Have you ever watched a pirated movie online? What about buying a DVD that you thought was legit, but was actually printed before the film was even released to theaters? Content theft costs the entertainment industry billions of dollars a year, and is a major focus for law enforcement agencies around the world. But preventing physical theft is easy when compared to online piracy, and as both content distribution and production processes move to the public cloud it becomes ever more important to invest in protection mechanisms.

Microsoft is quite familiar with global anti-piracy efforts, and we believe that extending this attention to our customers’ environments is just as important as safeguarding our own intellectual property. That’s why I’m excited to announce Azure’s certification by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), making Azure the first public cloud to gain this accreditation.

The FACT certification is yet another demonstration of the investments we’re making in not only ensuring the security of your data, but in gaining your trust as a business partner. This audit joins the work we’ve completed for Azure Media Services, CDN, Storage, and other platform capabilities to prove compliance with established media-industry security best-practices, including Content Delivery and Security Association’s (CDSA) Content Protection and Security (CPS) Standard and the Motion Picture Association of America’s application and cloud security guidelines.

If you are interested in our latest attestations or information about Microsoft’s MPAA assessment, you can find it on the Microsoft Trust Center.