Detecting Distribution of Multimedia Content

• US 20090133079A1
• Filed: 11/15/2007
• Published: 05/21/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Li, Zhi, Ou, Canhui, Savoor, Raghvendra, Ghosal, Dipak
• Granted Patent: US 7,945,924 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/93
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2541 Rights Management protecting software against unauthorised usage in a vending or licensing environment G06F21/10; security in data switching network management H04L41/28; security management or policies for network security H04L63/20; access security in wireless networks H04W12/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/835 Generation of protective data, e.g. certificates protecting software against unauthorised usage in a vending or licensing environment G06F21/10

Abstract

A system and method is disclosed for detecting distribution of multimedia content. The volume level of data traffic is monitored for a plurality of users to select any users with high-bandwidth usage. The time of day and the day of the week may be considered when determining whether a user is a high-bandwidth user. Upon selecting a user as one with high-bandwidth usage, such user may be subject to packet inspections of data traffic streams. In some embodiments, content identification parameters or watermarks are added to one or more packets in a data traffic stream carrying multimedia content.

Claims

1. A method of detecting distribution of multimedia content, the method comprising:

monitoring a volume of data traffic for each of a plurality of users resulting in a volume parameter for each of the plurality of users;

selecting a portion of the plurality of users with volume parameters that meet a predetermined condition; and

inspecting a data traffic stream for each of the portion of selected users, wherein each traffic stream is searched for a content identification parameter.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data traffic includes upstream traffic.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the data traffic includes downstream traffic.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

recording a video-on-demand parameter for individual users of the portion of selected users, wherein the video-on-demand parameter relates to a quantity of video-on-demand movies ordered by one of the individual users.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the content identification parameter is a watermark, wherein inspecting the data traffic stream includes comparing the watermark associated with one or more packets in the data traffic with a known watermark.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein inspecting the data traffic occurs substantially in real-time.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of packets from each data traffic stream are stored in a memory, and wherein inspecting the plurality of packets occurs not in real-time.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein a network receives a volume parameter of the data traffic from an apparatus that is customer premises equipment.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the portion of the plurality of users includes detecting one or more of the plurality of users with relatively high traffic volumes during a non-peak time slot compared to others of the plurality of users.

10. A data distribution detector application stored on a computer readable medium, the distribution detector application having instructions operable for:

tracking a volume of upstream data traffic for a user;

comparing the volume of upstream data traffic to a threshold volume;

if the volume meets or exceeds the threshold volume, then;

analyzing an ordering history of the user; and

comparing an estimated volume of traffic associated with the ordering history to the volume of data traffic; and

if the volume of data traffic meets or exceeds the estimated volume of traffic associated with the ordering history, then;

comparing an identification parameter associated with the volume of traffic with one or more known identification parameters.

11. The data distribution detector application of claim 10, further having instructions operable for:

accessing a content signature module, wherein the content signature module stores the one or more known identification parameters.

12. The data distribution detector application of claim 11, wherein the distribution detector application is communicatively coupled to a client-facing tier switch.

13. The data distribution detector application of claim 12, wherein a residential gateway tracks the volume of data traffic for the user and reports the volume of data traffic to the distribution detector application.

14. The data distribution detector application of claim 11, wherein the content signature module provides for assigning the one or more known identification parameters.

15. The data distribution detector application of claim 14, wherein the identification parameter is a watermark.

16. The data distribution detector application of claim 10, wherein comparing an estimated volume of traffic associated with the ordering history to the volume of data traffic includes analyzing a video-on-demand ordering history.

17. The data distribution detector application of claim 10, wherein tracking a volume of data traffic for a user includes considering a time of day associated with data traffic.

18. The data distribution detector application of claim 10, further including:

a set-top box for tracking a second volume of downstream traffic.

19. A data processing system for detecting distribution of multimedia content, the data processing system having software instructions stored on a computer readable medium that enable the data processing system to:

attach a content identification parameter to a portion of the multimedia content;

profile a plurality of users to identify a portion of the plurality of users with high bandwidth usage;

track an ordering history parameter for each of the portion of the plurality of users with high bandwidth usage to determine whether any has an order history parameter below a threshold; and

for any user with an order history parameter below the threshold, inspect an upstream traffic stream from an appliance associated with the user for the content identification parameter.

20. The data processing system of claim 19, wherein inspecting the upstream traffic for the content identification includes storing a portion of the upstream traffic stream for non-real-time analysis.

21. The data processing system of claim 19, wherein tracking an ordering history parameter for each of the portion of the plurality of users includes characterizing a number of video-on-demand movies ordered by each of the portion of the plurality of users.

22. The data processing system of claim 19, wherein attaching a content identification parameter to a portion of the multimedia content includes placing a security identifier in one or more packets that comprise the multimedia content.

23. The data processing system of claim 22, wherein the one or more data processing systems are further configured to:

create the security identifier for placement in one or more packets that comprise the multimedia content.

24. The data processing system of claim 23, wherein the one or more packets are datagram protocol (UDP) datagrams.