Using content without rights can lead to legal action, but not making it available where you do have the rights is a waste of investment, says Paul Wilkins, director of solutions and marketing, TMD.

While there is, of course, huge ongoing change in the underlying technology, the fundamental principle of the media industry has not changed.

Consumers want to be informed, educated and entertained, and producers of content want to receive a fair income for meeting those desires.

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Paul Wilkins, director of solutions and marketing, TMD

Today, though, the customer is very much in charge, expecting to watch selected content at any time and on any device.

The only practical and cost-effective way of delivering all this content to all the different platforms is through the use of software-defined workflows in a file-based environment.

There are two key issues today. The first is around bringing all the metadata together such that it can be tracked, manipulated and enriched to provide the control for sophisticated automated workflows.

The second is that cloud architectures should be embraced to provide the rapid scalability needed to cover the peaks and troughs of activity.

Intellectual property

An important element of the first issue concerns intellectual property rights. As the delivery environment becomes exponentially more complex, then rights management becomes both more challenging and more vital.

Using content where you do not have the rights can lead to expensive legal action, but not making it available where you do have the rights is a waste of the enterprise’s investment.

A means has to be found for rights to be expressed in metadata such that automated workflows can act on it. IP law is complex. Planning, scheduling and playout, depends upon a highly flexible software platform. 

This article was first published at IBC2016.

The views expressed are those of the author.