Let’s face it, pirated content is no joke. While it may seem like fun and games for folks to download torrents of their favorite movies, for example, but this kind of theft hurts a lot of people, from content creators to distributors and move. Fortunately, there are companies that can do something about the pirating of content. One such company is Irdeto (News - Alert), and I had a chance to speak with that company’s VP of sales for the Americas, Paul Ragland, about Irdeto’s history, position in the space, and future.

Irdeto has been around for 40 years, evolving from a traditional conditional access provider to a company that deals with pirated content. Initially, it developed cryptographic hardware, and Ragland stated that this is still a legacy part of the business. Now, however, Irdeto has strong partnerships with ISPs, and looks for pirated content, sending shutdown notices.

The company put a lot of time and effort into repositioning itself in this space, going on an acquisition spree to position itself within the connected world. It’s brought on content management, DRM and other solutions to stay ahead of the market and maintain a strong position in relation to competitors. Now it works with cable operators like Comcast (News - Alert), as pay TV operators represent the bread and butter for the company.

In the future, Ragland stated that Irdeto will continue to show off the strength of its studio-approved technologies to protect TV everywhere platforms, bolstering that offering with other security managed services. Its strength lies in software-based security and services, but the company does manage the whole ecosystem, from wherever it originates all the way to consumer devices.