Providing a limited use syndicated media to authorized users

• US 20070219910A1
• Filed: 06/09/2006
• Published: 09/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Martinez, Ronald
• Granted Patent: US 9,270,680 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/51
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2463/101 applying security measures for digital rights management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles

Abstract

A system and method for providing a limited use syndicated media item to authorized users. In one embodiment, a universal resource identifier that identifies the syndicated media item may be limited to a predetermined number of times it may be accessed by a particular user. In one embodiment, the limited use URL may or may not be associated with an already authorized media item. In another example, the URL may be limited to being accessed a predetermined number of times during a predetermined period of time, such as no more than three times a day. In a further example, the URL may be limited to a predetermined number of instances the URL may be accessed or distributed by a user. In one embodiment, once the predetermined threshold has been met, further attempts to access will result in the extent of access being affected.

Claims

1. A method of authorizing a syndicated media provider to send a limited use syndicated media item to a syndication subscriber, the method comprising:

receiving a first message from the syndication subscriber, the first message comprising a syndication subscriber identifier and a syndicated media item identifier that identifies the limited use syndicated media item, the syndication subscriber receiving the limited use syndicated media item identifier using a syndication retriever that periodically requests updates from a syndicated content provider;

determining whether the syndication subscriber is authorized to receive the limited use syndicated media item identified by the syndicated media identifier; and

in response to a positive determination of authorization, authorizing the communication of the limited use syndicated media item to the syndication subscriber.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of determining whether a threshold value associated with the limited use syndicated media item has been reached, wherein if the threshold value has been reached, the extent of data associated with the limited use media item that is made available to the syndication subscriber is affected, and if not reached, the extent is not limited.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the syndicated subscriber obtains the syndicated media item identifier from an indicator in a syndication feed that can be resolved to retrieve the syndicated media item.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the indicator is a URL to the syndicated media provider.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the indicator is a URL to an authorization computer.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the authorization computer is the syndicated media provider.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising decrementing a counter stored in a memory if the threshold is not reached.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in response to a negative determination of authorization, transmitting instructions to obtain the limited use syndicated media item to the syndication subscriber.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the syndication retriever is a syndication aggregator.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting the limited use syndicated media item to the syndication subscriber.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of authorizing the transmission of the limited use syndicated media item to the syndication subscriber comprises:

transmitting a first token to the syndication subscriber, wherein the first token can be sent by the syndication subscriber to the syndicated media provider to receive the syndicated media item;

receiving a second token from the syndicated media provider; and

in response to a positive correlation between the first and second tokens, transmitting a second message to the syndicated media provider, the second message comprising an indication of authorization to send the limited use syndicated media item to the syndication subscriber.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the indication of authorization is a universal resource identifier that identifies the limited use syndicated media item.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the first token and the second token are the same token.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the first token is a nonce.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the first token provides access to the limited use syndicated media for a period of time.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the first token provides access to the limited use syndicated media for a predetermined number of times.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of authorizing the transmission of the limited use syndicated media item to the syndication subscriber comprises:

requesting a token from the syndicated media provider; and

transmitting the token to the syndication subscriber, wherein the token can be sent by the syndication subscriber to the syndicated media provider to receive the limited use syndicated media item.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of authorizing the transmission of the limited use syndicated media item to the syndication subscriber comprises:

selecting a token from a plurality of pre-approved tokens previously received from the syndicated media provider; and

transmitting the token to the syndication subscriber, wherein the token can be sent by the syndication subscriber to the syndicated media provider to receive the limited use syndicated media item.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining whether the syndication subscriber is authorized to receive the limited use syndicated media item comprises determining whether the syndication subscriber has viewed a predetermined number of commercials.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining whether the syndication subscriber is authorized to receive the limited use syndicated media item comprises determining whether the subscriber belongs to another service.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the step of determining whether the subscriber belongs to another service comprises:

requesting from a network content provider the syndication subscriber'"'"'s membership status in one or more services; and

receiving a response comprising the syndication subscriber'"'"'s membership status in the one or more services.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein a positive determination of authorization is made if the subscriber can pay for the limited use syndicated media item.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining whether the syndication subscriber is authorized to receive the limited use syndicated media item further comprises:

requesting a subscriber payment status from a network content provider; and

receiving a response comprising the syndication subscriber'"'"'s payment status.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein an authorization computer and the network content provider are operated by different entities.

26. The method of claim 22, further comprising, in response to a negative determination of authorization, requesting payment from the syndication subscriber.

27. The method of claim 22, wherein the syndication subscriber guarantees payment through a credit card.

28. The method of claim 22, further comprising debiting a stored value account associated with the syndication subscriber.

29. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining whether the syndication subscriber is authorized to receive the limited use syndicated media item further comprises:

accessing a user database;

using the syndication subscriber identifier to find a subscriber'"'"'s information on the user database; and

using the syndicated media identifier to determine from the subscriber'"'"'s information whether the user is authorized to receive the limited use syndicated media item.

30. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining whether the syndication subscriber is authorized to receive the limited use syndicated media item comprises determining whether a syndication subscriber'"'"'s subscription is in good standing.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein the syndicated media provider, performs the step of determining whether the syndication subscriber is authorized to receive the limited use syndicated media item identified by the syndicated media identifier.

32. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of determining whether a threshold value associated with the limited use syndicated media item has been reached comprises:

accessing a counter that represents a number of times the limited use syndicated media item has been accessed by said syndication subscriber; and

comparing the number of times the limited use syndicated media item has been accessed to the threshold value.

33. The method of claim 32 wherein if the number of times the limited use syndicated media item has been accessed exceeds the threshold value, the extent of the data displayed is limited.

34. The method of claim 33 wherein the limited data displayed comprises a message indicating that the threshold value has been reached.

35. The method of claim 33 wherein the limited data displayed comprises a portion of the data associated with the limited use syndicated media item.

36. The method of claim 33 wherein the portion comprises a clip.

37. The method of claim 1, wherein the syndicated media provider is another syndication subscriber.

38. The method of claim 1, wherein the limited use syndicated media item is syndicated using a real simple syndication protocol.

39. The method of claim 1, wherein the syndication aggregator is operated by a network content provider.

40. The method of claim 1, wherein the syndication aggregator is operated by the syndication subscriber.

41. The method of claim 1, wherein the syndicated media provider performs the step of authorizing the transmission of the limited use syndicated media item to the syndication subscriber.

42. The method of claim 1, wherein the limited use syndicated media is a video.

43. The method of claim 1, wherein the limited use syndicated media is part of a podcast.

44. The method of claim 1, wherein the limited use syndicated media is a blog.

45. The method of claim 1, wherein the limited use syndicated media is an audio file.

46. The method of claim 1, wherein the limited use syndicated media is computer code.

19. The method of clam 1, further comprising crediting an owner of the limited use syndicated media item.

47. A method of displaying a syndication feed to a syndication subscriber, the method comprising:

examining the syndication feed to determine whether a link to a media item is a link to a limited use media item, the syndication subscriber requires authorization to receive the limited use media item; and

differentiating the link to the limited use media item from a link to an unlimited use media item when displaying the syndication feed to the syndication subscriber.

48. The method of claim 47, wherein the link to the limited use media is differentiated from the link to an unlimited use media item by placing the feed in a section dedicated to limited use content.

49. The method of claim 47, wherein the link to the limited use media is differentiated from the link to an unlimited use media item by displaying an icon adjacent to the link to the limited use media item.

50. The method of claim 47, wherein the link to a limited use media item is provided in an <

enclosure>

subelement of the syndication feed.

51. The method of claim 47, wherein the link to an authorization website further comprises a limited use media item identifier.