US20170055042A1 - Content distribution including advertisements - Google Patents

Content distribution including advertisements Download PDF

Info

Publication number
US20170055042A1
US20170055042A1 US15/199,566 US201615199566A US2017055042A1 US 20170055042 A1 US20170055042 A1 US 20170055042A1 US 201615199566 A US201615199566 A US 201615199566A US 2017055042 A1 US2017055042 A1 US 2017055042A1
Authority
US
United States
Prior art keywords
advertisements
content
entertainment content
presented
presentation
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Abandoned
Application number
US15/199,566
Inventor
Jian Zhao
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Verance Corp
Original Assignee
Verance Corp
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Verance Corp filed Critical Verance Corp
Priority to US15/199,566 priority Critical patent/US20170055042A1/en
Publication of US20170055042A1 publication Critical patent/US20170055042A1/en
Assigned to VERANCE CORPORATION reassignment VERANCE CORPORATION ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: ZHAO, JIAN
Abandoned legal-status Critical Current

Links

Images

Classifications

    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/80Generation or processing of content or additional data by content creator independently of the distribution process; Content per se
    • H04N21/81Monomedia components thereof
    • H04N21/812Monomedia components thereof involving advertisement data
    • GPHYSICS
    • G06COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06QINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00Commerce
    • G06Q30/02Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
    • G06Q30/0241Advertisements
    • G06Q30/0249Advertisements based upon budgets or funds
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/20Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/23Processing of content or additional data; Elementary server operations; Server middleware
    • H04N21/238Interfacing the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. adapting the transmission rate of a video stream to network bandwidth; Processing of multiplex streams
    • H04N21/2389Multiplex stream processing, e.g. multiplex stream encrypting
    • H04N21/23892Multiplex stream processing, e.g. multiplex stream encrypting involving embedding information at multiplex stream level, e.g. embedding a watermark at packet level
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/43Processing of content or additional data, e.g. demultiplexing additional data from a digital video stream; Elementary client operations, e.g. monitoring of home network or synchronising decoder's clock; Client middleware
    • H04N21/435Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/43Processing of content or additional data, e.g. demultiplexing additional data from a digital video stream; Elementary client operations, e.g. monitoring of home network or synchronising decoder's clock; Client middleware
    • H04N21/44Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing a video clip retrieved from local storage with an incoming video stream, rendering scenes according to MPEG-4 scene graphs
    • H04N21/44016Processing of video elementary streams, e.g. splicing a video clip retrieved from local storage with an incoming video stream, rendering scenes according to MPEG-4 scene graphs involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for substituting a video clip
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/43Processing of content or additional data, e.g. demultiplexing additional data from a digital video stream; Elementary client operations, e.g. monitoring of home network or synchronising decoder's clock; Client middleware
    • H04N21/442Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. detecting the failure of a recording device, monitoring the downstream bandwidth, the number of times a movie has been viewed, the storage space available from the internal hard disk
    • H04N21/44204Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/45Management operations performed by the client for facilitating the reception of or the interaction with the content or administrating data related to the end-user or to the client device itself, e.g. learning user preferences for recommending movies, resolving scheduling conflicts
    • H04N21/454Content or additional data filtering, e.g. blocking advertisements
    • H04N21/4542Blocking scenes or portions of the received content, e.g. censoring scenes
    • HELECTRICITY
    • H04ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04NPICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/40Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/47End-user applications
    • H04N21/478Supplemental services, e.g. displaying phone caller identification, shopping application
    • H04N21/4784Supplemental services, e.g. displaying phone caller identification, shopping application receiving rewards

Definitions

  • the present application generally relates to the field of multimedia content presentation and advertisement.
  • multimedia content on a variety of mobile and fixed platforms have rapidly proliferated.
  • storage paradigms such as cloud-based storage infrastructures, reduced form factor of media players, and high-speed wireless network capabilities, users can readily access and consume multimedia content regardless of the physical location of the users or the multimedia content.
  • a multimedia content such as an audiovisual content, often consists of a series of related images which, when shown in succession, impart an impression of motion, together with accompanying sounds, if any.
  • Such a content can be accessed from various sources including local storage such as hard drives or optical disks, remote storage such as Internet sites or cable/satellite distribution servers, over-the-air broadcast channels, etc.
  • local storage such as hard drives or optical disks
  • remote storage such as Internet sites or cable/satellite distribution servers, over-the-air broadcast channels, etc.
  • such a multimedia content, or portions thereof may contain only one type of content, including, but not limited to, a still image, a video sequence and an audio clip, while in other scenarios, the multimedia content, or portions thereof, may contain two or more types of content.
  • the disclosed embodiments relate to methods, devices and computer program products that facilitate enhanced use and interaction with a multimedia content, and presentation and consumption of advertisements at a compliant device.
  • One aspect of the disclosed embodiments relates to a method that includes receiving an indication at a compliant device that an entertainment content is associated with a content policy information.
  • the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during, or prior to, presentation of the entertainment content. Further, the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of (a) extraction of watermarks embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content and (b) computation and matching of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content.
  • the above noted method also includes receiving an indication that the entertainment content is associated with an advertisement award program, and providing, an advertisement award program message indicating that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements is allowed in exchange for a specific number of award points of an advertisement award program. Additionally, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is desired, the method includes allowing the one or more advertisements to be presented in a modified form.
  • the content policy information is indicative that presentation of the one or more advertisements cannot be modified without receiving further input from a user or from a user device.
  • the advertisement award program is associated with one of: a user, and the compliant device.
  • the above noted method further comprises receiving identification information associated with a user or with the compliant device to enable access to award points of the advertisement award program associated with the user or with the compliant device.
  • the above noted method further includes accumulating further award points in return for one or more of the following: presentation of one or more un-modified advertisements, purchase of one or more specific entertainment contents, and purchase of at least some of the specific number of award points.
  • the above noted method additionally includes accumulating further award points in return for presentation of one or more unmodified advertisements on each of a plurality of devices associated with a user.
  • modified presentation of the one or more advertisements includes one or more of: shortened presentation of the one or more advertisements and skipping of the one or more advertisements.
  • the above noted method further includes, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is not desired, presenting a message indicating that presentation of the entertainment content is allowed upon an agreement to view the one or more advertisement in unmodified format, and upon receiving an indication as to an agreement to view the one or more advertisements in unmodified format, presenting the one or more advertisements without modification.
  • the above noted method also includes, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is not desired, presenting a message indicating that presentation of the entertainment content is allowed upon an agreement to view the one or more advertisement in unmodified format, and upon receiving an indication as a lack of an agreement to view the one or more advertisements in unmodified format, providing a command to stop or prevent presentation of the entertainment content.
  • the advertisement award program is owned by a particular entity, and award points of the advertisement award program are redeemable through other entities affiliated with the particular entity.
  • the particular entity can be selected as one of: an advertiser, a television network, an entertainment content owner, and a content distributor.
  • the advertisement award program is identified at least in-part by identifying the entertainment content using one or more of the following: (A) watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content, (B) watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements, (C) fingerprints that are computed based on the entertainment content, and (D) fingerprints that are computed based on the one or more advertisements.
  • the content policy information is associated with a specific aspect of the entertainment content, the specific aspect comprising one or more of: a rights holder of the entertainment content, a distribution channel of the entertainment content, a platform on which the entertainment content is presented, a genre of the entertainment content, a release window of the entertainment content, and a format of the entertainment content.
