Transactions and service level agreements for online music distribution

Abstract

Online music distribution is currently experiencing a boom. While it is too early to proclaim the end of the audio CD format, agreement exists that in the future substantial amounts of music will be purchased online as digital files or audio streams. Furthermore, new applications like audio and video live streaming gain in importance. Regular download or streaming technologies, however, are not adequate for the demands of commercial online music distribution. In the course of this work the current practice in online music distribution is evaluated using a set of criteria called MAGICC criteria. It is found that current music streaming offerings do not fulfill all of these. Therefore, a new transaction concept using fuzzy transactions is introduced to solve this problem. It consists of fuzzy transactions, an architecture design to implement the fuzzy transaction concept, and a set of rules which form a simple commit protocol. Technical feasibility of the proposed concept is shown.