Third International Conference on WEB Delivering of Music (WEDELMUSIC'03)
Potato System and Signed Media Format - an Alternative Approach to Online Music Business
Leeds, United Kingdom
September 15-September 17
ISBN: 0-7695-1935-0
Thanks to modern compression techniques and increased bandwidth, the distribution of digital music via Internet has become affordable and easy. Many peer-to-peer (P2P) systems show this effect spectacularly. Therefore music publishers rely on so-called strong Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems which restrict and control the usage of their content. In this paper, we want to discuss a different approach. We introduce a new business model as well as a new file format. The system that we propose is called Potato. In Potato System the users play an active distribution part. Our approach motivates the users to re-distribute content they have paid for and earn money with it. The Potato System pays for any re-distributed file a defined percentage on commission. This allows a fast distribution of new content. The Potato System provides its own P2P clients which contact a central web-service. In the standard Potato System the identity of the last buyer is simply added to the file name. This is sufficient to reward re-distributing users. For well known major music we provide the so called Signed Media Format (SMF). In SMF files the user identity is signcrypted into the media content.
Citation:
J?rgen N?, R?diger Grimm, "Potato System and Signed Media Format - an Alternative Approach to Online Music Business," wedelmusic, pp.23, Third International Conference on WEB Delivering of Music (WEDELMUSIC'03), 2003