WimLive – live streaming that makes economic sense

With WimLive the WimTV platform makes available another service to WimTV users: the ability to offer live streaming services with a simple way to get paid for the service, possibly in combination with other parties.

Off line monetization of events has never been a problem. Also on line monetization of large scale events is not a problem. However, on line monetization of medium-to-small scale live events is an uphill battle because:
1. Setting up and maintain a live streaming service may entail significant costs
2. The cost of collecting payments may easily offset the revenues
3. If more parties are involved it may be difficult to establish trusts between parties.

WimLive has solved these problems. Let’s follow a simple yet quite realistic walkthrough by looking at the picture below.

As you can see, everyone can stream own live events independently, deciding whether to transmit to his audience for free or in pay-per-view mode. In addiction, the system also offers the possibility of make live streaming in cooperation with other entities, dividing the proceeds among all participants. In particular:


1. An Event Organiser holding rights to an event makes an agreement with an Event Reseller to promote and distribute events to end users and agree on revenue sharing (this step is not needed if there is no Event Reseller)
2. The event takes places and a cameraman shoots the scene and sends the digital stream to WimTV
3. An end user clicks on the event, pays and watches the event
4. The payment is split between WimTV and Event Organiser
5. Payments are split also with the Event Reseller in case promotion and distribution is done by a third party.

WimLive is a Unified solution for on demand and live video where
- An arbitrary number of parties may claim rights to event
- Revenues are accredited to each party as soon as payments are effected
- WimTV plays the role of trusted third party
- WimLive entails very low administrative costs
- Can be easily integrated with other application platforms (Moodle…)

Who are the typical WimLive users?
1. Hotel chains
2. Organisers of cultural, musical and sport events
3. Companies offering training courses
4. Small to medium size film makers
5. Local TVs
6. And many more...

To run a WimLive event you need to 
1. Register on WimTV as a WebTV
2. Sending an email to sales@wimlabs.com to get a URL
3. Input a few data (date, time, duration, price to watch the event etc.)
4. And go!

What is a machine-readable license?

In recent years the use of digital technologies has increased dramatically, we can find these new technologies in all those contexts in which media content is created, distributed and consumed. Nowadays, for example, is possible to buy a single song on the internet, using only digital technologies. The broad use of these technologies has created a clash between those who create content, those who distribute them and who consume them.

In order to regulate the use and distribution of digital content licenses may be employed.

The license is a tool that aims to express what the users can and can not do with the licensed content (a video, a song, an ebook...).

To be machine-readable, licenses must be expressed in a particular way. For this reason a language called Rights Expression Language (REL) has been formalized .

One of the most important REL is the MPEG REL (MPEG-21 part 5). MPEG REL adopts a simple and extensible data model for many of its key concepts and elements. This data model consists of four entities and the relationship among entities. This basic relationship is defined by the MPEG REL assertion “grant”. The structure of the MPEG REL grant consists of the following: the principal to whom the grant is issued, the right that the grant specifies, the resource to which the right in the grant applies and finally the conditions that must be met before the right can be exercised.

In wim.tv the REL model is used for all transactions, be they B2C and B2B. The first is used between WebTvs and End Users, the latter between other actors. In these transaction it is possible to express payment and reissuing conditions.

Edoardo Radica