  • the one or more advertisements in modified form are presented before allowing or resuming presentation of each entertainment content having the same specific aspect.
  • the rights holder of the entertainment content includes one of a creator and a distributor of the entertainment content.
  • the distribution channel includes one an over-the-top (OTT), over-the-air, video on demand (VOD), satellite, cable, wireless and Internet distribution channels.
  • OTT over-the-top
  • VOD video on demand
  • the platform includes one of a mobile, desktop, and television platforms.
  • a device that includes a receiver configured to receive one or both of (a) an entertainment content and (1)) one or more advertisements.
  • a device further includes a processor that is configured to receive an indication that an entertainment content is associated with a content policy information, the content policy information relating to presentation of one or more advertisements during, or prior to, presentation of the entertainment content.
  • the content policy information ascertained through one or both of (A) watermarks embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, and (B) computation of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content.
  • the processor in such a device is also configured to receive an indication that the entertainment content is associated with an advertisement award program, to provide an advertisement award program message indicating that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements is allowed in exchange for a specific number of award points of an advertisement award program, and, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is desired, to allow the one or more advertisements to be presented in a modified form.
  • the content policy information is indicative that presentation of the one or more advertisements cannot be modified without receiving further input.
  • the processor is further configured to receive identification information associated with a user or with the device to enable access to award points of the advertisement award program associated with the user or the device.
  • the processor is further configured to accumulate further award points in return for one or more of the following: presentation of one or more un-modified advertisements, purchase of one or more specific entertainment contents, and purchase of at least some of the specific number of award points.
  • the processor is further configured to, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is not desired, present a message indicating that presentation of the entertainment content is allowed upon an agreement to view the one or more advertisement in unmodified format.
  • the processor is additionally configured to, upon receiving an indication as to an agreement to view the one or more advertisements in unmodified format, present the one or more advertisements without modification.
  • the processor is further configured to, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is not desired, present a message indicating that presentation of the entertainment content is allowed upon an agreement to view the one or more advertisement in unmodified format.
  • the processor is also configured to, upon receiving an indication as to a lack of an agreement to view the one or more advertisements in unmodified format, provide a command to stop or prevent presentation of the entertainment content.
  • the above noted device includes at least one of (a) a watermark extractor configured to extract watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content or in the one or more advertisements, and (b) a fingerprint computation component configured to compute a fingerprint associated with the entertainment content or in the one or more advertisements. Additionally, the device is further configured to identify the advertisement award program using one or more of the following: (A) watermarks extracted from the entertainment content by the watermark extractor, (B) watermarks extracted from the one or more advertisements by the watermark extractor, (C) fingerprints computed based on the entertainment content by the fingerprint computation component, and (D) fingerprints computed based on the one or more advertisements by the fingerprint computation component.
  • one or both of the watermark extractor and fingerprint computation component are implemented as a component separate from the processor. In another exemplary embodiment, one or both of the watermark extractor and fingerprint computation component are implemented as part of the processor.
  • the content policy information is associated with a specific aspect of the entertainment content, the specific aspect comprising one or more of: a rights holder of the entertainment content, a distribution channel of the entertainment content, a platform on which the entertainment content is presented, a genre of the entertainment content, a release window of the entertainment content, and a format of the entertainment content.
  • the processor is configured to allow presentation of the one or more advertisements in modified form for each entertainment content having the same specific aspect.
  • the above noted device is one of a: mobile device, a set-top box device, a handheld device, a personal computer, and a Blu-ray playback device.
  • Another aspect of the disclosed embodiments relates to a computer program product, embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium, that includes program code for receiving an indication at a compliant device that an entertainment content is associated with a content policy information, where the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during, or prior to, presentation of the entertainment content, and the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of (a) watermarks embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, (b) computation of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content.
  • the computer program product further includes program code for receiving an indication that the entertainment content is associated with an advertisement award program, program code for providing an advertisement award program message indicating that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements is allowed in exchange for a specific number of award points of an advertisement award program, and program code for, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is desired, allowing the one or more advertisements to be presented in a modified form.
  • Another aspect of the disclosed embodiments relates to a method that includes receiving at least a portion of an entertainment content at a compliant device, and obtaining content policy information associated with the received entertainment content, where the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content, and the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, and (b) computation and matching of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content.
  • Such an exemplary method further includes triggering presentation of the one or more advertisements: before allowing presentation of advertisement-free playback of the entertainment content, or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content.
  • the release window includes a specific time period, upon the termination of which, the entertainment content is released in a different format.
  • release of the entertainment content in the different format includes release of the entertainment content as a Blu-ray content, a broadcast television content, a cable television content, a video-on-demand content and a format playable by a mobile device.
  • the same one or more advertisements is presented before allowing or resuming presentation of the entertainment content on a plurality of playback devices.
  • each of the plurality of playback devices is categorized as at least one of a mobile device, a set-top box device, a handheld device, a personal computer, and a Blu-ray playback device, and the content policy information provides for a different set of enforcement actions for each category of playback devices.
  • the above noted method that takes into account the release window further includes, after allowing presentation of at least one advertisement, determining whether or not a sufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented, and when an insufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement.
  • existence of the specific release window is signaled through watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content.
  • expiration of the specific time window is signaled through watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content that differ from watermarks that signal existence of the specific release window.
  • the one or more advertisements are selected to target a specific group of users and/or user devices based on a particular set of criteria.
  • the particular set of criteria includes one or more of a title of the entertainment content, an advertisement presentation history of the compliant device, an advertisement presentation history of a user of the compliant device, a programming contextual relevance of the one or more advertisements, a current date and time, feedback of a user related to the one or more advertisements, a geographical location of the compliant device, a platform on which the compliant device is implemented, a type of the entertainment content, a storage format of the entertainment content, a distributor of the entertainment content, and a distribution channel of the entertainment content.
  • watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content or in the one or more advertisements allow obtaining identification information associated with the entertainment content or with the one or more advertisements.
  • the identification information includes one or more of: a content identifier (CID), a source identifier (SourceID) and a timecode.
  • the entertainment content does not include embedded watermarks
  • the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks.
  • triggering presentation of the one or more advertisements comprises determining a duration of watermarked advertisements from a plurality of timecodes embedded in the one or more presented advertisements, determining whether or not a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has been presented, and, upon a determination that a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has not been presented, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement.
  • the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks and the one or more advertisements do not include embedded watermarks.
  • presenting the one or more advertisements comprises determining a duration of watermarked advertisements based on an absence of watermarks as the entertainment content is being presented, determining whether or not a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has been presented, and, upon a determination that a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has not been presented, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement.
  • the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks
  • the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks.
  • presenting one or more advertisements includes identifying the entertainment content using the watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content, identifying the one or more advertisements using the watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements, determining whether or not the identified one or more advertisements are non-skippable with respect to the identified entertainment content, and, upon a determination that the identified one or more advertisements are non-skippable with respect to the identified entertainment content, triggering presentation of the one or more non-skippable advertisements.
  • a device that includes a receiver configured to receive one or both of (a) an entertainment content and (b) one or more advertisements.
  • Such device also includes a processor that is configured to obtain content policy information associated with the received entertainment content, where the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content, and the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, and (b) computation of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content.
  • the processor of such a device is further configured to trigger presentation of the one or more advertisements: before allowing presentation of advertisement-free playback of the entertainment content or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content.
  • the processor is further configured to, after presentation of at least one advertisement, determine whether or not a sufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented, and upon a determination that an insufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented, trigger presentation of at least one additional advertisement.
  • the device further comprises a watermark extractor configured to extract one or more watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content, and the processor is further configured to determine existence of the specific release window through the extracted watermarks.
  • the processor is further configured to determine expiration of the specific time window through at least one extracted watermark.
  • the watermark extractor is implemented as a component separate from the processor, while in another exemplary embodiment, the watermark extractor is implemented as part of the processor.
  • the device further comprises a watermark extractor configured to extract one or more watermark that are embedded in the entertainment content or in the one or more advertisements
  • the processor is further configured to obtain identification information associated with the entertainment content or with the one or more advertisements from the watermarks extracted by the watermark extractor.
  • the entertainment content does not include embedded watermarks
  • the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks.
  • the processor is configured to trigger presentation of the one or more advertisements by at least: determining a duration of watermarked advertisements from a plurality of timecodes embedded in the one or more presented advertisements, determining whether or not a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has been presented, and, upon a determination that a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has not been presented, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement must be presented.
  • the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks and the one or more advertisements do not include embedded watermarks.
  • the processor is configured to trigger presentation of the one or more advertisements by at least: determining a duration of watermarked advertisements based on an absence of watermarks as the entertainment content is being presented, determining whether or not a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has been presented, and, upon a determination that a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has not been presented, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement must be presented.
  • the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks and the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks.
  • the processor is configured to trigger presentation of the one or more advertisements by at least: identifying the entertainment content using the watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content, identifying the one or more advertisements using the watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements, determining whether or not the identified one or more advertisements are non-skippable with respect to the identified entertainment content, and upon a determination that the identified one or more advertisements are non-skippable with respect to the identified entertainment content, triggering presentation of the one or more non-skippable advertisements.
  • the computer program product includes program code for receiving at least a portion of an entertainment content at a compliant device and program code for obtaining content policy information associated with the received entertainment content, where the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content, and the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or in the received entertainment content, and (b) computation of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content.
  • the computer program product further includes program code for triggering presentation of the one or more advertisements: before allowing presentation of advertisement-free playback of the entertainment content, or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content.
  • FIG. 1 shows a high-level diagram of an advertising-supported content distribution system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • FIG. 2 illustrates some of the components within a compliant device in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • FIG. 3 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment in which one or more advertisements are watermarked.
  • FIG. 4 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment, in which the entertainment content is watermarked.
  • FIG. 5 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment in which the both the entertainment content and the advertisements are watermarked.
  • FIG. 6A illustrates a set of operations that can be carried out when content distribution using a CPI state (e.g., ‘ads-obliged state) is effected in a accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • a CPI state e.g., ‘ads-obliged state
  • FIG. 6B illustrates a set of operations 650 that can be carried out to control presentation of an entertainment content and associated advertisements in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • FIG. 7 illustrates a system 700 that can accommodate the disclosed embodiments.
  • FIG. 8 illustrates a simplified diagram of an exemplary device within which various disclosed embodiments may be implemented.
  • FIG. 9 illustrates a set of operations that can be carried out to effectuate advertising-supported content distribution in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • FIG. 10 illustrates a set of operations that may be carried out to trigger presentation of one or more advertisements in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • exemplary is used to mean serving as an example, instance, or illustration. Any embodiment or design described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or designs. Rather, use of the word exemplary is intended to present concepts in a concrete manner.
  • Watermarking has been used to enable the communication and enactment of use policies for audiovisual content across a broad range of distribution channels and devices.
  • Watermarks are typically embedded substantially imperceptibly in one or more components of a multimedia content, such as in an audio component or a video component, and can be used for a variety of applications such as tamper detection, copy management, content identification, broadcast monitoring, etc.
  • Digital watermarks can also be used to communicate Content Policy Information (CPI) between the content provider and the compliant consumer devices. Examples of CPI include Copy Once, No More Copy, No Home Use (i.e. the content that contains such CPI information is intended for theatrical release only but not for home use), Trusted Source (implying that the content should be protected by approved encryption).
  • CPI Content Policy Information
  • watermarks can also be used to enable the advertisement-obliged or advertisement supported content distribution, where the presentation of certain advertisements is required for, or facilitates, the viewing of the entertainment content.
  • the disclosed embodiments can be used to effect award-earning content distribution, where the viewers can earn award points by viewing the presentation of such content including advertisements.
  • the watermarked content is distributed through any means and may ultimately be used on devices that incorporate the watermark detection functionality.
  • the detection functionality enables those devices to retrieve the information contained within the watermarks and apply the associated content use policies.
  • the retrieved information may indicate that the content is only intended for theatrical release and not for use in any consumer devices, or the content is intended for use only under the governance of certain content protection technologies.
  • devices such as Blu-ray Disc players read CPI from the audio track of audiovisual content that they are playing or copying, and may limit the use of the content when certain unauthorized uses are identified. Playback or copying of unauthorized copies may be stopped or audio may be muted as enforcement response, depending on which CPI is found and what operation is being performed. For example, when the use of content is restricted based on a CPI, an explanatory message may be provided on the video screen or on the front panel of the device as part of the enforcement response.
  • Revenue from advertisement is one of the major sources for content providers to fully monetize their assets and investment.
  • Modern user interfaces allow the users to smoothly switch channels to skip viewing the commercials.
  • Devices such as Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) allow programs to be recorded for later viewing. During replay of such recorded programs, commercials can be skipped, either manually by the users or automatically by certain devices.
  • commercials can be removed or replaced from content for unauthorized distribution (e.g., broadcasting and online distribution). For content providers and distributors, it is crucial to prevent the user from conveniently skipping the advertisements especially in an advertisement-supported content distribution model.
  • DVRs Digital Video Recorders
  • a non-skippable (or an enforced) advertisement system is provided such that playback of necessary advertisements is enforced as a specific content policy based on the CPI embedded as watermarks in advertisement-obliged content or in advertisement materials.
  • a compliant consumer device i.e., a consumer device that is configured to detect the CPI and enforce the associated polices
  • An example of such a policy associated with an ad-support CPI is to require certain advertisements or certain amount of advertisements to be watched without skipping or shortening the duration of content viewing (e.g., not to use fast-forward or other trick playback modes) during playback of content items distributed by a specific distributor or channel.
  • watermarks may also contain the information that identities one or more of the following: One or more identifiers for the entertainment content title (“content ID” or CID); one or more identifiers for the content sources through which the content is distributed (“Content Source ID” or “SourceID”), such as TV networks, channels or content distributors; and/or one or more identifiers for individual segments of the content (for example a timecode, a counter value, and the like, that identifies temporal location of a content segment). For example, based on timecodes which identify each unique segment in a content item, the start and end of each watermarked segment of the content can also be identified.
  • the duration of each watermarked segment can be calculated from the start and end positions of the segment in the content.
  • CID, SourceID and timecodes are collectively called identification information. It should be noted that the above list of identification information is not exhaustive and the watermarks can carry additional information. Moreover, in some embodiments, one or more of the information carried on the watermark can be combined. It should also be noted that the identification information is not limited to being represented by the watermarks that are embedded in the content. Another representation of the identification information fingerprints, which are digests derived from features of the content without requiring modification of the content.
  • the term “content” is sometimes used to broadly cover audio and video contents, including, but not limited to, Movies, T V and Events, Music, Interactive Content, Mobile Content, UGC, Voice, Advertisements which are distributed by any means such as Terrestrial, cable, satellite, Internet Protocols, IPTV, OTT (Over-the-Top) Internet, Web, Mobile, Physical Media, and others.
