1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to managing digital media assets and, more specifically, to processing and reporting royalties for media assets.
2. Description of the Background Art
Traditionally, consumers have purchased music by buying physical media at retail music stores. After browsing compact discs (CDs) or cassette tapes of interest, the consumer proceeds to a checkout register to pay for the music being purchased. In recent years, however, the Internet has popularized the electronic purchase and delivery of music to consumers. Efficient file formats, such as MP3, have made the size of digital media assets (i.e., media files) small enough to make their download via the Internet not only practical but highly advantageous.
Today, consumers purchase music from online media services or “music stores,” including for example Apple itunes, EMusic, Rhapsody, Napster, Yahoo Music, MSN Music, and MusicMatch, to name a few. Using an online music store, consumers may purchase music either as individual music tracks or in albums of songs, for direct download to one's own computer. When a consumer desires to acquire (e.g., purchase or rent) a media content item (e.g., a digital music file, digital video file, electronic book (e-book) file, or other digital media), the consumer uses a Web-enabled device (e.g., Internet-connected personal computer or cell phone) to communicate with the online service. The service enables the consumer to browse and search for a desired media content item, and download purchased items to the consumer's device. Once stored on the consumer's own device, items can be “played” (i.e., rendered).
Each online music store provides music management software that gives the consumer the ability to organize their music into playlists, convert music into a different (e.g., MP3, AIFF, WAV, AAC, and the like), and transfer music between the personal computer and a portable music player (e.g., MP3 player). Although the digitization of media content was first popularized with music, practically all other media assets—including movies, music videos, educational content, television shows, live events, advertising, literary works, and the like—have been digitized to allow content suppliers to derive revenues from these assets in a digital marketplace.
Downloaded media files themselves are typically protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM) encoding, such as Apple Computer's FairPlay encoding, which prevents the playback of purchased media files on unauthorized media players. However, consumer access to media content may be controlled by a variety of methods, depending on the needs of the media service and content owners. Rhapsody, for example, offers a subscription plan that allows users unlimited media streaming and burning to CD. This flexibility, which stems from the digital nature of the media assets, supports a variety of different business models, providing convenience to consumers and increased revenue for content owners and suppliers.
Notwithstanding the obvious benefits of the digital distribution of media content, content owners and suppliers themselves are ill-equipped to track and manage associated royalty obligations. Consider the following problem. Each online service must generate quarterly royalty statements for hundreds (or even thousands) of record labels (“Labels”) and thousands of music publishers. With the explosion of digital music, the music industry now faces an urgent problem: how do record companies and music publishers accurately report royalties owed to recording artists and songwriters. The problem has become particularly acute because of the shift from distributing music in physical form to digital download, resulting in the generation of hundreds of millions of transactions by online music services. This has become a massive data processing problem that is posing critical accounting challenges for the Labels and music publishers.
Given increasing consumer demand for digital media content and features, online purchase and distribution of all sorts of media content can only be expected to increase. This trend is coupled with a need for an easy-to-use, web-based royalty processing and reporting service for content providers and the entertainment industry. The present invention fulfills this and other needs.