Licensing media consumption using digital currency

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for issuing licenses to allow end users to consume digital media content on a user device by responding to licensing requests by determining the number of digital tokens required to license the requested consumption and then issuing the license if the end user's account has a sufficient number of digital tokens.

1 . A method comprising:
 receiving, by a licensing agent, a request for a user to consume a digital media content on a user device;   determining, by the licensing agent, a number of digital currency tokens required to license the digital media content for the requested consumption; and   facilitating an exchange, by the licensing agent, of a digital license to be issued to the user device in exchange for the determined number of digital currency tokens if sufficient digital currency tokens are present in a user account associated with the user, wherein the digital currency tokens include digital currency tokens the user paid for or digital currency tokens the user otherwise earned.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the facilitating the exchange further comprises verifying that the user account has least the determined number of digital currency tokens; and
 the method further comprises debiting the user account by the determined number of digital currency tokens.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2  wherein the debiting of digital currency tokens comprises not debiting digital currency tokens that the user paid for until all digital currency tokens that the user did not pay for are exhausted. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3  further comprising reporting the debiting of digital currency tokens the user did not pay for and those the user did pay for. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 2  wherein the debiting of digital currency tokens comprises not debiting digital currency tokens that the user paid for until all digital currency tokens that the user obtained through an accrual program are exhausted, and not debiting said accrual digital currency tokens until all digital currency tokens obtained from a third party, other than through an accrual program, are exhausted. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5  further comprising reporting the number of digital currency tokens debited that the user paid for, the number that the user obtained through an accrual program, and the number that the user obtained from a third party, as applicable. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 2  wherein the debiting is accomplished by a digital currency server and the verifying is accomplished by sending a request to the digital currency server. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the verifying comprises the licensing agent sending a request to a digital currency server to determine if sufficient digital currency tokens are in the user account. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising the user device granting, to the user, access to the digital media content upon verification of the issued license, said license being valid for a period of time selected from: an indefinite period of time, a definite period of time, a period of time that the user device remains active. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9  wherein the license is invalidated upon the user terminating the consumption of the digital media content. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the licensing agent is comprised of a client-side portion residing on the client device and a server-side portion residing on a separate server, the client device and separate server adapted to be communicatively coupled via a wired and/or wireless network, the client-side portion enabled to cache a quantity of digital currency tokens to enable the receiving, verifying, and issuing to be performed without communicating with the server-side portion of the licensing agent. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11  further comprising requesting, by the client-side portion of the licensing agent, additional digital currency tokens upon determining that the client-side cache has fallen beneath a pre-determined number of digital currency tokens and the client device is currently communicatively coupled to the server-side portion of the licensing agent. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12  further comprising tracking and reporting, by the client-side portion of the licensing agent, the licensing activities of the client-side portion of the licensing agent. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the digital media content is a selected one of: computer game content, interactive media content, video content, audio content, graphical content, and textual content. 
     
     
         15 . A media licensing server comprising:
 a processor; and   a mass storage device including a plurality of programming instructions designed to implement a licensing module adapted to operate the processor to:
 receive a request for a user to consume a digital media content on a user device; 
 determine a number of digital currency tokens required to license the digital media content for the requested consumption; 
 verify that a user account associated with the user has a sufficient number of digital currency tokens to redeem the license; and 
 issue a digital license to the user device in exchange for the number of digital currency tokens if the digital currency tokens are present in the user account, wherein the digital currency tokens include digital currency tokens the user paid for or digital currency tokens the user otherwise earned. 
   
     
     
         16 . The media licensing server of  claim 15  wherein the licensing module is further adapted to operate the processor to send a request to a digital currency server to determine if the user account has a sufficient number of digital currency tokens. 
     
     
         17 . A media licensing server comprising:
 a processor; and   a mass storage device including a plurality of programming instructions designed to implement a server-side licensing module adapted to operate the processor to:   receive, from a client-side licensing module on a client device, a request for digital currency tokens;   sending, to a digital currency server, a request to verify that a user account associated with a user contains at least the requested number of digital currency tokens;   receiving, from the digital currency server, verification that the user account contains at least the requested number of digital currency tokens; and   sending, to the client-side module, authorization to cache the requested number of digital currency tokens.   
     
     
         18 . The media licensing server of  claim 17  wherein the server-side licensing module is further adapted to record and track the transfer of digital currency tokens. 
     
     
         19 . A digital currency server comprising:
 a processor; and
 a mass storage device including a database of user accounts and a plurality of programming instructions adapted to operate the processor to:
 receive a request, from a digital media licensing server, to verify that a user account associated with a user has at least a certain number of digital currency tokens; 
 sending to the digital media licensing server, in response, a reply indicating whether or not the user account has at least the certain number of digital currency tokens; and 
 debit the user account the certain number of digital currency tokens if at least the certain number of digital currency tokens are present in the account. 
 
   
     
     
         20 . (canceled) 
     
     
         21 . The digital currency server of  claim 19  wherein the debiting of digital currency tokens comprises not debiting digital currency tokens that the user paid for until all digital currency tokens that the user did not pay for are exhausted. 
     
     
         22 . The digital currency server of  claim 19  wherein the plurality of programming instructions are further adapted to operate the processor to not debit digital currency tokens that the user paid for unless all digital currency tokens that the user obtained through an accrual program are exhausted, and not debit said accrual digital currency tokens unless all digital currency tokens obtained from a third party, other than through an accrual program, are exhausted. 
     
     
         23 . The digital currency server of  claim 19  wherein the plurality of programming instructions are further adapted to operate the processor to provide an accounting of the debited digital currency tokens. 
     
     
         24 . A client device comprising:
 a processor; and   a mass storage device including a plurality of programming instructions adapted to implement a client-side digital media licensing module to operate the processor to:   receive a user request for a digital media license to consume digital media content;   determine a number of digital currency tokens required to obtain the license; and   debit the number of digital currency tokens required to license the requested media from a local cache of digital currency tokens.   
     
     
         25 . (canceled) 
     
     
         26 . (canceled) 
     
     
         27 . The client device of  claim 24  wherein the client-side portion of the digital media licensing module is further adapted to operate the processor to:
 request, via a wireless and/or wired network, from a server-side of digital media licensing module, authorization to cache a certain number of digital currency tokens on the client device; and   receive, in response, authorization from the server-side digital media licensing module to cache the requested number of digital currency tokens.   
     
     
         28 . The client device of  claim 27  wherein the client-side digital media licensing module is further adapted determines whether a current quantity of cached digital currency tokens is smaller than a pre-determined number and to request the authorization to cache the certain number of digital currency tokens if the determined current quantity of cached digital currency tokens is smaller than the predetermined number.