This alliance allows content owners to send DRM-protected media to users worldwide, using passwords issued by telephone. Fees are billed to the user's telephone.
"Our strategic partnership with MediaKey will allow webmasters to easily deploy their DRM solution in conjunction with our global billing solution," PasswordByPhone Business Development Manager Marc Jarrett told XBIZ. “Phone billing is very popular in Europe. In our experience, Europeans are reluctant to use their credit cards online, so phone billing for DRM-protected content is a valuable alternative for content providers offering premium and exclusive content. Phone billing can be used for both subscriptions and pay-per-view content and is well suited for both video and music content.”
The standard PasswordByPhone mechanism is the pay-per-view option. Multiple authentication modules are available with support for PPV sales as well as subscription-based services. Use of the DRM-PPV module is covered by a fee which is subtracted from the PasswordByPhone payouts.
The system can be used for promotional material, which can easily be tracked and changed from gratis to billable on the fly. Consumers' use of material can be limited to a number of replays. Content owners can offer dynamic payment options, so that users from a specific country or countries can be offered the pay-by-phone option.
“DRM clients are aggressively moving towards pay-per-view in order to sustain revenues from a fading subscription based market," MediaKey Chief Executive Officer Leon Standly said. "Obviously, our primary role is to provide rock-solid content protection, but in effect our palette of integrated billing options has proven to be very popular. We provide reliable billing integration modules to the world’s leading billing providers as an integral part of a MediaKey DRM solution. Our customers appreciate that they don’t have to switch billing providers to use a MediaKey DRM-solution.
“Phone billing also seems to be catching on in the U.S, so demand is expected to go up significantly as content providers are struggling with subscriber retention and [maintaining] credit card processing relationships,” Standly said.
For more information, visit MediaKey and PasswordByPhone.