The New Era of Online Education - Boon or Bane?
With the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, the way we lived changed forever. Apart from covering faces with masks and incessant use of sanitizers, other changes were also significant. One such change was experienced in the educational sector. It became more digitized and there came a huge growth in the ed-tech industry. With new technologies coming over, the ed-tech industry continues to experience overwhelming growth, and with it, rise the need for content security because of the industry’s exposure to cyber crimes like piracy.
Studies reveal that the ed-tech market was valued at $254.80 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.52% reaching $605.40 billion by 2027. Online learning has enabled people to learn more innovatively and creatively by blurring geographical boundaries. The traditional methods of learning are constantly being erased by the much more advanced methods that facilitate easy and fast learning among individuals.?
Understanding Ed-Tech Better?
Education Technology or Ed-Tech is an outcome of rapid technological advancements in the modern era that employ the use of IT to enhance the learning experience. Before ed-tech, the traditional modes of learning included education in classes where students had to be physically present in order to learn from a teacher. Ed-tech was the most opted option during the epidemic and has only grown ever since.?
With the advent of technology in education also came the ever-existing problems of digital piracy in ed-tech companies. The rapid development of the sector has also increased the need for content security for businesses as many times, people share and duplicate premium content over the internet and social media, which results in significant loss of revenue for companies.?
Brands dealing in providing educational content to their users experience massive threats of piracy. For example, companies like Coursera, Udemy, etc. have to go through incidents where people buy their course and later sell it for cheaper prices within their peer networks and friends. According to MUSO, there were 52.5 billion visits to piracy sites. And when compared with the previous year, there was a horrifying 58.5% increase in visits to piracy websites in the publishing sector. Out of that, a significant 26.8% of visits were for content including ebooks, magazines, and newspapers.?
Impacts of Piracy on the Ed-Tech Industry?
The availability of illegal ed-tech content leads to severe ramifications that impact the brands and the population in many adverse ways than just a loss of revenue. According to a study conducted, digital video piracy leads to a revenue loss of $29.2 billion in the US.?
Here are some of the ways how piracy impacts the ed-tech industry:?
1. Inappropriate content: Brands dealing in content take utmost care to provide age-appropriate content to their users. However, with digital piracy in ed-tech companies, bifurcations according to age are not being made. This leads to children consuming inappropriate content on the web.?
2. Loss of Revenue: Pirated content makes brands lose a hefty amount of money out of their revenues as most people prefer consuming free pirated content online. The US content sector's annual losses amounted from $29.2 to $71.0 billion due to digital video piracy. Consequently, businesses are always eager to take care of their copyrighted content with the use of solutions to online piracy.?
3. Malware: Visiting pirated websites is a threat as it can lead to malware and viruses in computer systems. While visiting these sites the users come across numerous malicious ads and are forced to click on them and download malware and ransomware in order to pay later to get the access back. Pirates earn at least $121 million through malvertising.?
4. Leads to Job Loss: Piracy of ed-tech content, apart from ruining the brand image and ROI of a business, also leads to job losses. Content-producing businesses are at a significant boom in the technologically advancing world. However, when this content gets pirated at a resounding rate, it leads to job loss among individuals, which affects the economy of a country as well.?
How do digital piracy solutions provide content security??
To combat the prevailing threats of piracy, many ed-tech brands take the help of digital piracy solutions that allow them to protect their content from the malicious intents of pirates online. Here’s how anti-piracy solutions help brands:?
1. Pre-Piracy Solutions?
The pre-piracy stage of protecting the content allows brands to take precautionary measures against pirates, which avoids them from duplicating your premium content. In this phase, practices like watermarking and DRM are undertaken to avoid piracy. Embedding unique watermarks is one of the most effective solutions to online piracy that prohibits users from making copies of the content. Furthermore, during the process, existing technologies are evaluated for any loopholes that might result in online piracy.?
Pre-digital piracy solutions that can help:
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2. Post-Piracy Solutions?
Post piracy, as the name suggests, involves taking required rectifying measures after the content has been pirated and shared across. During the process, the anti-piracy protection companies monitor the content and any possible infringements and thefts that might have taken place against the brand. In case any suspicious acts are recorded, rectifying measures are being taken to take down pirated content from the internet.?
Post-digital piracy solutions that can help:?
3. Brand Management Solutions?
Pirated content online also affects the image of a company in a multitude of ways. The quality of the experience that the audience gets after consuming pirated copies of premium content is affected by internet speed, video quality, etc. Having a poor viewing experience affects the brand image. Many anti-piracy firms provide a solution to that by offering their expert brand management services. Regular checks are being conducted online to find matches in images, names, logos, or even social media that might be ruining the image of a company.?
Brand management solutions that can help:?
Other solutions for content security?
1. Creating awareness: Piracy in the ed-tech sector is easier because of the lack of information about the crime. To combat the repercussions, the easiest way to generate content security is by creating awareness among your potential audience about the persisting problem of content piracy.?
2. Taking legal action against the pirates: A simple reason why a crime like piracy is prevalent even when it is not legal is that organizations hardly take legal action against the pirate. When you come across an incident where your content is being pirated, it is best to report the crime.?
3. Registering your work: Being in an ed-tech business, you are constantly producing copyrighted content. However, if that is not registered officially, the risks of content piracy are higher. Also, it becomes easier for pirates to duplicate your content when it is not registered with the Copyright Office.?
4. Strict punishments: Even when piracy is illegal, people can easily produce pirated copies of work and get along with it because they know laws are not strict enough to stop them. Consequently, it is of utmost importance for us to have strict laws and punishments to fight piracy in the digitally advancing world and have content security.?
Living in an era where digitization is ruling over and content has become an indispensable part, content security becomes essential. Otherwise, it would not be late when innocent users would be duped with piracy and cyber threats.?
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Article Rights -? Bytescare :?Vineet Kumar,?Manish Jindal, CFA
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