The company’s technologies will be integrated with Synamedia’s anti-piracy portfolio, which includes piracy detection and piracy mitigation solutions. Synamedia will also benefit by having direct access to ContentArmor’s post production, enterprise video and in-flight entertainment customer-bases.
According to prepared statements released by the two companies, Alain Durand, ContentArmor CEO, will join Synamedia’s senior leadership team to help shape its security roadmap.
Paul Segre, Synamedia CEO, said, “ContentArmor’s expertise and investment in R&D has resulted in more than 30% growth year-on-year since its inception, along with an impressive patent portfolio. This acquisition further accelerates our industry-leading security business, with edge watermarking fueling new opportunities in the D2C streaming space and for 5G. In the security domain, our clear objective is to meet the needs of all video service providers that care about anti-piracy. The acquisition of ContentArmor strengthens that proposition.”
Mr. Durand commented, “While head-end watermarking is now at the heart of any studio or service provider’s security requirements, we are primed for the future with our edge watermarking solution. By combining our high-performance technology with Synamedia’s unparalleled intelligence-led security offerings, service providers can future-proof their revenues from the menace of piracy.”
The ContentArmor unit will remain based in France.
Press releases
Read the ContentArmor press release
Read the Synamedia press release
Why it matters
While this acquisition follows close on the heels of the recent acquisitions of whiteCryption from Intertrust by Zimperium, and of BuyDRM by OVHCloud, neither of those acquisitions involved suppliers of forensic watermarking. So while one may say that there is some strategic realignment underway in the anti-piracy technology world, it’s not a consolidation.
Several video infrastructure providers, including Viaccess-Orca, castLabs, Akamai Technologies and AWS Elemental, integrate ContentArmor watermarking with their own solutions. What may happen with those relationships is yet to be known. Viaccess-Orca and Synamedia are direct competitors in both the pay TV and OTT/streaming market spaces.
While ContentArmor has been an advocate for client-side watermarking, the company offers solutions that can embed watermarks anywhere in the distribution chain.
[ Note: Three companies identified in this article are supporters of Piracy Monitor. This article represents the independent opinion of Piracy Monitor and had no input from those sponsors other than to quote from press releases. ]
