As we move through today’s digital world, cybersecurity has increasingly shifted to the forefront of discussions. This has sparked initiatives to standardize and set precedence in many established industries such as IT, payment processing, healthcare, and finance, raising the levels of effectiveness and efficiency of their respective industry’s security. One of the more recent moves to do so came in the entertainment industry, when the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the Content Delivery and Security Association (CDSA) joined together to form the Trusted Partner Network with the main intention of preventing breaches in security that could result in leaks of their customers’ movies and television shows prior to their intended release.
The latest company to join the ranks of those making the security of their content a priority is OWNZONES a cloud-based video supply chain company that has helped studios and content owners alike work through the challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic. While some may feel having an on-premise storage solution means they are less susceptible to security breaches, OWNZONES hopes to change that thinking, and by passing the rigorous auditing and evaluation process they prove to their current and future customers that content is safe in their hands.
“As content consumption is at its highest point, and many content creators are still in positions where they are working remotely, we were eager to receive our TPN certification,” said Dan Goman, founder and CEO of OWNZONES. “Now that we have passed, we are excited to show the world that Ownzones strives for the highest levels of security for all of our clients’ content both now, and in the future.”
What is the TPN?
Started in 2018, the TPN is a global and industry-wide film and television content production initiative with the aim to decrease security threats by raising security awareness, preparedness, and capabilities within the entertainment industry. Becoming a “trusted partner” vendor means undergoing a strict review and approval process ascertaining the vendor’s expertise in securing pre-release entertainment content. Rather than operating as a pass/fail test, the assessment identifies whether a vendor meets the standards set by the TPN which can then be promoted to reassure their customers of their security preparedness. For content owners, they can now reference a single, central global directory of “trusted partner” vendors to ensure they are working with those who have made a commitment to keeping their content safe.
The standardization of security protocol for content creators came a bit later than many of its predecessors in other industries. In 2017, the industry was hit with a series of high-profile pre-release leaks such as episodes from season five of “Orange (News - Alert) is the New Black” from an audio post-production firm and a season seven episode of “Game of Thrones” that traced back to a data management vendor. Much of this was due in part to the growing number of third parties involved in the production process, all with varying levels of security measures. As a result, Hollywood’s major studios began looking to seal up the cracks in their digital supply chain.
Two organizations came together to work towards a solution. The Motion Picture Association, which had long been an advocate of copyright protection and reducing piracy in the motion picture and television industry, and the Content and Delivery Security Association whose mission was to protect entertainment media throughout the supply chain. Previously, the MPA and CDSA each had their own separate security auditing programs, and many within the entertainment industry such as studios and other content owners had their own assessments or outsourced the auditing to yet another third party. By creating and promoting a baseline, industry-wide standard, the TPN was created to aid in reducing the number of assessments performed, and the MPAA and CDSA both ceased their individual security auditing programs to focus exclusively on developing and managing the TPN program.
From Content Company to Software as a Service
Started by Dan Goman in 2010, OWNZONES operated for six years as a content company. After working extensively within software and data companies like Microsoft (News - Alert), Lucent Technologies, and AT&T Wireless helping advance their technology, Goman picked up on the trend towards digital content in both paper and broadcast media. In those first years OWNZONES grew successfully to create, launch, and operate over 400 digital channels while also managing over five million assets and distributing to over 25 countries. Understanding that as innovators within the industry he and his company must be forward-thinking to develop solutions that hadn’t been created yet, Goman invested heavily in building his research and development team to ensure they were never held back by technological limitations.
However, as Goman increasingly received requests from his content partners for access to OWNZONES technology, he realized his company’s value lay in the supply chain and media workflow advancements they had created, and began offering their technology B2B. Today, OWNZONES has revolutionized the post-production world, providing content creators with an all-in-one solution to transform, deliver, and monetize their content. By receiving the certification of TPN, they signify to content producers that OWNZONES’ uses the industry’s best practices to ensure that its solutions, facilities, people, and workflows are secure.
A Cloud-based Solution
As anyone within the tech industry, and they will tell you the future is in the cloud. Goman and OWNZONES fully believe in this idea, and their OWNZONES Connect technology allows content providers to manage and deliver their video content to multiple endpoints exclusively within the cloud. Through the lockdown which has placed much of the entertainment industry at a standstill, OWNZONES has helped countless studios and content creators continue to function through the cloud.
While it may seem counterintuitive, although cloud-based storage allows for greater accessibility and connectedness, it is actually a more secure storage solution than on-premise, or “on-prem” storage. Often, on-prem facilities are slow to update their security measures -- sometimes going years without doing so. When using the cloud, security updates can happen instantly and often, and all that’s needed is an internet connection. When companies experience a breach in security, it can often be because of legacy IT environments failing to properly account for the new technologies that have arisen since it was installed.
Another position where the cloud can surpass security measures of on-prem is when it comes to disaster recovery. A disaster can mean anything from natural ones such as a power outage or human-induced, but when it does occur it is essential to quickly and effectively restore data. Whereas on-prem disaster recovery strategies can require massive amounts of time and money to effectively simulate, disaster recovery simulations within the cloud can be created quickly and for less money which means testing can happen more frequently. Dated on-prem storage strategies drain resources, take up inordinate amounts of time to upkeep, and are often more expensive than cloud strategies.
When it comes to content, utilizing a cloud storage solution such as OWNZONES Connect will help organize and streamline your content library. With security as a core business value for both Goman and OWNZONES, receiving the TPN certification is just another way they are able to provide content creators with peace of mind. With the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, the world we currently live in looks very different from the one left behind, and viewing habits have also shifted rapidly as a result. By offering a highly secure, dependable, flexible, and scalable cloud-based platform, OWNZONES is successfully helping the entertainment industry to revolutionize how it works in order to respond to and embrace these changing dynamics.
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