EXAMENSARBETE INOM TEKNIKOMRÅDET INFORMATIONSTEKNIK OCH HUVUDOMRÅDET INFORMATIONS- OCH KOMMUNIKATIONSTEKNIK, AVANCERAD NIVÅ, 30 HP STOCKHOLM, SVERIGE 2016 Embedding premium video in social streams NICOLÒ SOLANO KTH SKOLAN FÖR INFORMATIONS- OCH KOMMUNIKATIONSTEKNIK Embedding premium video in social streams NICOLÒ SOLANO Master’s Degree Project Stockholm, Sweden April 2016 ABSTRACT igital videos are a sequence of bits encoded in a universal recognized format. Bits are easy to copy, duplicate and reproduce. However, certain videos have a very high financial Dvalue and therefore the respective owners want to protect them according to the Copyright law, in order to acquire the exclusive rights to publish and to reproduce them. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is the technology used nowadays to protect video distribution and to maintain at the same time a complete control over the usage of the owned resources. Another actual phenomenon is the increasing number of social users, in all the different age ranges. Since social networks are moving towards becoming publishing platforms and many allow third party applications and integration, the project aims to achieve a safe and secure integration of DRM protected videos into social media. In fact, as now this kind of videos are accessible only from proprietary applications, after the payment of a subscription. The major challenges that prevent an easy integration of these technologies are represented by the poor APIs offered by social networks and a market fragmentation created by the existence of several DRM systems and Adaptive Bitrate protocols. After an extensive analysis of video streaming technologies and social networks, we chose Facebook as social network of reference and we described both the backend architecture and the frontend requirements of a web application aiming to stream DRM protected videos in Facebook. However, the solution has to face the following impediments: the impossibility to embed DRM technologies in social mobile platforms and to show protected video content directly from the social News Feed. To this extent, we proposed two alternative solutions by looking at the problem from the social network point of view. Finally, in order to evaluate the quality and the utility of the proposed web application, we conducted a user experience test. The results pointed out a diffuse interest and appreciation. However, the two drawbacks mentioned above are perceived as a negative factor. The proposed application results instead portable on all the desktop browsers and on the 90 percent of social mobile platforms. i DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis work is the conclusion of a Double Degree program between Politecnico di Milano and KTH. The whole project has been conducted in the Accedo offices (Stockholm), from September 2015 to February 2016. I want to dedicate the project to all the members of my family: my brother, companion of life with his humor and vitality, and my parents, because I could not have done anything without the love and support that they have never failed to give me. I also want to thank my grandparents who are unique role models and point of reference with their strength and strong values, and my aunts, for the immense affection they have always given me in all these years, since I was a child. All of you contributed to my growth and education, with your example and support, and I am really happy to celebrate this important achievement with you. A special thank goes to all the people from the Accedo office, in which I spent six beautiful months. In particular, I want to thank my technical supervisor Niklas Björkén for his helpfulness and support. I would also like to thank all the professor that I encountered during my academic career in Politecnico di Milano and KTH. In particular, my supervisors Marco Brambilla and Peter Sjödin, who have been a reference point for comparisons and suggestions for my final project. Last but not least, an important thank goes to all my friends, who walked by my side in these years and shared with me wonderful and unique experiences. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Figures ix 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Overview ............................................ 1 1.2 Motivation ........................................... 2 1.3 Problem statement ...................................... 3 1.4 Goals............................................... 3 1.5 Proposed solution ....................................... 4 1.6 Methodology description................................... 5 1.6.1 Background study .................................. 5 1.6.2 Design and implementation ............................ 5 1.6.3 Analysis ........................................ 6 1.7 Thesis outline ......................................... 6 2 Analysis of Digital Right Management in video distribution7 2.1 Why is DRM important?................................... 7 2.2 Functional architecture ................................... 8 2.3 DRM system Architecture.................................. 8 2.4 Different DRM vendors.................................... 12 3 Background study 15 3.1 Social networks ........................................ 15 3.1.1 Facebook........................................ 15 3.1.2 Twitter......................................... 16 3.1.3 Tumblr......................................... 17 3.1.4 Google+......................................... 17 3.2 Adaptive Bitrate streaming................................. 18 3.2.1 Background...................................... 18 3.2.2 Different solutions.................................. 19 3.3 Relevant standards for integrating DRM and Adaptive Bitrate protocols in HTML5 21 v TABLE OF CONTENTS 3.3.1 CENC.......................................... 22 3.3.2 MSE .......................................... 23 3.3.3 EME .......................................... 23 3.4 JSON Web Token ....................................... 24 3.5 Related work.......................................... 25 4 Proposed solution 27 4.1 Video streaming opportunities in social platforms.................... 27 4.1.1 Desktop ........................................ 27 4.1.2 Mobile ......................................... 29 4.2 Limitations........................................... 29 4.3 Proposed solution ....................................... 30 4.3.1 Facebook as social network............................. 30 4.3.2 Video player requirements............................. 31 4.3.3 Maintaining the playback status ......................... 33 4.3.4 Application use cases ................................ 33 4.3.5 Backend architecture ................................ 35 4.4 Alternative solutions ..................................... 38 4.4.1 Improve the default video player ......................... 38 4.4.2 Integration of external DRM-capable video players .............. 40 5 Implementation 41 5.1 Phoenix Framework...................................... 41 5.1.1 Phoenix components................................. 42 5.1.2 Plug........................................... 42 5.1.3 Ecto........................................... 44 5.2 Data Model........................................... 44 5.2.1 Database specifications............................... 45 5.3 Authentication: Guardian framework........................... 46 5.3.1 Guardian’s configurations.............................. 46 5.3.2 Guardian’s plugs................................... 47 5.4 Fluidity............................................. 48 5.5 Page dispatcher ........................................ 49 5.6 Video player .......................................... 49 5.6.1 Desktop ........................................ 49 5.6.2 Mobile ......................................... 50 6 Analysis 51 6.1 Portability test......................................... 51 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS 6.1.1 Results......................................... 52 6.2 User experience evaluation ................................. 52 6.2.1 Data collection .................................... 52 6.2.2 User test description................................. 53 6.2.3 Data analysis..................................... 53 6.2.4 Results......................................... 55 6.3 Discussion ........................................... 62 6.3.1 Portability....................................... 62 6.3.2 User experience.................................... 62 7 Conclusion 65 7.1 Conclusions........................................... 65 7.2 Future work .......................................... 66 7.3 Business, ethical and societal aspects........................... 67 A Appendix A 69 Bibliography 73 vii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE Page 2.1 Functional architecture of a DRM system........................... 9 2.2 Overview of a DRM system architecture............................ 11 2.3 DRM systems supported by currently existing devices and platforms.......... 13 3.1 High-level view of an Adaptive Bitrate protocol ....................... 19 3.2 Principal characteristics of currently existing Adaptive Bitrate protocols . 21 3.3 Browsers supporting MSE and EME standards ....................... 22 3.4 Communication flow of JWT authentication ......................... 25 4.1 Video streaming possibilities on social networks....................... 28 4.2 Backend architecture of the proposed solution........................ 36 5.1 Entity-Relationship diagram corresponding to the Data Model of the proposed applica- tion.................................................. 44 5.2 Sequence diagram showing how the session fluidity between