Charter’s continuing crusade against password sharing has led the cable company to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).
Charter is joining the coalition, which has largely focused on criminal piracy, to form a new working group focused on reducing unauthorized access to content. The group said it will provide opportunities to share best practices and information on what facilitates unauthorized access, including improper password sharing and inadequate encryption.
“The digital era has led to an explosion of new streaming platforms and a golden age in television,” said Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, Charles Rivkin, who is also chairman of ACE, in a statement. “But its openness has also brought challenges like piracy and unauthorized access that compromise the intellectual property that supports content creators and the economic viability of their work.”
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“We are very pleased that ACE and its coalition of members have committed through this initiative to take on unauthorized password sharing and other content security practices, and we look forward to working together on this important issue,” said Tom Rutledge, chairman and CEO of Charter Communications, in a statement. “Consumer, creators, and distributors alike will benefit from collaborative solutions that make content more secure and curtail unauthorized copyright use and distribution, while preserving the customer’s ability to enjoy the content rights they’ve purchased on the network, platform, device, and locations to which they subscribe.”
Charter joining ACE comes after earlier this month the operator enlisted Fox to help with implementing business rules to address unauthorized access to content. Charter reached a similar agreement with Disney over the summer. The deals with Disney and Fox, and now ACE, could signal an escalation of Charter’s efforts to combat password sharing. According to a years-old report from Bloomberg, Charter, during contract negotiations, was encouraging programmers to limit concurrent streams and to force pay TV subscribers to log in more often. The report also portrayed Disney as an ally in the fight against password sharing.