Sofy.tv: An EPFL startup that tattooes short films against piracy

A new cutting-edge streaming service, Sofy.tv, offers short-film makers a free and secure platform for showcasing their work. The platform uses numerous technologies developed at EPFL, including tempocodes - as tattoos embedded in the film footage - to prevent piracy. Sofy.tv is a brand new video-on-demand service designed specifically for films lasting less than 40 minutes. Two EPFL researchers who are film makers themselves with a particular passion for shortand medium-length movies created the platform to make shorts available to a broader audience than just film festival enthusiasts. They also created the Ouchy Film Awards, which are held in Lausanne. But what sets this new video streaming service apart from all the others available online? "There are more than five billion videos on YouTube, for instance, and you get about 63 million hits if you search for 'short film'. It's really difficult to narrow down your search, and the quality of the films you get is not always great," says Sami Arpa, one of the co-founders of Sofy.tv.