KR20060100991A - Method and system for distributing digital contents - Google Patents

Abstract

Even if the distributor does not have a web server, a media server, a DRM license server, a billing server, etc., the distributor terminal can be used to easily participate in the digital content distribution process, thereby enabling the distributor to profit, thereby distributing traffic. Disclosed is a method for distributing digital content. In the distribution of digital content, the server records the distributor ID in the header of the digital content selected by the distributor and transmits the ID to the distributor terminal. When the purchaser requests a purchase, the buyer terminal transmits the header of the digital content to the server. If the purchase application is approved, this is done by reading the distributor ID from the header of the digital content and allocating revenue to the distributor.

Servers, Distributor Terminals, Buyer Terminals, Digital Content

Description

 How to distribute digital content {METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DISTRIBUTING DIGITAL CONTENTS}

1 is a diagram showing an overall configuration of a digital content distribution system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 and 3 are flowcharts illustrating a procedure for a server to perform a digital content distribution method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

4 shows a portion of a digital content header used in the method shown in FIG.

5 is a table showing purchase price according to a license period used in the method shown in FIG.

6 is a table showing the distributor's revenue according to the license period used in the method shown in FIG.

* Explanation of symbols for main parts of the drawings

10: server 12: supplier terminal

14: Distributor Terminal 16: Buyer Terminal

40: Distributor ID field 42: Encrypted Distributor ID hash value field

The present invention relates to a method for distributing digital content online using a computer network system, and more particularly, to a method for distributing digital content to a buyer through a plurality of distributors.

Conventionally, as a distribution method of digital contents, for example, a video, a video relay company provides a video directly to a buyer through a contract with a video provider.

However, the conventional method has a problem that a video relay company must install a large amount of high-speed system on a broadband. Recently, since a large amount of high-definition video is increasing on the Internet, large-scale Internet lines and numerous server systems are required to provide stable services using conventional methods. In addition, when a video of the topic appears, traffic temporarily increases rapidly, and even if a large-scale facility is provided, it is difficult to follow.

In addition, since the subject of public relations is limited to a video relay company in terms of public relations, there is a problem in that efficiency is inevitably reduced compared to a method in which a large number of stakeholders participate and individually promote.

Therefore, it is possible to maintain the facilities more inexpensively during normal times, and when demand increases temporarily, a method of distributing the traffic generated therein is required, and a digital content distribution method for improving the efficiency of promotion is required.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to distribute digital content online between computers connected to a communication network using a communication network such as the Internet. It is possible to easily participate in the digital content distribution process by using the distributor terminal without having a license server or billing server, so that the distributor can benefit from it, and the digital content received from the distributor terminal from the distributor terminal through the buyer terminal. By using the digital content received from the server can be used at a lower price than using, ultimately to provide a digital content distribution method for distributing the load of the server and to facilitate the distribution of digital content.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a method for distributing digital content online on a computer network in which a server, a distributor terminal, and a purchaser terminal are connected through a communication network, the method comprising: (a) Recording a distributor ID in a header and transmitting the same to the distributor terminal; (b) transmitting, by the buyer terminal, the header of the digital content to the server when the purchaser requests a purchase; And (c) when the server approves the purchase request, reading the distributor ID from the header of the digital content and distributing revenue to the distributor.

In the step (b), it is preferable that the purchase application of the purchaser is made at a discounted price when the purchaser and the distributor are different when the purchaser and the distributor are different.

On the other hand, in another preferred embodiment, the digital content is encrypted by DRM technology.

In another preferred embodiment, the server further records a hash value of the distributor ID encrypted in the header of the digital content in step (a), wherein step (c) is performed by the server. Determining the integrity of the digital content using a hash value.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a server, a distributor terminal, and a purchaser terminal to distribute digital content online on a computer network connected through a communication network. Recording the ID of the transmitter and transmitting it to the terminal of the distributor; (b) the buyer transmitting the header of the digital content to the server at the time of purchase application; And (c) a computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a program for executing a step of distributing revenue to the distributor by the server reading the distributor ID from the header.

The present invention also provides a system for distributing digital content online on a computer network, comprising: a distributor terminal for selecting digital content to be distributed; A purchaser terminal applying for a purchase to a server to use the digital content received from the distributor terminal and transmitting a header of the digital content to the server; And a server that records a distributor ID in the header of the digital content and transmits it to the distributor terminal, reads the ID from the header received from the buyer terminal, and distributes the revenue to the distributor. do.

