Case Study: The Oscars (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) achieves anti‑piracy protection and secure screening delivery with Akamai Technologies' edge forensic watermarking

Protecting the Oscars® screening platform with advanced security technology

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Oscars®, relies on its Academy Screening Room streaming platform to distribute pre-release films to an international membership. With wide distribution comes a high risk of piracy and the need to maintain confidentiality and protect artists’ intellectual property during awards consideration.

Akamai, together with Brightcove, NAGRA, and BuyDRM, implemented an edge-based forensic watermarking solution (storage- and session-based A/B watermarking) that embeds a unique watermark per user and preserves it through delivery. The solution enables auditing and tracing of leaked content, blocks common piracy vectors while keeping stream quality intact, and has allowed the Academy to continue secure content delivery at scale.

The Oscars

Bev Kite

Chief Information Officer , Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences