Contents distributing method and distributing system

• US 20080215710A1
• Filed: 04/30/2008
• Published: 09/04/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/20/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Ken Nomura, Tadashi Takeuchi
• Original Assignee: Ken Nomura, Tadashi Takeuchi
• Inventors: Takeuchi, Tadashi, Nomura, Ken
• Application Number:
  US12/149,294
• Publication Number:
  US 20080215710A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

According to the present invention, there are disclosed a contents distributing method and a system which permits distribution of contents held by the client to the other clients, irrespective of the operating status of the client, and allows certain billing. In this system, a plurality of storage servers storing contents held by the individual clients are arranged on a network. The client issues a contents distributing request to the corresponding storage server, and acquires the contents. The storage server inquires, when the requested contents are not held, the retrieving server, and collects the contents from the other servers holding the contents. The storage server sends a billing requests, together with the billing information, to the service use fee billing server and the contents use fee billing server.

Claims

1. An apparatus for distributing contents, comprising:

a computer, deployed to be connected to other information processing units and a retrieving server for retrieving a location of the contents via a network, performing processing relating to distributions of contents; and

a storage unit connected to said computer,

wherein said storage unit stores the contents for a plurality of information processing units performing distribution of contents, and

wherein said computer performs steps of;

receiving, via said network, a distributing request from any of the information processing units;

distributing said contents to the information processing unit requesting distribution of said contents, when said requested contents are stored in said storage unit;

transmitting a request for retrieving a location of the requested contents are not stored in said storage unit;

receiving a result of retrieval from said retrieving server;

acquiring said contents via said network from one of the other information processing units, which are included in said result;

causing said storage unit to store said acquired contents; and

distributing, via said network, said requested contents to said requesting information processing unit.

2. The apparatus for distributing contents according to claim 1,

wherein the computer further performs the steps of:

collecting information for fee billing resulting from distribution of contents when distributing contents to any of said information processing units; and

transmitting, via said network, the information collected for fee billing and a fee billing request to an information processing apparatus performing fee billing.