# SMSEC06-BP01 Collaborate with business and legal stakeholders to align on content protection requirements
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Content protection requirements must be established through collaboration between technical, business, and legal teams so that the implemented solution meets commercial obligations, regulatory requirements, and business objectives. This alignment is critical when serving copyrighted materials or high-value content that requires protection from unlawful access, replication, and redistribution.

**Desired outcome:**
+ Clear understanding of content protection requirements across all stakeholders
+ Compliance with legal and commercial obligations, and have alignment with technical implementation
+ Documented content protection policies and procedures
+ Established governance framework for content protection decisions

**Common anti-patterns:**
+ Organizations implement content protection technology without consulting legal teams about licensing agreement requirements, resulting in solutions that fail to meet contractual obligations with content owners.
+ Teams make digital rights management (DRM) and encryption decisions based solely on technical feasibility without considering the commercial value of content or the financial impact of piracy on different content tiers.
+ Organizations apply a single content protection level uniformly across all content regardless of value, over-protecting low-value content while under-protecting premium assets that require hardware-level DRM.
+ Teams deploy content protection solutions without documenting the requirements or rationale, making it impossible to verify compliance during content licensor audits.
+ Organizations fail to revisit content protection requirements as licensing agreements change or new distribution channels are added, operating with outdated protection schemes that no longer meet contractual obligations.

**Benefits of establishing this best practice:**
+ Cross-functional alignment keeps content protection implementations in line with specific clauses in licensing agreements, reducing the risk of contract violations that could result in content withdrawal or financial penalties.
+ Documented requirements from legal and business stakeholders identify the actual threat environment for each content category, enabling proportionate protection that addresses real piracy risks.
+ Technical teams implement solutions that directly support revenue protection goals, avoiding over-engineering that increases cost or under-protecting content that enables revenue leakage.
+ Understanding actual protection requirements avoids unnecessary investment in expensive DRM systems for content that only requires basic access control, while still providing premium content with appropriate protection.
+ Documented governance frameworks and protection policies provide evidence of due diligence during content licensor security audits and compliance reviews.

**Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established:** Medium

## Implementation guidance
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Organizations should establish a collaborative framework that brings together technical, business, and legal expertise to define content protection requirements. This involves understanding the value of content, distribution rights, target platforms, and applicable regulations. The process should result in clear documentation of protection levels required for different content types and use cases.

### Implementation steps
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1. **Establish a cross-functional team:** Establish a cross-functional team including representatives from the following:
+ Technical teams
+ Business teams
+ Legal teams
+ Compliance teams

1. **Conduct content assessment:** Conduct content assessment which involves evaluating content's value, sensitivity, and protection requirements.

1. **Identify regulatory obligations:** Identify licensing agreements, commercial and regulatory obligations.

1. **Determine protection levels:** Determine appropriate protection levels for different content categories.

## Resources
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**Related best practices**
+ [SMSEC06-BP02 Select a content protection scheme that meets business objectives](smsec06-bp02.html)