Rights-based commerce: Efficiency and security for over 400 content services

The client: Creating a new lifestyle

The SoftBank Group is one of the leading providers of internet access and services in Japan. The aim of the company is to exploit all opportunities for innovation offered by the digital revolution. The SoftBank Group includes the cable services provider SoftBank BB, SoftBank Mobile, Japan Telecom und Yahoo Japan. SoftBank Mobile claims 17 % of the national market in Japan, making it the country’s third-largest mobile communications provider. The corporation also offers access to its service delivery platform’s technological infrastructure for its external content providers; these include music, broadcast, shopping and entertainment services.

The challenge: One DRM platform for multiple content providers

Selling content means selling the rights to use that content. But rights-based commerce demands complex technological infrastructure – and this may prove cost-inefficient for a single content provider. SoftBank needed a solution for its digital rights management business: one that offered flexible technology that enabled external content providers to securely serve their content subscribers. These business customers („clients“) needed to be able to use SoftBank’s service delivery platform without extensive investment or training. Furthermore, they needed to be able to market data-rich premium content, such as video. This presented a problem: data-rich content demands broadband internet access, and this is not universally accessible for mobile devices. To answer this, SoftBank needed DRM technology that also enabled its users to download content not only to mobile telephones but also to personal computers via broadband (fixed-line) internet access.

The solution: Rights-based commerce with CoreMedia DRM Offline Packager

SoftBank chose CoreMedia DRM, the digital rights management solution from CoreMedia. Integration of the solution in the SoftBank service delivery platform was undertaken by CoreMedia’s partner, Hitachi.

Content providers who use SoftBanks’s digital rights management system for their content subscriptions simply allocate a license to each of the files they offer, using the CoreMedia DRM Offline Packager. This license defi nes the user rights for each item, and is automatically delivered with each download. To date, more than 400 external service and content providers are using the CoreMedia DRM Offline Packager to conveniently access and manage CoreMedia DRM functionality via the internet.

SoftBank offers more than direct-to-mobile downloads: data-rich premium content can be quickly downloaded onto the user’s personal computer and then conveniently transferred to the mobile telephone. Thanks to the OMA DRM 1.0, OMA DRM 2.0 and Windows Media DRM open industry standards, CoreMedia DRM supports convergent services, offering seamless functionality on all digital end devices. With the implementation of CoreMedia DRM, SoftBank has successfully shown that rights-based commerce offers a profitable business model for marketing digital content.