On the other hand, the term "terminal" throughout this specification includes any means capable of transmitting and receiving digital data such as a desktop, a computer such as a laptop, a personal digital assistant (PDP), and a portable multimedia player (PMP). As used herein, those skilled in the art will readily recognize that any other known device may be used as long as it can perform such a function.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a diagram showing the overall configuration of a digital content distribution system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The digital content distribution system of this embodiment includes a server 10, a supplier terminal 12, a distributor terminal 14, and a purchaser terminal 16 interconnected via a communication network 18.

The server 10 is a computer provided in a company that supports digital content distribution service, the provider terminal 12 is a terminal of a supplier that registers digital content with the server 10, and the distributor terminal 14 is a server 10. The distributor terminal receives the digital content from the distributor and transmits it to the buyers, and the buyer terminal 18 is the buyer terminal receiving the digital content from the server 10 or the distributor terminal 14 and purchasing the same.

The server 10 stores data for digital content distribution service, that is, a database storing member information including a supplier, a distributor, a buyer, and the like, a database storing information on registered digital content, a database storing information on a purchase history of digital content, and the like. And a program for processing a digital content distribution service is stored.

The provider terminal 12, the distributor terminal 14, and the buyer terminal 16 connected to the communication network are Internet browsers capable of displaying web content in the form of Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox). Have The web browser allows each terminal to access and display the site opened on the server 10. In addition, the distributor terminal 14 has a transmission program (for example, a messenger, an ftp server, a web server, a p2p module, etc.) for transmitting the digital content to the buyers, and the buyer terminal 16 purchases and purchases the digital content. It has a digital content player for playback.

2 to 3 are flowcharts illustrating a digital content distribution method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

First, the supplier enters a site opened in the server 10 through a browser in the provider terminal 12, inputs information of digital content to be supplied, and registers the digital content through a process of uploading the digital content. 200). The server 10 encrypts the registered digital content using digital right management (DRM) technology (step 202), and posts the encrypted digital content to the site (step 204). Here, the DRM technology refers to a technology for protecting copyright of digital content and distributing and managing digital content. Specifically, it includes a technology for preventing illegal distribution and copying of digital content, processing only the legitimate user to use the digital content, and providing a charging service to manage the use of the digital content. However, those skilled in the art can adopt various techniques that can perform similar functions, which will be readily appreciated to be within the scope of the present invention.

Next, when the distributor enters the site opened on the server 10 through a browser in the distributor terminal 14 and selects the desired digital content among the published digital contents (step 206), the server 10 indicates that the distributor Distributor ID is recorded in the Distributor ID field 40 (FIG. 4) in the header of the selected digital content (step 208). At this time, the server may create a new distributor ID field in the header of the digital content for recording the distributor ID.

At the same time, the server 10 may generate a hash value of the distributor ID, encrypt it using a secret key, and then record the value in the encrypted distributor ID hash value field 42 (Fig. 4) in the header of the digital content selected by the distributor. (Step 210). The secret key used at this time is generated by the server, and the corresponding public key is also generated and distributed. The recorded ID hash value can be used later to verify the integrity of the content. In addition, the present embodiment verifies the integrity of the content using the hash value, but various DRM techniques may be used for integrity verification without being limited thereto.

Next, the server 10 transmits the digital content selected by the distributor to the distributor terminal (step 212). The distributor transmits the digital content received from the server 10 to the purchaser terminal 16 through the communication network 18 using a messenger, an ftp server, a web server, a P2P program, etc. installed in the distributor terminal 14. Next, the method of this embodiment continues to A of FIG.

When the purchaser opens the digital content received from the distributor terminal 14 using the digital content player in the purchaser terminal 14 and presses the play button, the purchaser terminal 14 connects to the server 10 through the communication network 18 for a purchase application. Attempt to connect with. When the purchaser terminal 14 is connected to the server 10, the purchaser terminal 14 requests the purchase of the digital content and transmits the header of the digital content to the server 10 (step 300).

The server 10 stores the distributor ID and the encrypted distributor ID hash values in the distributor ID field 40 (FIG. 4) and the encrypted distributor ID hash value field 42 (FIG. 4) in the header received from the purchaser terminal 14, respectively. It reads and compares the hash value generated from the distributor ID and the value obtained by decrypting the encrypted distributor ID hash value with the public key to confirm whether they are the same (step 302).

