Why Streaming Antipiracy Needs to Move From Reactive to Preventive
Given the vast array of hacks available to stream-stealers and pirates in 2026, reactive antipiracy measures only go so far, identifying or even pinpointing the problem after the fact without preventing it, and often providing little legal recourse against pirates operating outside the regional regulatory environment where a rightsholder can pursue them. In this clip from her keynote fireside chat with Streaming Media’s Steve Nathans-Kelly from Streaming Media Connect 2026, Verimatrix Director of Product Management Maria Malinkowitsch explains the difference between reactive and proactive antipiracy measures, and how rightsholders and publishers can pursue more effective approaches to take down illegal streams while they’re happening—or at least reduce the number of pirates to “a chasable amount.”
‘Proactive Antipiracy’
Nathans-Kelly shares the keynote’s title—Proactive Antipiracy: Why Postmortem Measures Fail and What to Do Instead—and mentions that a company like Verimatrix wants to move from reaction to prevention when it comes to antipiracy, yet it’s easier said than done. “So can you explain first what you mean by postmortem, or reactive antipiracy, and why that approach has limited utility?” he asks.
“You need to imagine that everyone now has access to AI,” Malinkowitsch advises. Stealing content is easy to do using free tools, she notes, and “instead of a bunch of years ago where you had the managed services on a set-top box and you really managed the device and [were] only fighting with a handful of pirates, you now have millions of pirates against you, right? So, meaning, if your content is stolen and you want to hunt down every single one of them, that’s becoming a kind of almost impossible task.” She points to some success stories, notably the German Football League’s victory over a major piracy site, but says, “it was one piracy platform, and there are so many more.”
Like Whack-a-Mole
“And we also know that these IPTV platforms, you shut them down, it takes you years of effort. And then a month later [they change] maybe one letter in their web address and it comes back,” Malinkowitsch continues. She agrees with a previous comment from the talk that it’s like whack-a-mole, “because if you cannot manage to stop piracy before it happens, then you have to chase all of them.”
A DRM system is the traditional antipiracy method to “encrypt the content so you limit access and you add a watermark which would allow you to trace back who stole the content,” she notes. “In addition, you engage companies who trace the web, who go find piracy streams and send takedown notifications. There’s a number of more or less successful approaches for taking down content which works pretty well, like say on YouTube or social media where you can send a takedown notification and they would really take it down after a while.”
Two Hours Too Long
Taking down IP streams via the ISP only works under certain legislation; this is also true of IPTV platforms—they’re often hosted outside of a specific legislation’s reach,” Malinkowitsch says. “And when we look at the numbers again, we can see that less than 10% of the takedown notifications are successful. And from those who are, over 90% happen after two hours.” That much time is “useless because sports loses value almost immediately after it has been live.”
“Absolutely,” Nathans-Kelly agrees. “That’s the length of the match, right?”
“And two hours is assumed [to be] really excellent,” Malinkowitsch cautions. Takedowns via IP blocking are more useful, but that’s still a game of whack-a-mole, she says, where pirates already have the next target waiting and then you have to chase them down again.
‘A Chaseable Amount’
Malinkowitsch believes that reactive antipiracy will always be necessary, “because I’m pretty sure that even if we are the smartest and best and have really the most fabulous measures, there’s nothing [that] cannot be broken—so basically reducing piracy to zero may be for a while, but not forever.” Using antipiracy measures can make pirates’ lives as uncomfortable as possible, she adds, and you can reduce the number of pirates “to a chaseable amount so you really get a fair chance to hunt them down and close them down. That is actually the goal.”
Join us August 11–13, 2026 for more thought leadership, actionable insights, and lively debate at Streaming Media Connect 2026! Registration is open!
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In this cogent clip from Streaming Media Connect 2026, Verimatrix Director of Product Management Maria Malinkowitsch offers five concrete preventive steps content publishers and rightsholders can take to curb illegal streaming.
23 Jun 2026