Digital content subscription conditioning system

• US 7,505,936 B2
• Filed: 08/27/2001
• Issued: 03/17/2009
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Poinvil; Frantzy
• Assistant Examiner(s): GRAHAM, CLEMENT B
• Application Number:
  US09/940,276
• Publication Number:
  US 20020169700A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,759 Days
• Field of Search: 705/37, 705/38, 705/34, 705/30, 705/36, 705/35, 377/15
• US Class Current: 705/37
• 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 of allocating digital content subscription revenue, the method comprising:

receiving, via a user interface, a value for each of a plurality of coefficient drivers, wherein each coefficient driver provides information defining a market value of a creator of digital content;

dynamically setting a conditioning coefficient based on the selected coefficient driver values;

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

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

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the conditioning coefficient is dynamically set further based on a measure of usage for the digital content calculated using the usage information from a plurality of digital service providers.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the conditioning coefficient is dynamically set further based on a preset value corresponding to a subjective measure of marketability for the digital content.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the creator of the digital content is an author of the digital content.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein dynamically setting the conditioning coefficient further comprises retrieving a coefficient driver value from a contract data repository.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

periodically reevaluating the dynamically set conditioning coefficient; and

outputting a report if the reevaluated conditioning coefficient has fluctuated.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the revenue allocation further comprises

multiplying the dynamically set conditioning coefficient by the usage information.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein generating the revenue allocation farther comprises normalizing data during multiplication to create a royalty percentage of subscription revenue for the digital content used in a given period.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the information concerning the market value of the creator of the digital content includes 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.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving digital asset metadata from a digital asset management system to facilitate assigning of digital content aggregations and the generating of the revenue allocation.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying a coefficient drivers entry page that displays each of the plurality of coefficient drivers, wherein the value for each of the plurality of coefficient drivers is selected by a user via the coefficient drivers entry page.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a user selection that enables each of the plurality of coefficient drivers to be selected.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the value for each of the plurality of coefficient drivers is selected using a predefined range of numbers associated with each of the plurality of coefficient drivers.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the value for each of the plurality of coefficient drivers further comprises importing stored coefficient driver values from an electronic contract.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamically set conditioning coefficient increases if a number of platinum records associated with the creator increases.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the royalty payment comprises:

a participation portion representing an evenly split percentage of assets and that disregards the conditioning coefficient or the usage information; and

a earned revenue portion calculated using the conditioning coefficient and the usage information.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the revenue allocation further comprises:

generating a conditioned basic flat rate revenue allocation;

generating a multiple-conditioned basic flat rate revenue allocation;

generating a basic usage rate revenue allocation;

generating a conditioned basic usage rate revenue allocation;

generating a multiple-conditioned basic usage rate revenue allocation;

generating a conditioned participation flat rate revenue allocation;

generating a multiple conditioned participation flat rate revenue allocation;

generating a participation usage rate revenue allocation;

generating a conditioned participation usage rate revenue allocation; and

generating a multiple-conditioned participation usage rate revenue allocation.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the usage information relates to a total number of downloads or streams of the digital content.

23. The method of claim 1, further comprising causing the royalty payment to be made to the creator of the digital content based on the revenue allocation.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamically set conditioning coefficient exhibits a linear or non-linear mathematical relationship with the coefficient driver values.

11. A data processing system for allocating digital content subscription revenue, the system comprising:

a user interface configured to receive a value for each of a plurality of coefficient drivers, wherein each coefficient driver provides information defining a market value of a creator of digital content; and

a subscription conditioning module configured to;

dynamically set a conditioning coefficient based on the selected coefficient driver value,

receive usage information relating to usage of the digital content, and

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

12. The data processing system of claim 11, wherein the subscription conditioning module further comprises a back-end sewer having document routing, mapping and transformation, transaction logging, subscriber management, security certification, and workflow orchestration elements.

13. A data processing system for allocating digital content subscription revenue, the system comprising:

means for receiving a value for each of a plurality of coefficient drivers, wherein each coefficient driver provides information defining a market value of a creator of digital content;

means for dynamically setting a conditioning coefficient based on the selected coefficient driver values;

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

means for generating a revenue allocation for the digital content based on the dynamically set conditioning coefficient and the usage information, the revenue allocation affecting a royalty payment made to the creator of the digital content.

14. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon one or more sequences of instructions for causing one or more machines to perform operations comprising:

receiving, via a user interface, a value for each of a plurality of coefficient drivers, wherein each coefficient driver provides information defining a market value of a creator of digital content;

dynamically setting a conditioning coefficient based on the selected coefficient driver values;

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

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