Sony Anti-Piracy New Patent: enable URL / IP blacklist on Smart TV to monitor user content at system level

CTOnews.com, January 16, according to the latest report from foreign technology media Torrent Freak, Sony recently submitted a new technology patent [PDF] to prevent smart TVs and streaming media devices from running pirated applications.

Sony has long advocated a crackdown on piracy, but previously focused on PlayStation game consoles, music and video. The latest patents indicate that Sony also plans to deploy anti-piracy measures in smart TVs.

CTOnews.com learned that Sony described in the patent a system-level "monitoring" application that was integrated into Sony TV systems. The application contains a blacklist of known pirated network resources (such as URL and IP addresses). Once a third-party application accesses the resources on the blacklist, it will actively block its operation, or lower the video playback resolution, or irregularly suspend video playback to prevent users from playing pirated content.

At present, this is only a patent of Sony, so it is not possible to judge that Sony's smart TV devices will deploy this anti-piracy measure. There may be another problem with implementing the system: whether the monitoring system will consume a lot of system resources and affect the experience of Android smart TVs.