SERVICE FOR MANAGING DIGITAL CONTENT LICENSES

• US 20120303490A1
• Filed: 05/24/2011
• Published: 11/29/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hill, Peter F., Vrignaud, Andre
• Granted Patent: US 9,053,482 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/27.2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/00 Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce

Abstract

A content management system may receive, purchase or otherwise obtain licenses from content owners or licensors and provide such content licenses to application developers or other content creators. The content management system can act as a central broker for licensing content rights to developers. The application developers can then generate content items based on the obtained licenses and provide or sell those content items to users of their applications. For instance, the developer may license an automobile design, brand name or performance data from an automobile manufacturer and create an automobile model for a racing game application.

Claims

1. A method for managing digital content licenses, the method comprising:

by a content management system comprising computing hardware;

storing data representing digital content item licenses from a plurality of content licensors, wherein the digital content item licenses authorize creation of digital content items associated with respective digital content item licenses;

grouping selections of the digital content item licenses into one or more multi-licensor license bundles, each of the one or more multi-licensor license bundles comprising digital content item licenses from more than one of the plurality of content licensors;

providing information regarding the one or more license bundles to a plurality of application developers;

receiving digital content items from the plurality of developers, the digital content items configured for use within applications associated with the plurality of application developers; and

providing the digital content items for purchase on an electronic catalog based at least partly on a determination of whether the received digital content items are authorized by the one or more multi-licensor license bundles.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

dividing payments received from purchases of digital content items between at least the developers and the content licensors.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether a total number of digital content items associated with a first content license exceeds a maximum number of content items authorized by the first content license.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

rejecting a digital content item submission to the electronic catalog in response to determining that the total number of digital content items associated with the first content license exceeds the maximum number.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

generating a report indicating that the maximum number of authorized content items has been exceeded in response to determining that the total number of digital content items associated with the first content license exceeds the maximum number.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the digital content items comprise of at least one of game levels, game items and game characters.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising monitoring purchases of content items.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining pricing information of other content items based on purchase prices of the content items.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said receiving digital content items comprises interacting over a computer network with each of the plurality of application developers to obtain the digital content items.

26. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a software module for inclusion into applications developed by the plurality of developers, the software module configured to track content items used within the applications and to provide data that allows the content management system to track compliance with license bundles associated with the applications.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising, by the content management system:

receiving data from instances of the software module;

determining, based on the received data, a total number of digital content items associated with associated with a first content license; and

determining whether the total number of digital content items associated with the first content license exceeds a maximum number of content items authorized by the first content license.

28. The method of claim 1, wherein said grouping the selections of the digital item content licenses into one or more multi-licensor license bundles comprises:

identifying selections of the digital content item licenses having a common subject matter; and

grouping the selections of the digital content item licenses having a common subject matter into the one or more multi-licensor license bundles.

10. -17. (canceled)

18. Non-transitory physical computer storage having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:

storing data representing digital content item licenses from a plurality of content licensors, wherein the digital content item licenses authorize creation of digital content items associated with respective digital content licenses;

grouping the digital content item licenses into one or more multi-licensor license bundles, the one or more multi-licensor license bundles comprising digital content item licenses from more than one of the plurality of content licensors;

receiving digital content items authorized by the one or more license bundles from the plurality of developers, the digital content items configured for use within applications associated with the plurality of application developers; and

providing the digital content items for purchase on an electronic catalog based at least partly on a determination of whether the received digital content items are authorized by the one or more multi-licensor license bundles.

19. The non-transitory computer storage of claim 18, wherein the content items comprise of at least one of game levels, game items and game characters.

20. The non-transitory computer storage of claim 18, wherein the instructions cause the computing system to:

in response to receiving a purchase payment for a digital content item associated with a developer, the digital content item associated with a content license, access an account associated with the developer and credit at least a portion of the payment to the account.

21. The non-transitory computer storage of claim 20, wherein the instructions cause the computing system to:

in response to receiving the purchase payment;

determine a content licensor associated with the content license; and

credit an account associated with the content licensor with at least a portion of the payment.

22. A system for managing digital content licenses, the system comprising:

a content management system comprising computer hardware, the content management system associated with a plurality of developers and content licensors having user accounts with the content management system, the content management system configured to;

store data representing digital content item licenses from a plurality of content licensors, wherein the digital item content licenses authorize creation of digital content items associated with respective digital content licenses;

group the digital content item licenses into one or more multi-licensor license bundles, the one or more multi-licensor license bundles comprising digital content item licenses from more than one of the plurality of content licensors; and

provide, within an electronic catalog, digital content items authorized by the one or more license bundles.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the content management system is configured to:

in response to receiving a purchase request for a license bundle from a first developer, associate the license bundle with an account of the first developer; and

monitor a total number of digital content items generated under the license bundle by the first developer.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the content management system is configured to:

in response to determining that the total number of digital content items generated under the license bundle exceeds a maximum threshold specified by the license bundle, transmit a content license violation notice to the content licensors associated with the license bundle.

25. The system of claim 23, wherein the content management system is configured to:

reject a digital content item submission to the electronic catalog in response to determining that the total number of digital content items generated under the license bundle exceeds a maximum threshold specified by the license bundle.