Supported Billing Models

When integrating clients against Verimatrix’s Streamkeeper Multi- DRM system, choosing the right billing model is crucial for cost efficiency and scalability. Streamkeeper Multi-DRM is a token-based system for authentication and authorization. To access services tokens must be used. See "What is a token" for more details.

**Note: **License requests typically either result in success or failure. In both cases, this is still considered a transaction. To avoid incurring extra costs for failed license requests it’s important to monitor the number of errors clients generate and fix any error generating issues.

A comprehensive list of MDRM status codes is provided and can help identify where the problem might be occurring. The most common type of error is an expired token resulting in a failed request from a client.

Transaction-Based Billing Model

How It Works:

• You are charged per DRM license request (e.g., each time a user requests a license to play a protected video).• This is often used in pay-per-view (PPV), TVOD (Transactional VOD), or live event streaming models.• The cost scales with video views, making it flexible. For high-traffic services choosing the right tiered tier of requests reduces your cost. A Verimatrix sales representative is happy to explain in more detail.

Best Practices for Integration:

License Caching:• Reduce redundant license requests by caching licenses for the session duration.• Example: If a movie rental is valid for 24 hours, cache the license for that period instead of requesting it on every playback.

Pre-Fetching for Seamless Playback:• For live events, fetch licenses ahead of time to avoid delays.• Implement silent license renewal in the background to ensure continuous playback.

Token consderations:• Ensure tokens have expiration policies to prevent unauthorized reuse.• Tune your token generator to avoid sending expired or malformed tokens.

Subscriber or User-Based Billing Model

How It Works:

• You are charged per active subscriber or user per billing period (e.g., monthly per unique user).• Common in SVOD (Subscription Video-On-Demand) platforms.• Costs remain stable, making it easier to predict expenses.

Best Practices for Integration:

Uniquely identify subscribers• Use a unique value per subscriber per month. This should be anonymized for GDPR purposes.• Send the anonymized value to the Verimatrix service and randomly generate new values monthly.• Utilize Verimatrix’s randomizer for your Subscriber Management System (SMS) for easy integration. Our technical teams can answer questions you might have about this.

Implement User Authentication & Tracking:• Integrate DRM with your IAM (Identity & Access Management) system to track active users.• Ensure that only logged-in users can request DRM licenses.

Enforce Fair-Use Policies:• Set concurrent stream limits per subscriber (e.g., Netflix allows 2-4 concurrent streams per account).• Use session management to detect and prevent account sharing.

Optimize Server Calls per User:• Instead of fetching a new DRM license on every session, use refresh tokens or session tokens to reduce backend load.

Device-Based Billing Model

How It Works:

• You are billed per unique device that plays DRM-protected content.• Often used in hardware-based DRM solutions (e.g., Apple FairPlay, PlayStation, Smart TVs).

Best Practices for Integration:

Utilize persistency for browser based devices• Persist the device identification in the client so it is uniquely identified once.• Failing to persist device information results in the same device being counted multiple times.

Device Registration & Fingerprinting:• Use device ID tracking to manage registered devices per user.• Example: Store registered device info (model, OS, fingerprint) to limit unauthorized access.

Implement Device-Based Licensing:• Assign persistent licenses to devices where possible.• Avoid requesting a new license on every playback if the device is already registered.

Allow Device Management for Users:• Provide a user dashboard where subscribers can manage their registered devices.• Example: Allow users to remove old devices before adding a new one.