  • content that is dedicated for advertising is called an advertisement (sometimes abbreviated as “ad” or “ads”) while the remaining types of content is referred to as “entertainment content.”
  • advertisement sometimes abbreviated as “ad” or “ads”
  • the content may have other purposes than entertainment.
  • news and documentaries are other non-exclusive types of content that may be referred to as “entertainment content” in this disclosure.
  • FIG. 1 shows a high-level diagram of an advertisement-obliged content distribution system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • the terms “advertisement obliged,” “advertisement supported,” and “advertisement enhanced” may be used interchangeably, in connection with content distribution, to refer to distribution of content that is accompanied by advertisements. These advertisements, among other things, may be required for viewing the content, may incentivize but not require a consumer to view the advertisements and/or allow financial transactions to occur that are associated with content and/or advertisements.
  • the entertainment content can be embedded with watermarks using the watermark embedder 102 and is stored at the content database 106 .
  • the advertisement content can be embedded with watermarks using a watermark embedder 104 and stored at an ads database 108 .
  • the compliant device 110 can then access or be presented with) the embedded content and/or advertisements.
  • entertainment content and advertisement watermarking and/or storage may occur using the same watermark embedder (e.g., at the same facility) and/or the same database (or different portions of the same database) may be used to store the content and the advertisements.
  • the compliant device 110 of FIG. 1 can be any hardware, software (including system or application software), or combination of them that is capable of obtaining content policy information and taking actions in accordance with the policy.
  • the actions may include granting award points in exchange for viewing the presentation of the award-earning content, controlling the presentation of the entertainment content and/or advertisements, and the like.
  • Examples of the compliant device include Set-Top Boxes, Blu-ray players, tablets, mobile phones, PCs, TVs, media players, apps on mobile devices, etc.
  • FIG. 2 illustrates some of the components within a compliant device 200 in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • the exemplary compliant device 200 of FIG. 2 includes a media player 202 that plays the content including entertainment content and advertisements.
  • the media player 200 can be equipped with various functionalities that allow, for example, playback of the content, in either or both forward and reverse directions, and at various speeds, allow skipping of the content, recording of the content and the like.
  • the Advertisement Selector 206 is configured to select the advertisements from the Ads Local Inventory 210 based on, for example, personal preferences and other customization information.
  • the Policy Enforcement Manager 204 is configured to execute the actions determined by Policy Manager 208 .
  • the Policy Manager 208 is configured to determine the actions based on the predefined policies associated with watermark payloads that are embedded in the content being played back.
  • the Watermark Detector 212 is configured to detect watermarks from the content and recover the watermark payloads.
  • the exemplary compliant device 200 of FIG. 2 can include fewer or additional items. For example, some of the components within FIG. 2 can be combined together and/or the compliant device 200 of FIG. 2 can include a processor, a memory, one or more communication units (which can include a receiver and/or a transmitter that is configured to receive and/or send data, information and signals to other entities through a communication channel), a display, speakers and other components to allow proper operations of the compliant device 200 .
  • the compliant device 200 can include a content policy information detector that is configured to obtain the content policy information or state (e.g., the CPI that is specifically related to the advertisement-obliged content distribution) through one or more of extraction of watermarks, computation of fingerprints and obtaining the CPI associated with a content from a remote device.
  • a content policy information detector can, for example, be incorporated as part of the Policy Manager 208 .
  • the content policy information may be obtained from a different component or device that resides outside of the compliant device (e.g., from a content distributor, advertisement servers, or other trusted entities in the home network or in the cloud).
  • identification information may be made available to a compliant device (e.g., provided by the distribution system or through other identification system such as metadata lookup or digital fingerprinting content recognition).
  • FIG. 3 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment in which one or more advertisements are watermarked.
  • the shaded regions represent advertisements that are interspersed within the entertainment content, and are embedded with watermarks.
  • the clear regions represent unwatermarked entertainment content or advertisements.
  • the embedded advertisements may be presented in a time-multiplexed fashion with respect to the remaining segments of the content, in other embodiments, the embedded advertisements (or advertisements in general) may be presented simultaneously as the entertainment content. In case of the latter, the advertisements may be presented as pop-ups, as translucent overlays, or on a separate display or as a separate window as the entertainment content.
  • the compliant device can recover the identification information from the watermarked advertisements.
  • the duration of watermarked advertisements can be calculated from, for example, the detected timecodes.
  • the duration of the entertainment content being played back can be estimated from the duration of absence of watermarks, and/or provided by the system clock of the compliant device.
  • An example of enforcement action in this scenario includes preventing skipping of the advertisement by mandatorily playing back the advertisements when insufficient advertisement time has been accumulated since the start of the playback.
  • FIG. 4 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment, in which the entertainment content is watermarked.
  • the shaded regions represent embedded sections of the entertainment content
  • the clear regions represent an watermarked advertisements.
  • the device can recover the identification information from the watermarked content.
  • the duration of watermarked content can be calculated from, for example, the detected timecodes, and the duration of unwatermarked ads can be estimated from the duration of absence of watermarks or provided by compliant device when such ads are locally buffered.
  • An example of enforcement action in this scenario includes preventing skipping of the advertisement by mandatorily playing back the advertisements when insufficient advertisement time has been accumulated since the start of the content playback.
  • FIG. 5 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment, in which the both the entertainment content and the advertisements are watermarked.
  • the solid black regions represent embedded sections of the entertainment content, and the shaded regions represent watermarked advertisements.
  • the embedded information can include CID. SourceID, timecodes, and the like.
  • the device can recover the identification information from the watermarked entertainment content and/or advertisements.
  • the duration of both the watermarked content and watermarked advertisements can be calculated during the playback.
  • a compliant device is able to identify the entertainment content and the advertisements based on the extracted CIDs from the watermarked entertainment content and watermarked advertisements, respectively.
  • An example enforcement action in this scenario includes enforcing the playback a list of specific non-skippable ads during the playback of a list of specific entertainment contents.
  • a car company can show a new car advertisement whenever a specific movie is played back during an ad-supported release window on any home entertainment platform such as mobile device, computers or smart TVs.
  • release window sometimes used to refer to a specific time period or time interval, upon the termination of which the entertainment content may be released in a different form.
  • an entertainment content is often released by the movie studios in phases, or windows.
  • release windows of a movie can include, but are not limited to, theatrical release in select theaters, release in all (or a larger number of theatres), release on Blu-ray. DVD, release on release as video on demand, release on cable/satellite subscription networks, release on Internet, release on over-the-air television, and the like.
  • each release window may be signaled using embedded watermarks that, for example, differ from one release window to another.
  • the release window can be signaled from external sources, such as a database (e.g., iMDb) that includes information regarding the history and latest release window of an entertainment content.
  • a database e.g., iMDb
  • advertisements can be customized to allow targeted advertising. For example, different advertisements can be played with the same entertainment content depending on user's information (e.g., user's preferences) privately stored in the compliant device. As a result, the users are presented with more relevant and less annoying advertisement materials while advertisers benefit from consumer information without having actual access to the information.
  • user's information e.g., user's preferences
  • such targeted advertisements can be dynamic. That is, the same user may be presented with different advertisements each time the same entertainment content is played back. Dynamic advertising may improve the user's experience (by avoiding repeated advertisements) and improve the value of the entertainment content (by introducing new advertisements).
