Piracy is not a new problem, but its methods are becoming more sophisticated. Bad actors are finding new ways to exploit weaknesses in digital rights management (DRM) systems, including attempts to obtain the decryption keys needed to unlock protected content. While DRM encryption remains an essential defense, these growing tactics show why layered DRM protection is now critical to fully safeguard digital assets.
The impact of piracy is staggering. According to Kearney, the media industry alone loses about $75 billion annually, with losses projected to reach $125 billion by 2028. In India, entertainment providers lose roughly $2.7 billion each year, while Japan’s manga and anime industries face nearly $7 billion in damages from illegal distribution.
While DRM encryption remains highly effective at preventing unauthorized access, piracy threats increasingly extend beyond the areas DRM was designed to protect. These figures underscore why layered DRM protection — combining DRM with complementary safeguards — is becoming essential for content owners in 2025.
DRM’s Role in Content Protection
The rise of online video streaming and over-the-top (OTT) services has made content more accessible than ever, but it has also raised the stakes for security. One of the greatest concerns for subscription-based and paid-content providers is that valuable media can be leaked or redistributed illegally, threatening both revenue growth and subscriber trust.
DRM remains the cornerstone of protection in this environment. By encrypting content and ensuring only authorized users can play it back, DRM helps prevent unauthorized access and distribution. Most modern services rely on multi-DRM solutions, which unify license management across the major platforms — including Google Widevine, Apple FairPlay, Microsoft PlayReady, and Huawei WisePlay— so content providers can deliver protected video seamlessly to web browsers, mobile devices, and smart TVs.
At its core, DRM is designed to protect:
Playback access:
Ensuring only authorized users and devices can view the content.
License control:
Managing rights such as viewing period, device limits, and offline access.
Platform compatibility:
Supporting delivery across browsers, operating systems, and devices without sacrificing protection.
DRM remains a critical first line of defense. But it only covers one point in the delivery chain. To keep pace with increasingly sophisticated piracy tactics, providers are now reinforcing DRM with additional layers of security.
Strengthening DRM Through Layered Protection
DRM protects access at the point of playback, but content passes through many other stages — including storage, transmission, distribution, and playback environments — and each introduces unique risks. Piracy methods such as screen recording, CDN leeching, mobile app repackaging, and restreaming often occur outside DRM’s direct scope.
Multi-layer DRM security strengthens DRM by covering these gaps across the workflow, extending protection across transmission, storage, and playback. Here’s how:
License-Level Encryption:
Secures license exchanges and prevents key extraction by creating a trusted communication channel between client and API. For live streaming, additional measures such as license renewal and concurrent stream limiting further reinforce control.
Forensic Watermarking:
Adds traceability by embedding invisible, tamper-resistant identifiers directly into the content. These identifiers remain intact even if content is compressed or altered, allowing leaks to be traced back to specific users or sources without impacting playback quality.
Monitoring and Enforcement:
Expands visibility beyond DRM standards, enabling providers to identify gaps that pirates exploit. Automated anti-piracy monitoring systems monitor digital platforms, predict piracy trends, and support takedown requests to reduce the lifespan of unauthorized content.
Together, these methods extend DRM’s reach and create a resilient, multi-layered framework. But knowing that layered protection is essential is only the first step. The real challenge is deciding when, where, and how to apply these measures without compromising the user experience.
4 Strategies for Strengthening DRM in Practice
No matter how strong DRM encryption may be, its long-term effectiveness depends on the layers wrapped around it. For organizations distributing high-value media, from global sports events to streaming services to educational platforms, the question is no longer whether to add additional protections, but which ones to prioritize and how to integrate them without disrupting delivery.
Here are four strategies organizations should use to strengthen their DRM and anti-piracy practices:
1. Assess the Value and Risk Profile of Your Content
The first step in strengthening DRM is to understand which content truly requires additional protection. This is best done through a content risk assessment — a process similar to how enterprises evaluate cybersecurity threats. The assessment should weigh both the value of the content and the likelihood it will be targeted.
Key factors to evaluate include:
- Commercial value: How much revenue is tied to this content? For example, live sports broadcasts generate billions in rights fees and are heavily targeted by pirates, with illegal sports streaming costing the industry an estimated $28 billion annually.
- Exclusivity and demand: Is the content time-sensitive or highly desirable, like live events, new releases, or premium courses? These categories are often pirated within minutes of release.
