News

By Chris Tribbey

The Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA) Board of Directors has elected Adobe’s Richard Atkinson as its new chairman.

Atkinson, the global director of piracy conversion for Adobe, takes over for Microsoft’s James Dunkelberger, who led the organization the past two years.

“To me, CDSA is one of the few associations that stitches together the entire entertainment and software industry, from movies and TV, to games, to music, to software,” Atkinson said. “All of us have many things in common when it comes to content security and distribution, and it’s my intention to continue to drive CDSA in ways we can leverage and learn from the great knowledge and leadership that is spread across the industry.

CDSA — formerly the International Recording Media Association — for over 40 years has been a worldwide forum advocating the innovative and responsible delivery and storage of entertainment, software and information content. In 2010 CDSA went under the management of the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA).

“Content security is a critical vertical within MESA’s strategy for the M&E industry and CDSA delivers a unique perspective to the content protection community across music, movies and games,” said Guy Finley, executive director of MESA. “We are delighted to work closely with Richard to drive thought leadership, awareness and collaboration to operations executives from both content holder and solution providers throughout media and entertainment.”

Atkinson has been an active participant in CDSA for years and is the co-founder of the annual Content Protect Summit, hosted by CDSA and Variety. For Adobe, Atkinson leads the company’s global response to piracy, bringing 25-plus years of experience to the roll.

His prior roles include developing Disney’s global business response to piracy, CTO and technology innovator for Walt Disney Imagineering, CIO for Walt Disney Studios, chief communications technologist for defense giant Northrop Grumman, and CSO for Electronic Arts, with a focus on cyber security threats.

A regular industry keynote speaker and spokesman for the industry on technical innovation, product security, and cyber security, Richard also served as a White House and NSC briefer to multiple presidential administrations and top foreign leaders.