  • a compliant device may select an advertisement from the local advertisement inventory according to at least one or more of the following:
  • the advertisement presentation history on a specific device
  • the feedback provided by the user regarding the advertisements (collected from, for example, on an additional screen of a separate device, or a separate window on the same device that displays the entertainment content);
  • the location (e.g., geographic location) information of the device that presents the content, or user of such device e.g., geographic location
  • the playback platform (e.g., whether the content is being presented on a laptop, game console, mobile phone, tablet, smart TV, etc.);
  • the type of the media that is used to distribute the content e.g., physical disc, digital in HD, digital on mobile, etc.
  • the type of the media that is used to distribute the content e.g., physical disc, digital in HD, digital on mobile, etc.
  • the content distributor and distribution channel (e.g., broadcast channel, OTT, VOD, etc.).
  • the advertisement can be delivered to the users through a variety of techniques, configurations and channels.
  • the advertisements are part of the content or are bound together with the content.
  • the advertisements are, for example, inserted into the entertainment content prior to delivery for the application, such as video-on-demand (VOD).
  • VOD video-on-demand
  • Such advertisements can be personalized by the VOD servers based on the information about devices, user profiles, the content that is being consumed, associated rights policies and the like. More details in this regard will be presented in the sections that follow.
  • the advertisements are inserted during the delivery, for example, by the servers of Content Distribution Networks (CDN).
  • CDN Content Distribution Networks
  • the advertisements can be regionally targeted. For example, local advertisements can be inserted for all customers in a particular local area.
  • the advertisements are dynamically selected and inserted from a locally buffered advertisement inventory. Such insertion may be performed in real-time for broadcast or live content. Additionally, or alternatively, the insertion of such advertisements from a local inventory can be carried out for recorded content (e.g. using a DVR). Such advertisement inventory can be pulled by the compliant devices or pushed by the advertisement servers into the local advertisement storage during the same time as the content is being presented or distributed, or during previous presentation/distribution of the content. When advertisements are stored on local devices, they can be synchronized with Ads Servers periodically, manually, triggered by downloading/streaming of legitimate content, or triggered by extraction of watermark payloads.
  • the reception of an entertainment content that includes one or more embedded watermarks can automatically trigger a watermark extractor to extract embedded watermarks. Based on the extracted watermarks, the compliant device can automatically select advertisements based on a particular criteria, and present the advertisements on the compliant device.
  • enforcement actions can be supported. Some examples of the actions are described below. However, it is understood that new actions may be defined, including, actions that are provided by combining the actions from one or more existing categories.
  • the enforcement action is based on advertising time requirements.
  • such an enforcement policy can require a minimum time for presentation of advertisements during the playback of an entertainment content.
  • the enforcement policy requires that at least one advertisement to be presented for every 5- or 10-minute presentation of an entertainment content.
  • the enforcement policy requires that a specific “pre-roll” advertisement precede the presentation of an entertainment content.
  • the enforcement policy requires playback of N % advertisement (measured, for example, in terms of a percentage of time) for presentation of every (100 ⁇ N) % entertainment content.
  • a failure to fulfill the enforcement policy can result in an enforcement action, such as stoppage of playback of content, display of warning or informational messages, disabling of fast-forward functionality, and the like.
  • failure to fulfill the enforcement policy may result in more than one enforcement action, or can allow the user to select between alternate enforcement actions, some of which may not be detrimental to viewing of the content.
  • a compliant player may be configured to enforce one particular enforcement policy, such as disabling the fast-forward or skip functionalities, in accordance with enforcement policy requirements.
  • the enforcement action is based on using an award program.
  • the enforcement policy can allow certain award/loyalty points to be spent in order to skip or shorten the presentation of advertisements during presentations of the entertainment content.
  • these award points can be purchased or earned through loyalty programs provided by content providers, content distributors, networks, marketers, advertisement agencies or other parties. Details of using and earning Advertisement Credits are described in the sections that follow.
  • enforcement action is based on cross-media and cross-platform advertising.
  • a platform includes a hardware architecture and a software framework (such as one or more application frameworks), where software, particularly application software such as media player and media streaming client, to able to be executed.
  • Typical platforms such as Microsoft Windows or Google Android include an architecture, operating system, programming languages and related user interface.
  • Cross-media and cross-platform advertising can, for example, introduce more opportunities to create brand awareness by bringing the same advertising message across multiple media formats (e.g., in HD, SD and mobile), through different distribution methods (e.g., linear TV or VOD, Internet, 4G, etc.), and across different consumption platforms/devices (e.g., Set-Top Boxes, Blu-ray players, tablets, mobile phones, PCs, etc.).
  • the enforcement action associated with the cross-media/cross-platform advertising requires that a specific advertisement (or a specific group of advertisements) to be presented during presentation of a specific entertainment content item (or a specific group of entertainment contents).
  • advertisements may be grouped according to various criteria such as the brand name, sponsors, industry, category of the advertised products.
  • entertainment content may be grouped according to 1) production and rights information such as the rights holder, content creator, and content distributor; 2) distribution information such as content distribution channels, distribution platforms, consumption platforms, and content sources; and/or 3) other content metadata such as ranking, genre, release window, format of the content, producer, crew that took part in content production, and the like.
  • Cross-media advertising policy can be implemented by matching the identification information between the advertisement and entertainment content by a compliant device.
  • identification information may be extracted from watermarks or made available to the compliant devices or through other means such as metadata from content distributors or content recognition through digital fingerprinting.
  • cross-media and cross-platform advertising include but are not limited to:
  • a series of advertisements promoting a product are presented on all platforms, such as TVs, mobile devices, and PCs, during each live and recorded presentation of a series of episodes of a specific TV show from a specific network within a specific time period.
  • An advertisement promoting a car is presented whenever a specific movie is presented on all compliant devices such as Blu-ray players, tablets, mobile phones or PCs.
  • Presentation of a TV show requires presentation of advertisements from a TV network or its affiliates that create and distribute the TV show.
  • Presentation of a movie requires presentation of one or more advertisements from an advertiser who sponsors the distribution of the movie.
  • advertisement award points may be utilized in advertising-supported content distribution.
  • Advertisement award programs may be created by a multiple system operator (MSO), a retailer, an advertiser or sponsor, advertisement agency, an OTT provider such as Netflix or Amazon, or a TV network, or a content owner.
  • MSO multiple system operator
  • the award points accumulated through advertisement award program created by a content distributor may be redeemed only for the benefits associated with the content distributed by such distributor and its affiliates.
  • one or more identifiers that are obtained by the compliant device are associated with one or more award programs.
  • the points earned from the award program created by ABC Networks may be redeemed for premium content viewing with a discounted fee, allowing viewing of an entertainment content without (or with shortened) advertisements, or receiving discounts to purchase products at a Disney store.
  • the user can spend the award points to skip or shorten the advertisements during the playback of the entertainment content that contains the CPI ‘ads-support’ state.
  • the award points are redeemed from the user's account associated with the award program that is created by the distributor of such entertainment content, and registered with the identification information of such entertainment content which is obtained by the compliant device.
  • the user can redeem the accumulated advertisement award points to receive product discounts, gifts, or cash from advertisers.
  • the disclosed embodiments further allow advertisement award points to be earned and redeemed in different ways.
  • the points can be purchased, earned via purchase of a content (e.g., via download, VOD, DBD/BD, etc.), earned by viewing certain affiliates programs, or other promotions.
  • award points can be earned by viewing advertisements across multiple platforms such advertisements presented on a TV, on an online program, and/or on mobile device.
