News
David Lowery Delivers Afternoon Keynote at CPS 2013 – Next Week’s Event Covers Security, Piracy and Everything In Between
Story Highlights
By Chris Tribbey
David Lowery is on a mission.
The frontman for the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker and researcher and lecturer at the University of Georgia has become one of the more polarizing figures in the movement for musicians’ rights in today’s Internet age, quickly becoming a leading voice against online sites that make a buck off music lyrics without paying songwriters. Lowery will be the afternoon keynote speaker Dec. 12 at the 4th annual Content Protection Summit, presented by Variety and the Content Delivery & Security Association. The daylong event will be held at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills.
His presentation — Finding Real Money Behind Consumer Piracy — will highlight his personal experiences regarding the music industry’s approach to protecting creative content, and how mainstream advertisers on illegitimate Web sites are pulling in an illicit stream of income.
Lowery — an outspoken critic of Silicon Valley and its at times dismissive attitude toward the rights of content creators — has testified before Congress twice on behalf of artists, and most recently wrote an op-ed for Politico about the need for massive copyright reform.
His closing presentation will wrap a full day of security and piracy discussions at CPS, featuring the top authorities on the most pressing issues and prevailing piracy trends confronting the industry.
CPS will open with welcome remarks by conference chair Alex Kochis, founder of anti-piracy company FiveBy Solutions, and James Dunkelberger, CDSA chairman and GM of product release and security services for Microsoft.
Richard Atkinson, global director of piracy conversion for Adobe Systems will lead the first discussion of the day, Cloud 101: Security. Setting the stage for the full CPS agenda, he’ll offer an overview of what exactly today’s “cloud” is, and how different types of security are being used to protect different forms of data and content.
Prior to the morning piracy keynote by The Terminator and “The Walking Dead” producer/“First Lady of Sci-Fi” Gale Anne Hurd (with Variety senior editor Ted Johnson leading the interview), attendees will hear from PricewaterhouseCoopers principal partner Mark Lobel, who will present the results of the research firm’s Global State of Information Security Survey 2014. The survey details how entertainment executives are improving technology safeguards and combating digital security breaches.
Bill Frack, managing director of L.E.K. Consulting, will offer his firm’s take on the opportunities for turning everyday copyright thieves into paying customers (sharing that more than 90% of those who pirate content are also paying movie viewers), while Jill Lesser, executive director of the Center for Copyright Information, will share the initial results of the nascent Copyright Alert system.
Michael Smith, director of Akamai’s Consumer Security Incident Response Team, will offer an overview of recent security incidents his company has on behalf of the digital media industry.
The first full panel of the day — Illegal Streaming: Over the Top and Over the Line
— will feature Smith, Jean-Michel Masson, SVP of watermarking solutions for Civolution and Bala Venkat, chief marketing officer for Cenzic, and will delve into how streaming has become a popular vehicle for piracy compared to downloading (and whether anything can be done about it). Stan Stahl, president of Citadel Information Group, will moderate.
Ralph Echemendia, “ethical hacker” and CEO of Red-E Digital, will lead CPS attendees in an audience-involved demonstration of just how easily your digital content assets can be compromised, before Ryan Kalember, chief product officer for WatchDox, shares the latest dynamic watermarking and rights management technologies for protecting production content from leaking out.
The second full panel of the day — Tracking the New Vulnerabilities — will look at the latest security threats being exploited by hackers, with Guy Finley, director of anti-piracy affairs for CDSA leading the discussion with security auditors and analysts. Panelists include Francisco Artes, chief technology architect for NSS Labs, Joel Bigley, SVP of worldwide operations and business execution for Deluxe Digital Studios, Ian Hamilton, chief technology officer for Signiant, Ted Harrington, executive partner for Independent Security Evaluators, WatchDox’s Kalember and
Justin Somaini, chief trust officer for Box.
Following a discussion on the need for IT and anti-piracy departments to work together more closely to protect digital supply chains, Mary Yurkovic, director of the Hollywood IT Society’s Content Strategy Council, will lead a discussion covering the evolving security issues involved in the integration of Digital Asset Management (DAM) initiatives with other systems. Janice Pearson, manager of anti-piracy strategy and operations at Warner Bros. Entertainment and Wesley Simpson, VP of media asset management for Turner Broadcasting System, will weigh in.
Registration for CPS 2013 opens at 8 a.m. with the conference kicking off at 9 a.m. A networking reception will follow at 5:30 p.m.
For registration information, visit contentprotectionsummit.com/
