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Determining Your Policies on Reissuing Licenses
When you provide files for consumers to download, you need to consider different policies for your subscription service, such as whether to reissue licenses that have been lost, and whether to issue multiple licenses for the same file. These questions are closely related and apply to a variety of situations.
The following scenarios demonstrate some possible licensing situations, using the example of a music Web site:
- Scenario 1. A subscriber buys a new computer in the middle of a subscription period. She tries to download her favorite songs again from the music Web site. She needs new licenses because the original licenses are on her previous computer.
- Scenario 2. A subscriber reinstalls the operating system on his computer during a subscription period. He needs new licenses because all licenses that were previously issued are no longer valid.
- Scenario 3. A subscriber wants to listen to songs on multiple computers. She logs on to the music Web site from work and downloads a number of songs. Later, she copies the files to a disk, takes them home, and tries to play them. She needs a new set of licenses to play these songs on her home computer.
- Scenario 4. A subscriber shares his name and password for the music Web site with his friends, who each try to log in and download songs from the site. Each friend needs his own licenses to play these songs.
In each scenario, the basic question is the same: will you reissue licenses that the consumer has already received? In scenarios 1 and 2, the request for new licenses is legitimate—the subscriber simply lost licenses that were acquired legitimately and wants them replaced. Scenario 3 is a matter of policy; will you allow subscribers to play your digital media files on several different computers? You might not want to allow the request for additional licenses in scenario 4, but, in practice, this scenario might be difficult to distinguish from scenario 3.
One possible solution for addressing all scenarios is to track which licenses are issued to a subscriber and the number of times they are issued within a subscription period. Then, set a limit on the number of licenses that can be issued for a given file. This limit allows the subscriber to play your digital media files on different computers and to receive new licenses when the original ones are lost, while restricting him or her from sharing files with friends.
Another issue to consider is how you will reissue these licenses to subscribers. In scenario 1, you could deliver licenses when the files are downloaded again. In scenarios 2 and 3, the consumer already has the files, but no licenses, so you could reissue a license each time the subscriber tries to play each file by using the license acquisition URL in the file to trigger the process. However, if your subscribers are not connected to the Internet while playing each item, they will not be able to acquire the necessary licenses. Another possibility is to provide an option on your Web site that lets the subscriber receive all of the licenses on their current computer.
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