  • Such award points may be calculated based on the number of advertising impressions exposed to a user or duration of the watched advertisements.
  • Such watched advertisements can be identified and measured automatically by the compliant device that continuously identifies the entertainment content and advertisements during the their presentation.
  • the award points can be stored locally at the compliant devices and/or submitted by the compliant device to a central location that keeps track of the award points.
  • credits can be purchased, transferred, and further shared among family members.
  • a user may create multiple accounts with different advertisement award programs.
  • Each advertisement award program can, for example, correspond to one or more CIDs that are extracted from the entertainment content or advertisements.
  • An advertisement award program can be established by an advertiser, advertisement sponsor, agency, promoter, content distributor or producer, and market intelligence firms to promote and sell the products or enrich the value of the ads.
  • the user or the compliant device associated with that user
  • the user or the compliant device may determine the preference of these programs so that the award points earned by watching the identified advertisements are only credited to the preferred award program.
  • the award points can be redeemed against the offers provided by the owner of the award program.
  • the award points from an advertiser can be redeemed for coupons to buy the products or services provided by such advertiser.
  • the award points from a content distributor may be redeemed for reduced advertisements on the program provided by such distributor or for personalized and exclusive content.
  • award points earned in different programs may be transferred, exchanged, and further shared among these programs subject to the collaboration and agreements among these programs.
  • FIG. 6A illustrates the operations 600 that can be carried out when content distribution using a CPI state (e.g., ‘ads-obliged state) is effected in a accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • the operations 600 start at 602 when the CPI state (e.g., ‘ads-obliged’ state) is obtained.
  • an advertisement award program message is displayed to the user.
  • the message at 604 can indicate to the user that “N advertisement award points are required to continue playback” of the entertainment content.
  • the user can make a decision as to whether or not agree to use his/her accumulated award points.
  • received input at 606 is affirmative (i.e., “YES” at 606 )
  • the advertisement award points are updated (e.g., reduced to account for subtraction of N credits), and the playback of the entertainment content continues without advertisements or with a modified (e.g., an abbreviated) version of advertisements.
  • received input at 606 is a “NO” (e.g., the user does not agree to use N award points)
  • the user may be optionally be prompted at 608 to answer whether or not he/she agrees to watch the advertisements.
  • presentation of content is stopped at 614 (or is prevented, if the operations 600 are carried out, for example, prior to presentation of the entertainment content).
  • the input received at 608 is affirmative (i.e., “YES” at 608 )
  • the user may have the option of selecting the particular advertisement(s) for viewing, while in other embodiments, the advertisements may be selected for the user.
  • Such a selection may be carried out based on the user profile (e.g., stored user preferences), at random, or based on other criteria, such as the type of platform, the content format, the content owner's preferences and the like.
  • the various messages that are presented to the user in the exemplary operations 600 of FIG. 6A may be displayed as interruptions in presentation of the entertainment content, as an overlay (a pop-up, a translucent overlay, or as a picture-in-picture screen), or on a companion device (e.g., on a tablet device, when the entertainment program is being presented on a television).
  • operations at 608 and 614 may not be implemented. That is, at 606 , upon user's refusal to use the his/her award points, the operations 600 directly flows to 612 , where non-skippable advertisement(s) are presented to the user.
  • FIG. 6B illustrates a set of operations 650 that can be carried out to control presentation of an entertainment content and associated advertisements in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • an indication at a compliant device is receive that an entertainment content is associated with a content policy information.
  • the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during, or prior to, presentation of the entertainment content. Further, the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content and (b) computation and matching of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content entertainment.
  • an indication that the entertainment content is associated with an advertisement award program is received.
  • an advertisement award program message is provided that indicates modified presentation of the one or more advertisements is allowed in exchange for a specific number of award points of an advertisement award program.
  • one or more advertisements are allowed to be presented in a modified form.
  • FIG. 7 illustrates a system 700 that can accommodate the disclosed embodiments.
  • the system 700 includes a first device 702 that is configured to present a multimedia content that can include both the entertainment content and the advertisements.
  • the first device 702 can be coupled to, or include, a display screen, a projector screen, one or more speakers and the associated circuitry, such as a processor and a memory, as well as software components to enable the reception, storage, processing and presentation of a multimedia content.
  • the first device 702 can be in communication with a database 714 .
  • the database 714 includes one or more storage 718 devices for storage of a variety of multimedia content, including the entertainment content and the advertisements, as well as meta data, survey results, applications, instructions, etc., which may be stored on magnetic, optical, semiconductor and/or other types of memory devices.
  • the database 714 can, for example, include a remote (e.g., cloud-based) storage device.
  • the first device 702 may, alternatively or additionally, be configured to receive multimedia content and metadata through one or more other sources 716 , such as through the Internet, through a terrestrial broadcast channel, through a cable network, through a home network (e.g., a Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) compliant network), through a wired or wireless network (e.g., a local area network (LAN), wireless LAN (WLAN), a wide area network (WAN) and the like).
  • DLNA Digital Living Network Alliance
  • a media content can also be a real-time (e.g., streaming) content that is broadcast, unicast or otherwise provided to the first device 702 .
  • the received content can be at least partially stored and/or buffered before being presented by the first device 702 .
  • the first device 702 is a compliant device that is shown in FIG. 2 .
  • the first device 702 is also in communication with at least a second device 706 to, for example, present various questions or alerts to the user.
  • the second device 706 is also in communication with the database 714 .
  • Connectivity between the various devices in FIG. 7 , and components therein, can be effectuated using any one of wired or wireless communication techniques, including but not limited to 802.11 protocol, Bluetooth, Infrared transmissions, and the like.
  • FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of a device 800 within which various disclosed embodiments may be implemented.
  • the device 800 comprises at least one processor 804 and/or controller, at least one memory 802 unit that is in communication with the processor 804 , and at least one communication unit 806 that enables the exchange of data and information, directly or indirectly, through the communication link 808 with other entities, devices, databases and networks.
  • the communication unit 806 may provide wired and/or wireless communication capabilities in accordance with one or more communication protocols, and therefore it may comprise the proper transmitter/receiver antennas, circuitry and ports, as well as the encoding/decoding capabilities that may be necessary for proper transmission and/or reception of data and other information.
  • the exemplary device 800 of FIG. 8 may be integrated as part of a compliant device, such as the compliant device that is shown in FIG. 2 , to carry out some or all of the operations that are described in the present application.
  • the device 800 of FIG. 8 may also be incorporated into a device that resides at a remote database, such as database 714 , that is shown in FIG. 7 , and is configured to perform some or all of the operations that are described in accordance with various disclosed embodiments.
  • FIG. 9 illustrates a set of operations 900 that can be carried out to effectuate advertising-supported content distribution in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • an entertainment content is received at a compliant device.
  • content policy information associated with the received content is obtained.
  • Such a content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content, and is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or the received entertainment content, and (b) computation of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content.
  • presentation of one or more advertisements is triggered before allowing presentation of the entertainment content or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content.
  • the presentation of the one or more advertisements can be done on the compliant device that is presenting the entertainment content, or on another device companion to the compliant device.
  • FIG. 10 illustrates a set of operations 1000 that may be carried out to trigger presentation of one or more advertisements in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • at 1002 at least a portion of an entertainment content is received at a compliant device.
  • content policy information associated with the received entertainment content id obtained.
  • the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content, and the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, and (b) computation and matching of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content.
  • presentation of the one or more advertisements is triggered. Such presentation is provided before allowing presentation of advertisement-free playback of the entertainment content, or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content.