Meanwhile, the server 10 authenticates the buyer by inputting an ID and password from the buyer (step 304), and compares the distributor ID read in the header with the buyer ID input during the buyer authentication (step 306), and both are identical. In a case where the normal price column is presented to the buyer in the table showing the purchase price according to the license period shown in FIG. 5 (step 308), the discount price column of FIG. 5 is presented to the buyer in different cases (step 310). As such, when the buyer receives the digital content through the distributor rather than the server, the buyer can apply the discounted price than when receiving from the server, thereby allowing the buyer to prefer the transmission through the distributor, thereby further distributing the traffic. Can be induced.

The server 10 then allows the buyer to select a license term and approves the purchase of the digital content (step 312), comparing the distributor ID read from the header above with the buyer ID entered in the buyer authentication (step 314), where both In other cases, the revenue is distributed to the distributor according to the table showing the distributor revenue according to the license term shown in FIG. 6 (step 316). The server 10 includes authentication key data capable of decrypting the encrypted digital content using DRM technology and the like and playback rights during the license period selected by the buyer so that the buyer can view the digital content through the buyer terminal. The license is issued to the purchaser terminal (step 318).

The invention can also be embodied as code of a program stored on a computer-readable recording medium. The computer-readable recording medium includes all kinds of recording devices in which data that can be read by a computer system is stored. Examples of computer-readable recording media include ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, magnetic tape, floppy disk, optical data storage, and the like, and may also be implemented in the form of a carrier wave (for example, transmission over the Internet). Include. The computer-readable recording medium can also be distributed over network coupled computer systems so that the code is stored and executed in a distributed fashion.

As mentioned above, although this invention was demonstrated based on the specific embodiment of this invention, it can be easily recognized by those skilled in the art that various changes can be made without deviating from the idea of this invention, and such a change also of the present invention. It will be apparent that it is included in the scope.

As described above, according to the digital content distribution method of the present invention, even if each distributor does not have expensive equipment such as a server, a plurality of distributors can easily participate in digital content distribution. It is possible to reduce the distributor maintenance cost.

In addition, the buyer can receive the digital content through a number of distributors to prevent traffic concentration on the server. In this case, when the buyer purchases the digital content through the distributor, the discount price may be applied to further facilitate the distribution of traffic.

In addition, since a large number of distributors participate in the distribution of digital content and receive a profit, they may participate in the promotion of digital content, thereby increasing the publicity effect.

Claims (6)

A method of distributing digital content online on a computer network in which a server, a distributor terminal, and a purchaser terminal are connected through a communication network, (a) the server recording the distributor ID in the header of the digital content selected by the distributor and transmitting the distributor ID to the distributor terminal; (b) transmitting, by the buyer terminal, the header of the digital content to the server when the purchaser requests a purchase; And (c) if the server approves the purchase request, the server reading the distributor ID from the header of the digital content and distributing revenue to the distributor. The method of claim 1, The purchase request of the buyer in the step (b) is made of a discounted price when the buyer and the distributor is different than when the buyer and the distributor is the same. The method of claim 1, The digital content is encrypted by DRM technology, digital content distribution method. The method of claim 1, In the step (a), the server further records the hash value of the distributor ID encrypted in the header of the digital content, The step (c) further comprises the server determining the integrity of the digital content using the hash value of the encrypted distributor ID. In order to distribute digital content online on a computer network where servers, distributor terminals and purchaser terminals are connected through a communication network, (a) the server recording the distributor ID in the header of the digital content selected by the distributor and transmitting the distributor ID to the distributor terminal; (b) transmitting, by the buyer terminal, the header of the digital content to the server when the purchaser requests a purchase; And (c) if the server approves the purchase request, the server may read the distributor ID from the header of the digital content and distribute the revenue to the distributor with a computer having recorded a program for executing on the computer. Recording media. In a system that distributes digital content online over a computer network, A distributor terminal for selecting digital content to be distributed; A server for recording a distributor ID in the header of the digital content and transmitting the same to the distributor terminal; And A purchaser terminal applying for a purchase to the server to use the digital contents received from the distributor terminal, and transmitting a header of the digital contents to the server; The server reads the ID from the header received from the purchaser terminal and distributes the revenue to the distributor.

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