Web-based System Providing Royalty Processing and Reporting Services

• US 20080071561A1
• Filed: 02/05/2007
• Published: 03/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/23/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RoyaltyShare, Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: RoyaltyShare, Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Holcombe, Scott A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,260,713 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce

Abstract

A computer-implemented system providing Web-based royalty processing and reporting is described. In one embodiment, for example, a computer-implemented method of the present invention for automatic identification of media items subject to royalty obligations, includes steps of: receiving sales input from a user comprising media items subject to royalty obligations; parsing the sales input to extract for each media item a set of fields characterizing that media item; deriving a plurality of signatures for each media item, based on different combinations of the fields for that media item; comparing the derived signatures for each media item against a database storing signatures of known media items; based on the comparison, automatically identifying media items present in the sales input; and reporting the automatically identified media items to the user.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for automatic identification of media items subject to royalty obligations, the method comprising:

receiving sales input from a user comprising media items subject to royalty obligations;

parsing the sales input to extract for each media item a set of fields characterizing that media item;

deriving a plurality of signatures for each media item, based on different combinations of the fields for that media item;

comparing the derived signatures for each media item against a database storing signatures of known media items;

based on the comparison, automatically identifying media items present in the sales input; and

reporting the automatically identified media items to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said media items comprise digital media items.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said media items include digital music.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said digital music includes downloadable music files.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said media items include digital video.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said digital video includes downloadable video files.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein said digital video includes movies.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein said digital video includes television programs.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said sales input comprises an imported file.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said imported file is provided with a format of a spreadsheet file, an XML file, and/or a database file.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein said database stores a database representation of a media content owner'"'"'s repertoire.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said media items include digital music and said database stores a database representation of a Record Label'"'"'s repertoire.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said media items include electronic books.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein said parsing step includes:

extracting a title for each media item.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein said parsing step includes:

extracting an author for each media item.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein said media items include digital music, and wherein said parsing step includes:

extracting for each media item a subset of fields comprising at least one of;

UPC (Universal Product Code), Album name, Track name, Artist name, and/or ISRC (International Standard Recording Code).

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying a dialog allowing the user to modify how media items are identified.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying royalty obligation information for each identified media item.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein each of said plurality of signatures comprises a hash key.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein said hash key comprises an MD5 message digest of a particular combination of fields for a given media item.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein each signature of said plurality of signatures is assigned a weighting for indicating relevancy of the combination of fields that the signature is based on.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein signatures having a weighting above a preselected value are used for automatic matching without further input from the user.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein signatures having a weighting below said preselected value are used for creating recommendations that are presented to the user when a best match cannot be automatically identified.

24. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving confirmation from the user that a given media item has been correctly identified; and

memorizing how the given media item was identified, so that future occurrences of the given media item may be correctly identified.

25. A computer-readable medium having processor-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 1.

26. A system for automatic identification of media items subject to royalty obligations comprising:

a user interface manager for receiving from a user sales input comprising media items subject to royalty obligations;

a file processing engine for parsing the sales input to extract for each media item a set of fields characterizing that media item;

a database storing metadata comprising signatures of known media items; and

a matching engine for deriving a plurality of signatures for each media item based on different combinations of the fields for that media item, and for automatically identifying media items present in the sales input based on comparison of the derived signatures for each media item against signatures stored in the database.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein said media items comprise digital media items.

28. The system of claim 26, wherein said media items include digital music.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein said digital music includes downloadable music files.

30. The system of claim 26, wherein said media items include digital video.

31. The system of claim 30, wherein said digital video includes downloadable video files.

32. The system of claim 30, wherein said digital video includes movies.

33. The system of claim 30, wherein said digital video includes television programs.

34. The system of claim 26, wherein said sales input comprises an imported file.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein said imported file is provided with a format of a spreadsheet file, an XML file, and/or a database file.

36. The system of claim 26, wherein said database stores a database representation of a media content owner'"'"'s repertoire.

37. The system of claim 26, wherein said media items include digital music and said database stores a database representation of a Record Label'"'"'s repertoire.

38. The system of claim 26, wherein said media items include electronic books.

39. The system of claim 26, wherein the file processing engine includes:

program logic for extracting a title for each media item.

40. The system of claim 26, wherein the file processing engine includes:

program logic for extracting an author for each media item.

41. The system of claim 26, wherein said media items include digital music, and wherein the file parsing engine includes program logic for extracting for each media item a subset of fields comprising at least one of:

UPC (Universal Product Code), Album name, Track name, Artist name, and/or ISRC (International Standard Recording Code).

42. The system of claim 26, wherein the user interface manager includes:

program logic for displaying a dialog allowing the user to modify how media items are identified.

43. The system of claim 26, wherein the matching engine includes program logic for determining royalty obligations for identified media items.

44. The system of claim 26, wherein each of said plurality of signatures comprises a hash key.

45. The system of claim 44, wherein said hash key comprises an MD5 message digest of a particular combination of fields for a given media item.

46. The system of claim 26, wherein each signature of said plurality of signatures is assigned a weighting for indicating relevancy of the combination of fields that the signature is based on.

47. The system of claim 46, wherein signatures having a weighting above a preselected value are used for automatic matching without further input from the user.

48. The system of claim 47, wherein signatures having a weighting below said preselected value are used for creating recommendations that are presented to the user when a best match cannot be automatically identified.

49. The system of claim 26, wherein the user interface manager includes program logic for receiving confirmation from the user that a given media item has been correctly identified, and the matching engine includes program logic for memorizing how the given media item was identified, so that future occurrences of the given media item may be correctly identified.

50. The system of claim 26, further comprising:

a report module for reporting identified media items to the user.

51. The system of claim 26, wherein the system is implemented at least in part as a Web-based system, so that the user interface manager presents information to the user via a Web browser.

52. The system of claim 26, wherein said different combinations of the fields include normalized versions of those fields.

53. The system of claim 52, wherein fields are normalized by expanding abbreviations.

54. The system of claim 52, wherein fields are normalized by removing non-alphanumeric characters.