk about a global scandal. I experienced that prohibition was not a good way against piracy as a person living through the DVDs being released in 6 regions and DVD players being manufactured accordingly.
So, what can IPTV bring into this picture? We talked about several methods in the war against piracy. The first is Itunes. The second is one implemented by Microsoft. In order to prevent the same product key to be used in more than one location, Microsoft updates their software regularly to check whether the product key is valid or not. This way an internet connection is guaranteed, it is possible to see whether the product keys are used in a proper way or shared with others. As it can be seen internet is not with piracy, it is against it. What’s with piracy is the computer technologies, especially duplication technologies. From this angle, it is not easy to see what kind of sanction IPTV has on piracy. Because in the process of information and productions created by companies being broadcast by IPTV, internet doesn’t differ from Microsoft’s usage, by getting authorization every minute. TTNET’s Tivibu software is a good example for this. Tivibu software has the feature to not work in more than one location. So when we try to watch the same television channel in more than one location over the internet, we see that the control system is much more successful.
In what way do we see that the control system is much more successful? When we look at digital platforms, there are passwords decoded by cards, people using their televisions with these cards and that they can be used in unofficial ways. IPTV, on the other hand, doesn’t enable piracy during its usage over the internet by its nature. Won’t there be piracy and unofficial usage despite all this? I don’t think that will be the case. Because of this DRM applications (especially video on demand) are unnecessarily deemed important. Programs at work in DRM will reach a solution by using the data received over the internet in a right way.
“The best thing to do against piracy is creating different experiences using advanced technology, and preventing people from indulging in piracy with this added value.”
The film industry seems to have found the proper way to battle piracy. When they realized that airing infomercials about why piracy is bad to people who are in no way involved with it doesn’t do much, they turned to 3D movies. Since it is by no means possible to reproduce the quality in the theater by recording and copying it to a DVD, audiences started going to the theater and watching the movie in high quality and in 3D, rather than buying it over the internet or from any other resources. This situation enabled the cinema industry to battle piracy in an effective way. As we can see, the best thing to do against piracy is creating different experiences using advanced technology, and preventing people from indulging in piracy with this added value.
Another good example of this takes place in the textile industry. Since the value added is mostly design and label, the war against piracy is challenging in this industry. However lately, with the development of nano technology, summer clothes which direct less sunlight to the skin and winter clothes which prevent cold don’t seem likely to be stolen and duplicated. We can see that the technology which enables piracy in the first place also stands in its way. The added value brought in by developments in technology is one of the most prominent advantages against piracy. On the DRM front, even though many new technologies have been developed, there haven’t been any released in many subjects, including video on demand. One of the most important reasons for this is, with IPTV video on demand won’t mean people downloading the movie to their computer one on one, but streaming over the internet. When you can reach any video you want, why should you go looking for a pirated version of it in a CD or on the internet?
