Digital Rights Management

DRM, or Digital Rights Management, is concerned with ensuring that the owner of the intellectual property is properly noted, use is tracked and allowed only to the licensee/payee, and that proper payments are facilitated.  This is particularly important with gifting, as the buyer will be different than the recipient that uses the content and thus has the rights.

DRM is evolving to become more robust, not being tied to just the device, but rather being network-based, allowing more pervasive management and more complicated usage scenarios.

Wireless Payments and Settlements

From the operator and supplier perspective, wireless entertainment is of no value unless it can be properly billed and that all parties are paid appropriately.  Many use cases must be supported including end-user invoked versus push-based, post-paid versus prepaid versus third-party subsidized, carrier billing systems or billing-on-behalf-of (BOBO) versus third party payment systems, and various scenarios based on the type of content, service or application.

In each of these scenarios, the wireless entertainment mediation entity must somehow assist in the rating, billing, and settlement among all parties.  Settlement entails recording events and issuing settlement payments among the parties based on predetermined compensation arrangements.