MPA Upgrades Trusted Partner Network To Boost Security In Studio Supply Chains

The Motion Picture Association is upgrading a platform and services that assess content security safeguards of producers and their suppliers.

The Trusted Partner Network , in which members' content security is measured against a set of best practices, will now include software and cloud security assessments, adding to those of physical locations and home workplaces. The intent of the Trusted Partner Network , being relaunched as the TPN+ platform, is to have a set of standards for vendors as a way to prevent instances like the pre-release leaks of footage from major blockbusters.

The new platform is designed to help members manage and communicate their content security status, including with non-TPN security certificates such as ISO and Soc2, along with conforming to a set of updated MPA best practices. The Trusted Partner Network includes smaller firms and large pre- and post-production companies, as well as content owners.

The MPA launched the Alliance for Creativity in Entertainment, a global network of companies to combat piracy , in 2017. The Trusted Partner Network was started the following year. The MPA has long had the set of content security best practices, but under the Trusted Partner Network, a vendor's safeguards are scrutinized and studied by third party assessors. It's up to content owners to make their own decisions on which vendors and suppliers to use based on the risk assessment.

Karyn Temple, senior executive vice president and global general counsel at the MPA, said, "We like to talk about the fact that Trusted Partner Network, plus ACE, is us protecting content from script to screen, having that 360 degree content protection, content security pipeline to ensure that the legal marketplace for film, television and streaming is able to thrive."

Terri Davies, the president of TPN, said that until recently, the program has only done physical site security assessments, of things like cameras and locked doors. But the pandemic brought a greater urgency to update the program. "With Covid, of course, the migration of the industry to the cloud was significantly accelerated, because all of those buildings that we were assessing had to close down," Davies said. "So what we're launching now is application and cloud security assessments."

The upgrade also is designed to provide greater functionality and flexibility to the platform. The Trusted Partner Network was created as a way to streamline the process of determining a vendor's level of security safeguards, rather than have all content owners duplicate that process.

Davies said that the early adopters who have signed up for the program "range from small husband and wife mom and pop shops in Bangalore, passionate about doing visual effects, all the way up to multimillion dollar entertainment companies who span the globe."

She added, "We've created much more of a matrix understanding that in today's world, to really appreciate somebody's security posture, you have to understand their full technology stack, and really examine each component piece that makes up the service that they are providing."