DIGITAL CONTENT SUBSCRIPTION CONDITIONING SYSTEM

• US 20080215467A1
• Filed: 05/16/2008
• Published: 09/04/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services GmbH (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Huffman, Lon Joseph, Tsai, Ta Chih Minh, Ko, Dinghwa Connie
• Granted Patent: US 9,449,299 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/00 Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/44 Augmented, consolidated or itemized billing statement or bill presentation
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0104 Augmented, consolidated or itemised billing statement, e.g. additional billing information, bill presentation, layout, format, e-mail, fax, printout, itemised bill per service or per account, cumulative billing, consolidated billing

Abstract

Allocating subscription revenue may involve receiving usage information relating to usage of digital content (e.g., music, movies, text, images, games) in a digital content aggregation, identifying a coefficient relating to a subset of digital works in the digital content aggregation (e.g., author-specific subjective or objective factors, popularity ranking, historical factors, performance factors, etc.), and generating a revenue allocation for the digital content based on the coefficient and the usage information.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

dynamically setting a conditioning coefficient based on receiving a value for each of a plurality of coefficient drivers using a user interface, each coefficient driver providing information defining a market value of a creator of digital content;

receiving usage information relating to usage of the digital content; and

affecting a royalty payment made to the creator of the digital content based on the dynamically set conditioning coefficient and the usage information.

2. A computer-implemented method comprising:

calculating;

for an aggregation of content assets, subscription revenue and an earned revenue portion of the subscription revenue, and

for each content asset of the aggregation, a conditioning coefficient, and a distributed revenue portion of the earned revenue calculated using the conditioning coefficient; and

affecting a royalty payment for one of the content assets based on the distributed revenue calculated for the one content asset.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the subscription revenue comprises a total subscription licensing fee for the content aggregation less overhead and profits.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein calculating the earned revenue portion of the subscription revenue comprises:

calculating, if participation revenue is specified;

a participation portion of the subscription revenue, and

the earned revenue based on subtracting the participation portion from the subscription revenue, and

outputting, if participation revenue is not specified, the subscription revenue as the earned revenue.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein calculating the conditioning coefficient further comprises:

calculating a combined conditioning coefficient for a content asset of the aggregation from multiple conditioning coefficients assigned to the content asset.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the combined conditioning coefficient is calculated based on averaging the multiple conditioning coefficients, or based on applying a weighted average to the multiple conditioning coefficients.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein calculating the distributed revenue further comprises determining whether usage allocations are enabled for allocation of the subscription revenue.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein, if usage allocations are enabled, calculating the distributed revenue further comprises:

obtaining usage data for each content asset of the aggregation.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the usage data further comprises a number of downloads or a number of streams in a time period.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein, if usage allocations are enabled, calculating the distributed revenue further comprises:

calculating a percentage of total usage for each content asset of the aggregation, based on the usage data.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein, if usage allocations are enabled, calculating the distributed revenue further comprises:

calculating percentage data based on applying the conditioning coefficient to the calculated percentage of total usage; and

normalizing the percentage data.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein, if usage allocations are enabled, the distributed revenue is calculated using the normalized percentage data.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising combining:

an earned revenue portion calculated for each content asset, and

a participation portion of the subscription revenue to be split evenly among all content assets in the content aggregation.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein calculating, for each content asset of the aggregation, the conditioning coefficient further comprises:

receiving, via a user interface, a value for each of a plurality of coefficient drivers, each coefficient driver provider providing information defining a market value of a creator of the content, and

dynamically setting the conditioning coefficient based on the received coefficient driver values.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the information defining the market value of the creator of the content comprises:

a number of top ten songs for the creator,

a number of platinum records for the creator,

a number of years the creator has been with a recording company,

a number of records produced by the creator, and

a popularity ranking for the creator.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein:

receiving the value for each of the plurality of coefficient drivers further comprises enabling a subset of the coefficient drivers using user interface controls associated with each of the coefficient drivers; and

the conditioning coefficient is dynamically set based on the enabled subset of the coefficient drivers.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein dynamically setting the conditioning coefficient further comprises retrieving a coefficient driver value from a contract data repository.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising:

periodically reevaluating the conditioning coefficient; and

outputting a report if the reevaluated conditioning coefficient has fluctuated.

19. A computer readable medium encoded with a computer program product, the computer program product comprising instructions that, when executed, operate to cause a computer to perform operations comprising:

calculating;

for an aggregation of content assets, subscription revenue and an earned revenue portion of the subscription revenue, and

for each content asset of the aggregation, a conditioning coefficient and, a distributed revenue portion of the earned revenue calculated using the conditioning coefficient; and

affecting a royalty payment for one of the content assets based on the distributed revenue calculated for the one content asset.

20. A device comprising a processor configured to:

calculate;

for an aggregation of content assets, subscription revenue and an earned revenue portion of the subscription revenue, and

for each content asset of the aggregation, a conditioning coefficient and, a distributed revenue portion of the earned revenue calculated using the conditioning coefficient; and

affect a royalty payment for one of the content assets based on the distributed revenue calculated for the one content asset.