  • the disclosed embodiments further allow delivery of targeted advertisements that are consistent and/or synchronized across multiple media, distribution methods and consumption platforms.
  • an award program in accordance with the presented embodiments allows the users to cam points by, for example, watching advertisements, and spending/applying the earned points to skip or shorten presentation of future advertisements.
  • the disclosed embodiments at the very least address the problems of advertisement skipping, inconsistent targeted advertisements across different media types and platforms, and lack of motivation/loyalty with respect to advertisement consumption.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • FIG. 1 A block diagram illustrating an exemplary computing environment in accordance with the present application.
  • a content that is embedded with watermarks in accordance with the disclosed embodiments may be stored on a storage medium or transmitted through a communication channel.
  • a content handling device e.g., a software or hardware media player
  • a watermark extractor and/or a fingerprint computation component when accessed by a content handling device (e.g., a software or hardware media player) that is equipped with a watermark extractor and/or a fingerprint computation component, can trigger a watermark extraction or fingerprint computation process to trigger the various operations that are described in this application.

Abstract

Methods, devices, and computer program products are provided to enhance viewing of an entertainment content in the presence of advertisements. At a compliant device, at least a portion of an entertainment content is received and content policy information associated with the received entertainment content is obtained. The content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content. Such content policy information can be ascertained through one or both of: extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, and computation and matching of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content. Based on the content policy information, presentation of the one or more advertisements is triggered before allowing presentation of advertisement-free playback of the entertainment content, or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content.

Description

    RELATED APPLICATIONS
  • This patent application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/763,269, filed on Feb. 8, 2013, which claims the benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/700,830, filed on Sep. 13, 2012. The entire contents of the before-mentioned patent applications are incorporated by reference as part of the disclosure of this application.
  • FIELD OF INVENTION
  • The present application generally relates to the field of multimedia content presentation and advertisement.
  • BACKGROUND
  • The use and presentation of multimedia content on a variety of mobile and fixed platforms have rapidly proliferated. By taking advantage of storage paradigms, such as cloud-based storage infrastructures, reduced form factor of media players, and high-speed wireless network capabilities, users can readily access and consume multimedia content regardless of the physical location of the users or the multimedia content.
  • A multimedia content, such as an audiovisual content, often consists of a series of related images which, when shown in succession, impart an impression of motion, together with accompanying sounds, if any. Such a content can be accessed from various sources including local storage such as hard drives or optical disks, remote storage such as Internet sites or cable/satellite distribution servers, over-the-air broadcast channels, etc. In some scenarios, such a multimedia content, or portions thereof, may contain only one type of content, including, but not limited to, a still image, a video sequence and an audio clip, while in other scenarios, the multimedia content, or portions thereof, may contain two or more types of content.
  • SUMMARY
  • The disclosed embodiments relate to methods, devices and computer program products that facilitate enhanced use and interaction with a multimedia content, and presentation and consumption of advertisements at a compliant device.
  • One aspect of the disclosed embodiments relates to a method that includes receiving an indication at a compliant device that an entertainment content is associated with a content policy information. The content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during, or prior to, presentation of the entertainment content. Further, the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of (a) extraction of watermarks embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content and (b) computation and matching of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content. The above noted method also includes receiving an indication that the entertainment content is associated with an advertisement award program, and providing, an advertisement award program message indicating that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements is allowed in exchange for a specific number of award points of an advertisement award program. Additionally, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is desired, the method includes allowing the one or more advertisements to be presented in a modified form.
  • In one example embodiment, the content policy information is indicative that presentation of the one or more advertisements cannot be modified without receiving further input from a user or from a user device. In another example embodiment, the advertisement award program is associated with one of: a user, and the compliant device. According to yet another example, embodiment, the above noted method further comprises receiving identification information associated with a user or with the compliant device to enable access to award points of the advertisement award program associated with the user or with the compliant device. In still another embodiment, the above noted method further includes accumulating further award points in return for one or more of the following: presentation of one or more un-modified advertisements, purchase of one or more specific entertainment contents, and purchase of at least some of the specific number of award points.
  • In another example embodiment, the above noted method additionally includes accumulating further award points in return for presentation of one or more unmodified advertisements on each of a plurality of devices associated with a user. In one example embodiment, modified presentation of the one or more advertisements includes one or more of: shortened presentation of the one or more advertisements and skipping of the one or more advertisements. In another example embodiment, the above noted method further includes, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is not desired, presenting a message indicating that presentation of the entertainment content is allowed upon an agreement to view the one or more advertisement in unmodified format, and upon receiving an indication as to an agreement to view the one or more advertisements in unmodified format, presenting the one or more advertisements without modification.
  • According to another exemplary embodiment, the above noted method also includes, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is not desired, presenting a message indicating that presentation of the entertainment content is allowed upon an agreement to view the one or more advertisement in unmodified format, and upon receiving an indication as a lack of an agreement to view the one or more advertisements in unmodified format, providing a command to stop or prevent presentation of the entertainment content. In yet another exemplary embodiment, the advertisement award program is owned by a particular entity, and award points of the advertisement award program are redeemable through other entities affiliated with the particular entity. For example, the particular entity can be selected as one of: an advertiser, a television network, an entertainment content owner, and a content distributor.
  • In one exemplary embodiment, the advertisement award program is identified at least in-part by identifying the entertainment content using one or more of the following: (A) watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content, (B) watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements, (C) fingerprints that are computed based on the entertainment content, and (D) fingerprints that are computed based on the one or more advertisements.
  • According to another example embodiment, the content policy information is associated with a specific aspect of the entertainment content, the specific aspect comprising one or more of: a rights holder of the entertainment content, a distribution channel of the entertainment content, a platform on which the entertainment content is presented, a genre of the entertainment content, a release window of the entertainment content, and a format of the entertainment content. Additionally, in this exemplary embodiment, the one or more advertisements in modified form are presented before allowing or resuming presentation of each entertainment content having the same specific aspect. In one exemplary embodiment, the rights holder of the entertainment content includes one of a creator and a distributor of the entertainment content. In another exemplary embodiment, the distribution channel includes one an over-the-top (OTT), over-the-air, video on demand (VOD), satellite, cable, wireless and Internet distribution channels. In still another exemplary embodiment, the platform includes one of a mobile, desktop, and television platforms.
  • Another aspect of the disclosed embodiments relates to a device that includes a receiver configured to receive one or both of (a) an entertainment content and (1)) one or more advertisements. Such a device further includes a processor that is configured to receive an indication that an entertainment content is associated with a content policy information, the content policy information relating to presentation of one or more advertisements during, or prior to, presentation of the entertainment content. The content policy information ascertained through one or both of (A) watermarks embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, and (B) computation of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content. The processor in such a device is also configured to receive an indication that the entertainment content is associated with an advertisement award program, to provide an advertisement award program message indicating that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements is allowed in exchange for a specific number of award points of an advertisement award program, and, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is desired, to allow the one or more advertisements to be presented in a modified form.
  • In one exemplary embodiment, the content policy information is indicative that presentation of the one or more advertisements cannot be modified without receiving further input. In another exemplary embodiment, the processor is further configured to receive identification information associated with a user or with the device to enable access to award points of the advertisement award program associated with the user or the device. In still another exemplary embodiment, the processor is further configured to accumulate further award points in return for one or more of the following: presentation of one or more un-modified advertisements, purchase of one or more specific entertainment contents, and purchase of at least some of the specific number of award points.
