Superdistribution
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In 1990, a visionary architecture was developed for the distribution of digital goods. The Japanese Ryoichi Mori coined the term Superdistribution for this new concept of licensing digital goods. The fundamental idea is to allow free distribution of digital content, while controlling access to usage and changes with the content owner defining the terms. According to his prototype, called Software Service System (SSS), which was implemented as a peer-to-peer-architecture, the following components must be available:
- a persistent cryptographic wrapper must stay in place when the digital property is used, copied, redistributed, etc.
- a digital rights management system with a trusted tool that tracks the deals and the usage associated with the access to the digital property
- payment information has to be exchanged securely among the parties
Superdistribution is an approach to distributing digital goods in which the content is distributed from user to user instead of selling the goods in a computer store or web shop. The content may either be free or the user has to purchase a license when using the digital good for first time. This might be trialware or have a trial period before purchase is required. In the mobile environment superdistribution can be done e.g. via Bluetooth, IrDA or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). Because there cannot be any copy protection in the software the software usage is restricted with Digital Rights Management (DRM).
Superdistribution is very efficient because the distribution chain forms a tree where one user copies the software to all his friends. For example if one user copies the software to five of his friends and every one of them copies the software to other five friends it does not take long before hundreds of users have the software.
Today, there are over 280 phones models that support superdistribution based on OMA DRM - with companies like Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom exploring it.
