Requirement Specification for an online e-commerce

music distribution application

1. Introduction
1.1 Purpose
An online e-commerce music distribution application that acts as a
Manager/Agent for Musicians. The Musician interacts with the company
electronically.

Two types of users will access the application – customers and artists. The
artists can supply one (or more than one) single or one (or more than one)
album and the customer can purchase this music.

1.2 Document conventions To be discussed

1.3 Intended audience
- Anyone who is a musician to enable them to sell their music
- Customers/fans to purchase this music via an ecommerce interface to the
online music distribution application.

1.4 Additional information – not at this moment

1.5 Contact information/SRS team members: e@ecstasylove.org
2. Overall Description
2.1 Product functions

MAIN DISTRIBUTION SITE

- Ability to store and retrieve music by artists to be purchased by their

customers from an interface on the artists website
- Ability to produce reports for the manager of the distribution site, the
artists and their customers and option to generate statistics
- Ability to calculate how the payment from the customer is split between
the artists and the manager of the distribution site – i.e. fees and
commission (Please see appendix A)
- Ability to calculate royalties (Please see appendix A)
- Ability to generate invoices for artists and customers of artists (copy for
main distribution site)
- Ability to calculate and communicate royalty payments on a daily basis
- Ability to deliver music to the customer automatically (not manually), once
payment has been cleared and at the same time deliver payment to the
management and the artist pro rata
ARTISTS WEBSITE

- Ability for artist to sign up as artist, label or partner and to add or change
these attributes later
- Music player in the member’s control panel linked to the list of albums and
singles
- Option in the member’s control panel to select single or album play list and
for each single or album track in the list ability to play/edit/delete/pause
or drag the track up and down the order of the play list
- Ability for artists to upload music as: Wavpack, Wav, all other lossless
formats and MP3 (should always be 192k cbr)
- Ability for lossless tracks to be converted to Wavpack automatically
- Both Wavpack and MP3 format will be available for download by customer
after purchase
- Ability for artists to edit all aspects of tracks including single name and the
tracks themselves on a released album ( i.e. rename tracks once stored)
- Ability for artists to upload an unlimited quantity of tracks/albums by the
artists
- No limits on play length of tracks by the artists
- No limits on data size of tracks by artists. 48Hz + preferred
- Ability to release tracks on released albums also as a single by copying the
track to the singles directory
- Full length track preview
- Option for the artist to store a cover for a single and/or album – must be in
PNG format.

NB. Customer will get the cover and/or lyrics and other details when they
download the music

- Ability for customer to raise a dispute or contact main distribution centre

- Ability to display general statistics of plays and earnings on the main
member’s page section of the player on the artists website - all plays
yesterday/today/this week/this month/this year. Underneath this will be a
display of the statistics for all single track plays. And underneath that a
display of the statistics for all albums. These statistics will be arranged by
music genre.
- An up-to-date showcase in a publicly available area, of published singles
and albums with a facility to buy
- Pages for: about us, royalties and fees, help centre, legal notice, press,
careers, contact, report, copyright abuse (NB. This will be designed by Tom)
- Field to enter email to sign up to newsletter – could be used for mail shots
at a later stage ?? linked to customer database on main distribution site
- Secure
- White theme
 2.3 Data Structures/Elements

MAIN DISTRIBUTION SITE

- Database to store and retrieve music – (singles/albums) of all the different

artists by the artists – and then to be accessed for purchase by their
customers via an interface (player) on the artists website. Please see
Appendix B
- Database to store details: e.g. membership number of artists and their
customers and customer’s and artists payment details –
name/address/card/Paypal/Google checkout/nochex details etc. Please see
Appendix B

ARTISTS WEBSITE

- way of accessing and storing music (singles/albums) – by artists and their

customers respectively
- way of storing details of artists and customers for payment and for
mailshots
- way of indexing the music stored on the main distribution site

2.4 Operating environment

Adobe Flex 3 for building the application and Adobe Flash CS3 for any animations to
enhance the project

2.5 User environment

2.6 Design/implementation constraints Flex cannot connect directly to a database
– it has to be done server side and/or PHP etc
2.7 Assumptions and dependencies PHP/Flex/MySQL/Apache/Webhosting/Direct
Admin
3. External Interface Requirements
3.1 User interfaces
3.2 Hardware interfaces No
3.3 Software interfaces

Interface between the Flash players on the artist’s websites/myspace account

(where music will be loaded and retrieved) and the Apache http web server
Interface between Apache http web server and PHP

Interface between PHP and MySQL databases

Graphical interface between the customer and the Flash players on the artist’s
website/Myspace to purchase music. (NB. This will be designed by Tom. NB. The
html code to implement onto artist’s website to be produced by designer).

Interface between the MySQL databases on the main distribution site and
Paypal/Google checkout/nochex to process payment

3.4 Communication protocols and interfaces

4. Other Non-functional Requirements
4.1 Performance measurement/support
Part payment (? 50%) until application has been tested and trialled for an agreed
period of time. Then discussion about level of support necessary after this time.

4.2 Safety requirements

4.3 Security requirements
Once the html code which creates the player/shop – the interface for the
customer to purchase the music - is pasted onto the musician’s website or
Myspace – all data (customer payment records/music) is stored and accessed
from the main secure website – which has an SSL certificate.)
4.4 Reliability As appropriate – to be discussed
4.5 Quality As appropriate – to be discussed
4.6 Constraints and Limitations To be discussed
4.7 Performance Levels As appropriate – to be discussed
4.8 Software quality attributes
4.9 Project documentation
4.10User documentation

5. Other Requirements
To be discussed

Appendix A: Fees, Commission and Royalties

Artists Fees are €0.25 per song and €3.00 for each album

Cost for customers

Singles:
Price per download: €0.99
Management Fee per single download: €0.25
Artist’s Earnings per download: €0.74
Royalty payout rate 74%

Albums:
Price per download: €7.95
Management Fee per album download: €3.00
Artist’s Earnings per download: €4.95
Royalty payout rate 74%??

Royalty payments: daily/no minimum

Setup fee €0
Annual fee €0
Music cleared for sale: as soon as payment made

Appendix B: A conceptual view of some of the records required in the database.

Each artist will be able to store single tracks and albums of tracks in the database
(NB Genre of the song = Category)
References

https://ecstasylove.org/arts/music/ecstasymusic

http://ecstasymusic.com (link currently down))

http://soundloud.com (clone but more advanced)

http://sessionsound.com (features not in soundloud)

http://viu.eng.rpi.edu/lab/2/s2_2.html
(tutorial connecting MS Access to the web NB. However I am using
MySQL)