Business Scenarios

MediaKey not only solves a number of the challenges that media owners are facing today. MediaKey turns todays largest challenges into even bigger revenue opportunities.

Some of today's challenges are:

• Peer-To-Peer (P2P) Services: Increase Revenue and Prevent Piracy
• Public Announcements: Restrict release to a certain date and time
• Regional Control: Limit the viewing to certain geographic areas
• Music distribution: Avoid piracy
• Statistics: Tracking usage of individual media
• Magazine CD-ROM's: Charging for Videos
• Subscription Services: Downloaded content is played after subscriptions expire
• Rental Servies: Time-limited viewing
• Live Internet Broadcast: Real Time Protection
• Company Presentations: Protection of Sensitive Material

Peer-To-Peer (P2P) Services: Increase Revenue and Prevent Piracy
One of the biggest problems today is that music and videos are copied illegally and freely on P2P (peer to peer) services like Kazaa, eMule and eDonkey. By encoding your music and video using MediaKey, you can control who is allowed to play your content.

The typical way of implementing MediaKey is to encode the content, but silently allow every consumer to play the content spreading it around the globe using the P2P services.

When a critical number of consumers plays the content on a daily basis (for instance more than 500 consumers per day) the MediaKey system will automatically block every play and require the consumer to pay a small fee for playing the media.

The outcome is that the P2P networks are turned into an extremely efficient and free - distribution channel for all your media.

Piracy Facts 33% of current music downloaders use P2P networks and 24% of them swap music over email. Some 15% of Internet users report to have downloaded videos onto their computer (PEW Internet and ComScore Media Metrix).

60% of all Internet traffic is Peer-To-Peer (P2P) traffic where people share illegal copies (Cornell Internet Usage Statistics).

Public Announcements: Restrict release to a certain date ane time
Many companies wants to distribute media along with public announcement but choose not to because the receiver will be able to view it as soon as he receives the media.

When the media is protected with MediaKey the receiver will not be able to play the media before the date and time determined by the company.

Along with this comes the possibility of controling which countries the media is allowed to be be played in. A company may want to release different announcements to different countries without each country being able to view one anothers.

As a result of the above mentioned, companies will be able create very powerful presentations for their public announcement, while still retaining full contol of when and where it is available.


Geographic Control: Limit the viewing to certain geographic areas
Video rental services are limited to distribute their videos in a specific country only.

With normal video distribution over the Internet today rental companies have no way of controlling the international usage of the video once it is put on the Internet.

This prevents the video rental services from profiting from new business opportunities for broadband rental.

MediaKey's Geo Control enables all media distributors to control very precisely the countries in which his media is playable.

You can even see statistics of how many people that tries to play your media in unlicensed countries. This will help you determine whether it is profitable to purchase rental rights in the specific country.


Music distribution: Avoid piracy
Independent artists and small record companies are faced with a number of challenges when using the Internet for selling music. This prevents them from getting their share of the huge profit made today from online music sales.

With record shop distribution a song quickly finds its way to P2P networks like Kazaa and eDonkey. On top of this, it is difficult to sell a single song for $1 via credit cards since the processing fees would quickly eat up the profit.

With MediaKey artists and record companies have the possibility of protecting their music so it will only be playable by paying consumers. Consumers who have not yet paid for the music can have the choice of playing the song once before they are presented with a billing page.

The first time a consumer purchases music he deposits at least $10 in his MediaKey account enabling him to buy songs for $1 without placing any processing fees on the artists or record companies.


Statistics: Tracking usage of individual media
The biggest challenge in ad campaigns is to fully know the quality and result of the market penetration.

By encoding your media with MediaKey and using the "silent delivery" license type, all usage statistics can be collected without troubling the user with questionaries.

All usage data is collected along geographical information and saved in our databases. The summarized data are then made available as executive and detailed reports.

This provides a true picture of your market penetration with your ad campaign.

Additionally you can require viewers to visit a campaign website or fill out a poll before getting access to watch the video.


Magazine CD-ROM's: Charging for Videos
A limited number of magazines are sold today at a premium together with a CD or DVD.

As CDs and DVDs are inexpensive to produce it is feasible to include a DVD with cartoons with a Donald Duck magazine.

By encoding some of the media on the DVD or CD with MediaKey you can charge the reader for viewing those encoded parts.


Subscription Services: Downloaded content is played after subscriptions expire
Today when a subscriber to an online service, cancels his subscription, he will be able to continue viewing the downloaded media after his membership expires. This is especially a problem for trial memberships.

By using MediaKey you can control when it is allowed to play your media and how to react when he attempts to play a video after the subscription has been canceled / expired.

A typical reaction to an attempt to play a video after the subscription has been canceled, is to offer a new subscription to the same site.

This will immediately increase the online service's revenue with no other changes than just protecting the media with MediaKey.


Rental Servies: Time-limited viewing
Many consumers wants the possibility of renting a movie instead of buying it. MediaKey enables content owners to rent their content out by using time-based licenses.
For instance, consumers might rent a movie that allows them to view it any number of times during the next 30 days. If the user attempts to play the media after the rental period, he is given the opertunity of renting the media again. The billing process is handled within Windows Media Player to ensure a minimal delay between attempt to play and billing.


Live Internet Broadcast: Real Time Protection
With MediaKey content owners can deliver protected live digital media content over the Internet as the events are happening, without requiring that the content is first saved, encoded and then broadcasted. Encryption is done on-the-fly so consumers won't experience any delay.
For example, a TV station could offer a live broadcast on the Internet of a national soccer match. With MediaKey the live-streaming is encrypted and broadcasted live. After the consumers buys a license they can watch the protected live performances streamed over the Internet as they occur.


Company Presentations: Protection of Sensitive Material
A company can protect sensitive digital media assets, such as recorded company presentations, by using MediaKey. For example, employees that are unable to attend a company meeting can view the taped presentation at a later time.
Because the company doesn't want the information to leak out to its competitors, it has protected the streamed content by using MediaKey. When the employees select to view the presentation from their computers, a one-time license for the content is issued silently, and the video begins streaming.