FLEXIBLE PRICING FOR BROKERING LICENSES TO MEDIA

• US 20080270309A1
• Filed: 07/16/2007
• Published: 10/30/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Branded Entertainment Network, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Corbis Corporation
• Inventors: Bronske, William G., Brotman, Adam Bennett, O'Connor, Glen Arthur, Guill, Todd Brian, Snell, Daniel Martin, Ranjitkumar, Nandini
• Application Number:
  US11/778,578
• Publication Number:
  US 20080270309A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/52
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/123 Shopping for digital content
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

Automatically determining pricing for at least one unit of content that can be selected and licensed or purchased over a network. Pricing is determined based on an initial price, and at least one of the following: a reviewer rating, content activity, or a customer offer price. Each of these factors may be weighted. The initial price may be a minimum price, a maximum price, a suggested price from a content owner, a pre-calculated market price, or other initial price. Content activity generally reflects user behaviors related to a content item, such as selecting a content item from a search results list, saving it as a favorite, returning to view it, placing it in a virtual shopping cart, or licensing it. Content activity combined with reviewer rating and/or offer price, indicates a “snappyness” score. A new price is dynamically calculated based on the initial price and snappyness score.

Claims

1. A method for determining a price adjustment for a content unit, comprising:

associating an intrinsic value factor with the content unit, wherein the intrinsic factor includes a suggested price;

associating an extrinsic value factor with the content unit, wherein the extrinsic factor includes a reviewer rating and an indication of content activity; and

determining a price adjustment for the content unit based on processing the intrinsic value factor and the extrinsic value factor.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a customer selection in response to a display of the content unit along with a determined price based on the price adjustment.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the display of the determined price is dynamically updated in response to at least one change to at least one of the intrinsic value factor or the extrinsic value factor.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising arranging the display based on at least one of the extrinsic value factor or the intrinsic value factor.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising providing the customer with a license to use the selected content unit.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying the price adjustment and receiving an instruction to change a price for licensing the content unit.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically determining a price for licensing the content unit based on the price adjustment.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising associating at least one of a minimum price or a maximum price with the content unit such that determining the price adjustment is based in part on at least one of the minimum price or the maximum price.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising indicating a predefined price category for the content unit based on the price adjustment.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically associating the content unit with a predefined price category base on the price adjustment.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the reviewer rating indicates a value on a predefined scale.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the content activity includes an indication of a number of views of the content unit, an indication of a number of downloads of the content unit, an indication of whether a tag is associated with the content unit, an indication of whether a user comment is associated with the content unit, and an indication of a number of times the content unit was selected as a favorite.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising processing at least one of the intrinsic value factors and the extrinsic value factors, wherein the processing includes one or more of normalization, arithmetic computations, functional analysis, frequency, weighting, coalescing, aggregation, or statistics.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a snappyness score based on reviewer rating and the content activity.

15. A processor readable media storing machine instructions that cause a processor to perform the operations of claim 1:

16. An apparatus for determining a price adjustment for a content unit, comprising:

a processor;

a memory in communication with the processor and storing processor readable instructions that cause the processor to perform a plurality of operations, including;

associating an intrinsic value factor with the content unit, wherein the intrinsic factor includes a suggested price;

associating an extrinsic value factor with the content unit, wherein the extrinsic factor includes a reviewer rating and a content activity; and

determining a price adjustment for the content unit based on processing the intrinsic value factor and the extrinsic value factor.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, further comprising a communication interface in communication with the processor and communicating the price adjustment to a client.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the processor further performs the operations of:

applying a reviewer rating weight to the reviewer rating;

applying a content activity weight to the content activity; and

calculating a snappyness score based on the reviewer rating, the content activity, the reviewer rating weight and the content activity weight, wherein the price adjustment is determined at least in part on the snappyness score.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the snappyness is further based on a temporal decay that indicates a lack of content activity for a period of time.

20. A system for licensing a content unit, comprising:

a server that performs actions, including;

associating an intrinsic value factor with the content unit, wherein the intrinsic factor includes a suggested price;

associating an extrinsic value factor with the content unit, wherein the extrinsic factor includes a reviewer rating and a content activity; and

determining a price adjustment for the content unit based on processing the intrinsic value factor and the extrinsic value factor; and

a client in communication with the server and that performs actions, comprising;

displaying the content unit and a licensing price that is based on the price adjustment; and

receiving a request to license the content unit.