Adamya Sharma / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Sony has filed a patent for an anti-piracy monitoring app on media gamers and TVs.
- The app would block or degrade the efficiency of sideloaded apps that enable pirated content material.
- This could doubtless be for Android TV as Sony makes use of this platform for its good TVs.
Sony isn’t any stranger to preventing piracy, be it on the PlayStation aspect of issues or within the music and video landscapes. Nonetheless, the corporate’s newest anti-piracy measure may goal Android TV.
The Japanese big filed a brand new patent software to dam piracy apps on good TVs and streaming units, Torrent Freak reported. In fact, Sony makes use of the Android TV platform for its good TVs, suggesting that this anti-piracy measure may certainly come to Google’s platform in a restricted vogue.
So how does this anti-piracy function work?
The corporate describes using a system-level “monitor” software that might kind a part of the working system. This software accommodates a block record of recognized pirated community sources (e.g. URLs and IP addresses) and would then determine third-party apps accessing mentioned sources. From right here, the monitor app would block the third-party app from operating, throttle it to supply a degraded expertise, or pause the content material at irregular intervals to frustrate viewers.
That is only a patent proper now, so there’s no assure this anti-piracy function will really land on business Sony units. Nonetheless, it nonetheless raises loads of questions. For one, it’s important to ponder whether this monitor app may hog system sources, leading to a chugging expertise on Android TV. There’s a precedent for this too, because it’s not unusual to see choppier efficiency in PC video games with anti-piracy measures.
Would you purchase a TV with an anti-piracy monitoring app?
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Torrent Freak additionally factors to the corporate’s CD rootkit scandal from 2005. This noticed Sony secretly set up software program on PCs after customers inserted an audio CD into the disc drive. The software program was meant to stop CD copying but additionally shipped with vulnerabilities that had been exploited by malware. Moreover, the software program would report on the person’s listening habits and would show to be troublesome to uninstall.
In different phrases, you actually have to wonder if a future anti-piracy software on Sony’s Android TVs would introduce these similar points.
