Management of Shared Media Content

• US 20070198532A1
• Filed: 01/07/2007
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sling Media LLC (Echostar Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sling Media Incorporated (Echostar Corporation)
• Inventors: Krikorian, Jason, Meckler, Brian
• Granted Patent: US 8,346,605 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.69
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/80 characterised by transmission among terminal devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/613 for the control of the source by the destination control signals issued by the client directed to the server or network components specially adapted for selective content distribution H04N21/637
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/756 adapting media to device capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/762 at the source reformatting of additional data in video distribution servers H04N21/2355
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/102 characterised by the element, parameter or selection affected or controlled by the adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/107 between spatial and temporal predictive coding, e.g. picture refresh
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/115 Selection of the code volume for a coding unit prior to coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/117 Filters, e.g. for pre-processing or post-processing sub-band filter banks H04N19/635
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/137 Motion inside a coding unit, e.g. average field, frame or block difference
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/14 : Coding unit complexity, e.g. amount of activity or edge presence estimation H04N19/146 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/152 : by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/162 : User input
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/164 : Feedback from the receiver or from the transmission channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/172 : the region being a picture, frame or field
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/182 : the unit being a pixel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/188 : the unit being a video data packet, e.g. a network abstraction layer [NAL] unit
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 : using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 : in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/80 : Details of filtering operations specially adapted for video compression, e.g. for pixel interpolation H04N19/635, H04N19/86 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/85 : using pre-processing or post-processing specially adapted for video compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23406 : involving management of server-side video buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 : involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 : being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2743 : Video hosting of uploaded data from client
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4325 : by playing back content from the storage medium reproduction of recorded television signals H04N5/76; reproduction of recorded television signals H04N9/79
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 : Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43615 : Interfacing a Home Network, e.g. for connecting the client to a plurality of peripherals home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] data switching networks H04L12/2805
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4383 : Accessing a communication channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4384 : involving operations to reduce the access time, e.g. fast-tuning for reducing channel switching latency
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44004 : involving video buffer management, e.g. video decoder buffer or video display buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4402 : involving reformatting operations of video signals for household redistribution, storage or real-time display details of conversion of video standards at pixel level H04N7/01; video transcoding H04N19/40; adapting incoming signals to the display format of the display terminal G09G5/005; media handling at the source in data packet switching networks H04L65/764
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 : communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/632 : using a connection between clients on a wide area network, e.g. setting up a peer-to-peer communication via Internet for retrieving video segments from the hard-disk of other client devices broadcast-related systems characterised by transmission among terminal devices H04H60/80; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6587 : Control parameters, e.g. trick play commands, viewpoint selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 : involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/165 : Centralised control of user terminal subsequent to an upstream request signal H04N7/17345; Registering at central by two-way working H04N7/17309

Abstract

A media device allows users to watch and capture portions from a media broadcast. Users may then share the captured media content items with other users, for example, by uploading the items to a community website. Before providing requested media content items to other users, the website may combine advertisements with the media content items. The website may receive advertising revenue from advertisers and may share the advertising revenue with owners of the media content items in exchange for their permission to provide the media content items. The advertisers may provide restrictions on how the advertisements are combined with the media content items, and the content owners may provide restrictions on how the media content items are provided to the users.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for providing media content to users, the method comprising:

receiving the media content from users of a community website;

combining advertisements with the received media content;

providing the combined media content and advertisements to the users upon requests for the media content;

receiving advertising fees from one or more advertisers in exchange for providing the advertisements to the users; and

providing a portion of the advertising fees to one or more owners of the media content in exchange for permission to provide the media content to the users.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the media content comprises receiving the media content through a network from at least one selected from a group consisting of:

a personal video recorder, a place shifting system, and a media player client.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the media content comprises video clips.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving restrictions associated with the media content from the owners, the restrictions indicating one or more limitations on how the media content is provided to the users.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein one or more of the restrictions limit the advertisements that can be combined with the media content.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein one or more of the restrictions limit the length of the media content that can be provided to the users.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein one or more of the restrictions limit a quality characteristic of the media content that can be provided to the users.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the quality characteristic is selected from a group consisting of:

a resolution, a frame rate, and a bit rate.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein one or more of the restrictions limit the number of users who can be provided a particular item of the media content.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein one or more of the restrictions identify a particular item of the media content that cannot be provided to the users.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving restrictions associated with the advertisements from the advertisers, the restrictions indicating one or more limitations on how the media content is combined with the advertisements; and

applying the restrictions when combining the advertisements with the media content.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein one or more of the restrictions limit the subject matter of the media content that can be combined with a particular advertisement.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein one or more of the restrictions limit the number of times a particular advertisement can be provided to the users.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein combining the advertisements with the media content comprises displaying the advertisements as overlays to the media content.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertising fees are determined by one or more of:

the owner, the advertiser, and an operator of the community website.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a portion of the advertising fees to the users from whom the media content was received.

17. A computer-implemented method for sharing content items among members of a community, comprising:

receiving a content item from a first member;

receiving a request for the content item from a second member;

providing the content item with an advertisement to the second member, the advertisement being associated with an advertiser;

receiving an advertising fee from the advertiser in exchange for providing the advertisement to the second member; and

providing a portion of the advertising fee to an owner of the content item in exchange for permission to provide the content item to the second member.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein receiving the content item comprises receiving the content item through a network from at least one selected from a group consisting of:

a personal video recorder, a place shifting system, and a media player client.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the content item comprises a video clip.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

receiving restrictions associated with the content item from the owner, the restrictions indicating one or more limitations on how the content item is provided to the second member.

21. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

receiving restrictions associated with the advertisement from the advertiser, the restrictions indicating one or more limitations on how the content item is combined with the advertisement; and

combining the advertisement and the content item based on the restrictions, wherein providing the content item with the advertisement comprises providing the combined content item and advertisement to the second member.

22. A computer program product for providing media content to users, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code for performing a method comprising:

receiving the media content from users of a community website;

combining advertisements with the received media content;

providing the combined media content and advertisements to the users upon requests for the media content;

receiving advertising fees from one or more advertisers in exchange for providing the advertisements to the users; and

providing a portion of the advertising fees to one or more owners of the media content in exchange for permission to provide the media content to the users.

23. The computer program of claim 22, wherein receiving the media content comprises receiving the media content through a network from at least one selected from a group consisting of:

a personal video recorder, a place shifting system, and a media player client.

24. The computer program of claim 22, wherein the media content comprises video clips.

25. The computer program of claim 22, wherein the method further comprising:

receiving restrictions associated with the media content from the owners, the restrictions indicating one or more limitations on how the media content is provided to the users.

26. The computer program of claim 22, wherein the method further comprising:

receiving restrictions associated with the advertisements from the advertisers, the restrictions indicating one or more limitations on how the media content is combined with the advertisements; and

applying the restrictions when combining the advertisements with the media content.

27. A system for providing content to a user, comprising:

a web server for receiving media content items from users of a website, and the web server configured to receive requests from users for media content items and, responsive to the requests, to provide the requested media content items in combination with advertisements to the requesting users, the advertisements associated with one or more advertisers and the media content items associated with one or more owners;

an application server coupled to the web server, the application server configured to combine the media content items with one or more advertisements; and

a payment server for debiting the advertisers associated with the provided advertisements for an advertising fee in exchange for providing the advertisements and crediting the owners associated with the provided media content items for a royalty payment in exchange for permission to provide the media content items.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the media content items are received through a network from at least one selected from a group consisting of:

a personal video recorder, a place shifting system, and a media player client.

29. The system of claim 27, wherein the media content items comprises video clips.

30. The system of claim 27, wherein the web server is further configured to receive restrictions associated with the media content items from the owners, the restrictions indicating one or more limitations on how the media content items are provided to the users.

31. The system of claim 27, wherein the web server is further configured to receive restrictions associated with the advertisements from the advertisers, the restrictions indicating one or more limitations on how the media content items are combined with the advertisements;

and apply the restrictions when combining the advertisements with the media content items.

32. A computer-implemented method for providing media content to users, the method comprising:

receiving media content items from users of a community website, at least some of the content items associated with content owners having rights to distribute the media content items;

receiving restrictions associated with one or more of the media content items from the content owners, the restrictions indicating one or more limitations on how the media content items can be provided to the users;

receiving requests for the media content items from users of the community website;

and

providing the requested media content items to the users in response to the requests, the content items provided only in accordance with the associated restrictions.