Fighting Films Taps Civolution’s Watermarking Technology for Judo World Championships

FRIEND 4 MEDIA, the UK-based technology company that monitors the internet for a number of major content owners, confirms that Fighting Films is the first customer of its new Friend for Video distribution platform powered by Civolution’s watermarking technology.

The brainchild of Jonathan Friend, FRIEND 4 VIDEO uses advanced watermarking technology from Civolution to embed a unique forensic code into each video copy as it is being downloaded, enabling copies to be traced back to the original recipient within hours – and in some cases, minutes – anywhere across the world.

Fighting Films, which is the world’s leading producer and supplier of judo media and merchandise, kick-started the new service on Sept. 9 with a presentation of unique video footage from the Judo World Championships in Tokyo starting on Sept. 9 2010. Unlike conventional digital stores and media platforms where consumers are diverted to a third-party vendor, all FRIEND 4 VIDEO digital stores live within the content owner’s existing web infrastructure.

“We are delighted to extend our relationship with FRIEND 4 MEDIA and provide world-class transactional watermarking to the FRIEND 4 VIDEO offering,” says Hans van de Ven, SVP, Business Development, Civolution. “This unique and innovative solution helps media content owners safeguard their multimedia assets while maintaining a direct relationship with their customers, all parties win.”

The technology is backed up with a comprehensive sales and detection service including platform hosting, secure storage of content, fraud screening and credit card processing, as well as regulation-compliant storage of fans’ personal information, delivery of the content and post-delivery monitoring and protection.

In the event of an infringement, it is no longer necessary to take action against the ISP to obtain the corresponding IP address, as the watermark refers to a specific transaction and therefore the original customer.

As nothing sold though the FRIEND 4 VIDEO store contains anti-consumer file locks, encryption or DRM (Digital Rights Management) usage restrictions, legitimate purchasers are free to consume content across a range of devices to suit their lifestyle.