- Regulatory and contractual obligations: Some licensing agreements, such as with Hollywood studios or sports leagues, may mandate watermarking or monitoring. Failing to comply can create legal or reputational risks.
- Exposure surface: How widely is the content distributed, and across which platforms? Global reach increases the likelihood of piracy attempts.
By scoring content against these factors, providers can determine which assets fall into high-risk, high-value categories and justify the investment in layered protection. For instance, a global football match streamed live to millions clearly demands more safeguards than an internal corporate training video.
2. Map Vulnerabilities Along the Workflow
After identifying high-value content, the next step is to understand where it’s most at risk. This requires looking at the end-to-end delivery workflow, from file preparation to end-user playback, and identifying potential points of attack.
Key stages to examine include:
- License delivery: Attackers may attempt to intercept or extract decryption keys during license exchanges.
- Distribution: Content passing through CDNs can be exposed to leeching or unauthorized redistribution.
- Playback environments: Even when DRM is active, pirates may still capture content through screen recording, app repackaging, or restreaming.
Mapping these vulnerabilities helps organizations see where DRM alone is not enough. It creates a clear picture of the attack surface and allows teams to align defenses with actual risks. For example, securing license delivery with license-level encryption closes one gap, while watermarking live streams addresses redistribution risks. By linking vulnerabilities to specific countermeasures, content owners can design a layered protection strategy that is both targeted and cost-effective.
3. Match Solutions to Use Cases
Not all content requires the same type of protection. Once you know where vulnerabilities exist, the next step is to match the right tools to the scenarios where they will have the greatest impact. The goal is to apply layers strategically, so that defenses are proportional to the risks and aligned with how your content is consumed.
A few common examples include:
- Live events: Time-sensitive broadcasts like sports or concerts are high-value targets because pirated streams attract viewers in real time. Forensic watermarking paired with monitoring enables providers to trace leaks quickly and act before piracy scales.
- Subscription services: Streaming platforms often struggle with account misuse, such as password sharing or unauthorized concurrent streams. License-level encryption combined with features like concurrent stream limiting can prevent both key theft and overuse of accounts.
- Educational and enterprise content: Online courses and corporate training materials may not face the same exposure as blockbuster films, but leaks can still erode revenue and trust. Anti-piracy enforcement and secure distribution protocols help protect intellectual property in these cases.
Companies that use license cipher, for example, can eliminate the risk of key extraction, since decryption keys are never exposed during transmission. Forensic watermarking, on the other hand, allows platforms to trace leaks back to insiders or compromised accounts, providing accountability and a reliable basis for enforcement.
4. Prioritize Seamless Integration
The most effective security strategy is one that doesn’t disrupt the user experience or burden development teams. Strong protections should feel invisible to end users while fitting smoothly into existing workflows. If content security slows delivery or frustrates subscribers, it can end up harming the very business it’s meant to protect.
When evaluating solutions, focus on:
- User experience: Choose protections that operate in the background without introducing playback delays or noticeable quality issues. Invisible watermarking is a good example — it embeds identifiers without affecting the viewing experience. License cipher functions similarly, securing license exchanges transparently without requiring any intervention from the end user.
- Operational efficiency: Look for tools that can be layered onto current multi-DRM systems and delivery platforms with minimal coding or workflow disruption.
- Scalability: Security must keep pace as distribution expands across regions, platforms, and audiences. Solutions that adapt to both on-demand and live-streaming environments help ensure consistency.
By prioritizing seamless integration, content owners can strengthen DRM without introducing friction. This balance — maintaining protection while preserving performance — is what makes layered security sustainable over time.
Taken together, these strategies provide a practical roadmap for reinforcing DRM with layered defenses. The next step is to look ahead, understanding how these approaches will shape the future of content security in 2025 and beyond.
The Road Ahead: Layered Protection as the New Standard
Piracy tactics will continue to evolve, but so will the tools that defend against them. DRM will remain the foundation of content security, but its role is shifting — from a standalone safeguard to the anchor point of a layered, adaptive strategy.
Emerging practices such as Common Access Token Security (CATS) — which secures CDN requests — show where the industry is headed, even if adoption is still early. Meanwhile, AI-driven monitoring promises faster detection, and forensic watermarking is expanding from Hollywood blockbusters to sports and educational platforms.
For streaming providers, broadcasters, and education companies, the takeaway is clear: the future of content protection is not about replacing DRM, but reinforcing it with layers that cover the full workflow. By adopting these measures now, organizations can reduce piracy risks today — and stay ahead of the challenges still to come.
