Altnet has built a sophisticated online content management area – Altnet BackOffice – where content partners can log in to set up, edit and monitor the files that they’re distributing via Altnet.

BackOffice provides a powerful and convenient system for assigning Digital Rights to files – here’s a screenshot showing how a content owner can choose to allow their files to be played free for one day, after which the user will be asked to pay 99c to be able to continue playing the file:

Here’s a quick overview of some of the digital rights management license options made available to content providers in BackOffice:

Altnet primarily uses Windows Media Digital Rights Management technology from Microsoft to enforce usage rights in audio and video files.

DRM-protected Windows Media files contain a set of flags, each of which encodes a specific right to play the file. There are over a dozen different rights usage flags – for instance one flag allows a file to be copied to CD in Redbook format, another allows the file to be played on an SDMI-compatible portable music player, etc.

For ease of use by our content providers and ease of understanding by our users we’ve factored all the flags into 3 convenient security ‘levels’:

HIGH SECURITY:
Play on PC only (requires WMP6.4 or later)
Do not allow burn to CD

MEDIUM SECURITY:
Play on SDMI-compatible device
Do not allow burn to CD

LOW SECURITY:
Play on any supporting device
Allow burn to CD in Redbook (audio) file format

Importantly, and unlike many other music services, Altnet allows each content provider to choose their own security settings for their content. For instance, a small band might be quite happy for people to download their files, burn them to CD and give the CD to their friends, but other artists might want to restrict this. Altnet gives you the choice.

Here’s where you choose the number of DAYS or number of PLAYS that you’d like to license your files for. You can select, say, 3 Days, or maybe just 1 Play.

Note that Windows Media 6 only supports Number Of Days, not Number Of Plays. If you select Number Of Plays your files will not work in Windows Media Player 6 (users will be asked to upgrade to Windows Media Player 9) so we suggest using Number Of Days if at all possible.

Important note: Many DRM providers only support Windows Media 7 or later. Altnet supports Windows Media 6 onwards. What’s the big deal, you ask, because everyone has Windows Media Player 7 or later, right? Not quite!
It turns out that many users play their audio files in players like WinAmp, Sonique and others – and these players often embed Windows Media Player version 6. So even though that user may have the latest version of Windows Media Player on their machine, they may still be playing their audio files using Windows Media Player 6.

Based on our stats, collected over tens of millions of files played: for audio files, 50% of .wma files are played in WMP6, 50% in WMP7 or later for video files, 30% of .wmv files are played in WMP6, 70% in WMP7 or later

If you’re distributing audio files and you select a DRM partner other than Altnet, one that only supports Windows Media 7 or later, you’ll be losing half your market!

In addition to setting the security levels and duration of a license, you can also choose whether license should be free or need to be paid for. You can even choose to issue, say, 3 free licenses lasting a day each, then ask the user to buy a 99c paid license – this is all easily done in Altnet BackOffice using the options shown above.

If you choose the Paid options then the purchase transaction will be made via Altnet’s Payment Gateway, a sophisticated e-commerce system that provides one-click purchases, and accepts credit cards, prepaid cards and even charging to a user’s phone bill (coming soon).