What does the acquisition of WideVine mean to Google?
Around a decade or so ago, one of my co-workers asked for help with an ebook. The book was purchased to use at home, but couldn’t be transferred over to a computer at work to read during lunch breaks. Being able to easily transfer the book over to a work computer would have been great, but we recognized that the seller provided limited access to books to try to protect their copyrights. It would have been great if the book was portable, and could be used at different locations on different computers.
When Google acquired WideVine a few days ago, the focus of most commentary on the purchase involved what it might mean to Google involving video content.
Here are a few of those topics:
- Copyright protection and better streaming video for YouTube
- Digital Rights Management (and industry respectability) for Google TV
- Access to major content creators and distributors
- Optimization and portability of video content on very wide range of devices
One of the most thoughtful analysis about the acquisition that I’ve seen is Connected Vision’s article Google buys Widevine to secure programming deals, which notes the things I’ve listed above as well as hinting that the acquisition has implications beyond video, possibly even including “a robust encryption scheme for general use in online media.”
After learning about the purchase, I checked into the patent filings behind WideVine, and I found myself surprised at how much I found.
I also visited the WideVine website, and I ran across this quote on their page about their intellectual property:
Comprised of over 60 issued U.S. and international patents, with approximately 2000 claims, Widevine’s portfolio offers consumer device manufacturers, service operators and content owners the ability to operate freely in a patent laden world of video optimization and content protection. Widevine also has over 100 other patents pending worldwide.
Following are the pending and granted patents assigned to WideVine that I found at the USPTO. There are some interesting patents amongst the bunch.
Patent applications
- Process and streaming server for encrypting a data stream with bandwidth based variation
- Preventing unauthorized modification or skipping of viewing of advertisements within content
- Progressive download or streaming of digital media securely through a localized container and communication protocol proxy
- Non-blocking of head end initiated revocation and delivery of entitlements in a non-addressable digital media network
- System and method for n-dimensional encryption
- Refreshing advertisements in offline or virally distributed content
- Pre-binding and tight binding of an on-line identity to a digital signature
- Reduction of channel change time for digital media devices using key management and virtual smart cards
- Securely ingesting encrypted content into content servers
- Encryption of video content to vod services and networked personal video recorders using unique key placements
- Tamper prevention and detection for video provided over a network to a client
- Enabling transferable entitlements between networked devices
- Audio/video identification watermarking
- Preventing entitlement management message (emm) filter attacks
- Method for evolving detectors to detect malign behavior in an artificial immune system
- Selective and persistent application level encrytion for video provided to a client
- Transitioning to secure ip communications for encoding, encapsulating, and encrypting data
- Selectively encrypting different portions of data sent over a network
- Method and apparatus for protection of electronic media
- System and method for software tamper detection
- Preventing illegal distribution of copy protected content
- Securely relaying content using key chains
- System and method for motion picture print forensics
- System, method, and apparatus for securely providing content viewable on a secure device
- System, method, and apparatus for securely providing content viewable on a secure device
- Method and system for providing secure codecs
- Process and streaming server for encrypting a data stream
- Apparatus, system, and method for protecting content using fingerprinting and real-time evidence gathering
- Method and system for session based watermarking of encrypted content
- Piracy prevention system
- Process and streaming server for encrypting a data stream to a virtual smart card client system
- Method for tracing a security breach in highly distributed content
- System, method, and apparatus for securely providing content viewable on a secure device
- Method and system for real-time tamper evidence gathering for software
- Method and apparatus for protection of electronic media
- Process and streaming server for encrypting a data stream
Granted Patents
- Transitioning to secure ip communications for encoding, encapsulating, and encrypting data
- System, method, and apparatus for securely providing content viewable on a secure device
- Method and system for real-time tamper evidence gathering for software
- System and method for n-dimensional encryption
- Process and streaming server for encrypting a data stream
- Selectively encrypting different portions of data sent over a network
- System, method, and apparatus for securely providing content viewable on a secure device
- Securely relaying content using key chains
- Method and system for end to end securing of content for video on demand
- Process and streaming server for encrypting a data stream to a virtual smart card client system
- Apparatus, system and method for selectively encrypting different portions of data sent over a network
- Method and apparatus for protection of electronic media
- Media tracking system and method
- System, method, and apparatus for securely providing content viewable on a secure device
- Process and streaming server for encrypting a data stream
- Process and streaming server for encrypting a data stream
With the acquisition of WideVine, Google has gone from being one of the largest providers of content on the Web (with YouTube), to being one of the leaders of Video technology online.
And, amongst the patents above does seem to be technology for protecting and securely delivering other kinds of online media as well, such as music and electronic books.
Added December 7, 2010 – Google launched their ebook store yesterday, which I hadn’t realized when I wrote this post. It’s interesting that when you buy a book through Google, it’s stored on the cloud, and you can access it when you want, from a very wide variety of devices. Is WideVine technology already at work here? The Official Google Blog post is at: Discover more than 3 million Google eBooks from your choice of booksellers and devices.