  • According to another exemplary embodiment, the processor is further configured to, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is not desired, present a message indicating that presentation of the entertainment content is allowed upon an agreement to view the one or more advertisement in unmodified format. In this embodiment, the processor is additionally configured to, upon receiving an indication as to an agreement to view the one or more advertisements in unmodified format, present the one or more advertisements without modification.
  • In one example embodiment, the processor is further configured to, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is not desired, present a message indicating that presentation of the entertainment content is allowed upon an agreement to view the one or more advertisement in unmodified format. In this exemplary embodiment, the processor is also configured to, upon receiving an indication as to a lack of an agreement to view the one or more advertisements in unmodified format, provide a command to stop or prevent presentation of the entertainment content.
  • According to one exemplary embodiment, the above noted device includes at least one of (a) a watermark extractor configured to extract watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content or in the one or more advertisements, and (b) a fingerprint computation component configured to compute a fingerprint associated with the entertainment content or in the one or more advertisements. Additionally, the device is further configured to identify the advertisement award program using one or more of the following: (A) watermarks extracted from the entertainment content by the watermark extractor, (B) watermarks extracted from the one or more advertisements by the watermark extractor, (C) fingerprints computed based on the entertainment content by the fingerprint computation component, and (D) fingerprints computed based on the one or more advertisements by the fingerprint computation component. In one exemplary embodiment, one or both of the watermark extractor and fingerprint computation component are implemented as a component separate from the processor. In another exemplary embodiment, one or both of the watermark extractor and fingerprint computation component are implemented as part of the processor.
  • According to yet another exemplary embodiment, the content policy information is associated with a specific aspect of the entertainment content, the specific aspect comprising one or more of: a rights holder of the entertainment content, a distribution channel of the entertainment content, a platform on which the entertainment content is presented, a genre of the entertainment content, a release window of the entertainment content, and a format of the entertainment content. In this exemplary embodiment, the processor is configured to allow presentation of the one or more advertisements in modified form for each entertainment content having the same specific aspect. In another exemplary embodiment, the above noted device is one of a: mobile device, a set-top box device, a handheld device, a personal computer, and a Blu-ray playback device.
  • Another aspect of the disclosed embodiments relates to a computer program product, embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium, that includes program code for receiving an indication at a compliant device that an entertainment content is associated with a content policy information, where the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during, or prior to, presentation of the entertainment content, and the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of (a) watermarks embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, (b) computation of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content. The computer program product further includes program code for receiving an indication that the entertainment content is associated with an advertisement award program, program code for providing an advertisement award program message indicating that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements is allowed in exchange for a specific number of award points of an advertisement award program, and program code for, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is desired, allowing the one or more advertisements to be presented in a modified form.
  • Another aspect of the disclosed embodiments relates to a method that includes receiving at least a portion of an entertainment content at a compliant device, and obtaining content policy information associated with the received entertainment content, where the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content, and the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, and (b) computation and matching of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content. Such an exemplary method further includes triggering presentation of the one or more advertisements: before allowing presentation of advertisement-free playback of the entertainment content, or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content.
  • In one exemplary embodiment, the release window includes a specific time period, upon the termination of which, the entertainment content is released in a different format. In one example embodiment, release of the entertainment content in the different format includes release of the entertainment content as a Blu-ray content, a broadcast television content, a cable television content, a video-on-demand content and a format playable by a mobile device.
  • According to another exemplary embodiment, the same one or more advertisements is presented before allowing or resuming presentation of the entertainment content on a plurality of playback devices. In one exemplary embodiment, each of the plurality of playback devices is categorized as at least one of a mobile device, a set-top box device, a handheld device, a personal computer, and a Blu-ray playback device, and the content policy information provides for a different set of enforcement actions for each category of playback devices. In still another embodiment, the above noted method that takes into account the release window further includes, after allowing presentation of at least one advertisement, determining whether or not a sufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented, and when an insufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement.
  • In yet another embodiment, existence of the specific release window is signaled through watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content. In another example embodiment, expiration of the specific time window is signaled through watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content that differ from watermarks that signal existence of the specific release window. In yet another exemplary embodiment, the one or more advertisements are selected to target a specific group of users and/or user devices based on a particular set of criteria. For example, the particular set of criteria includes one or more of a title of the entertainment content, an advertisement presentation history of the compliant device, an advertisement presentation history of a user of the compliant device, a programming contextual relevance of the one or more advertisements, a current date and time, feedback of a user related to the one or more advertisements, a geographical location of the compliant device, a platform on which the compliant device is implemented, a type of the entertainment content, a storage format of the entertainment content, a distributor of the entertainment content, and a distribution channel of the entertainment content.
  • According to another embodiment, watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content or in the one or more advertisements allow obtaining identification information associated with the entertainment content or with the one or more advertisements. In one exemplary embodiment, the identification information includes one or more of: a content identifier (CID), a source identifier (SourceID) and a timecode.
  • According to another example embodiment, the entertainment content does not include embedded watermarks, and the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks. In this exemplary embodiment, triggering presentation of the one or more advertisements comprises determining a duration of watermarked advertisements from a plurality of timecodes embedded in the one or more presented advertisements, determining whether or not a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has been presented, and, upon a determination that a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has not been presented, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement.
  • In one exemplary embodiment, the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks and the one or more advertisements do not include embedded watermarks. In this exemplary embodiment, presenting the one or more advertisements comprises determining a duration of watermarked advertisements based on an absence of watermarks as the entertainment content is being presented, determining whether or not a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has been presented, and, upon a determination that a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has not been presented, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement.
  • In yet another exemplary embodiment, the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks, and the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks. In this exemplary embodiment, presenting one or more advertisements includes identifying the entertainment content using the watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content, identifying the one or more advertisements using the watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements, determining whether or not the identified one or more advertisements are non-skippable with respect to the identified entertainment content, and, upon a determination that the identified one or more advertisements are non-skippable with respect to the identified entertainment content, triggering presentation of the one or more non-skippable advertisements.
  • Another aspect of the disclosed embodiments relates to a device that includes a receiver configured to receive one or both of (a) an entertainment content and (b) one or more advertisements. Such device also includes a processor that is configured to obtain content policy information associated with the received entertainment content, where the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content, and the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, and (b) computation of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content. The processor of such a device is further configured to trigger presentation of the one or more advertisements: before allowing presentation of advertisement-free playback of the entertainment content or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content.
  • In one exemplary embodiment, the processor is further configured to, after presentation of at least one advertisement, determine whether or not a sufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented, and upon a determination that an insufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented, trigger presentation of at least one additional advertisement. In another exemplary embodiment, the device further comprises a watermark extractor configured to extract one or more watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content, and the processor is further configured to determine existence of the specific release window through the extracted watermarks. In yet another exemplary embodiment, the processor is further configured to determine expiration of the specific time window through at least one extracted watermark. In still another exemplary the watermark extractor is implemented as a component separate from the processor, while in another exemplary embodiment, the watermark extractor is implemented as part of the processor.
  • In another exemplary embodiment, the device further comprises a watermark extractor configured to extract one or more watermark that are embedded in the entertainment content or in the one or more advertisements, and the processor is further configured to obtain identification information associated with the entertainment content or with the one or more advertisements from the watermarks extracted by the watermark extractor.
  • In yet another exemplary embodiment, the entertainment content does not include embedded watermarks, the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks. In this exemplary embodiment, the processor is configured to trigger presentation of the one or more advertisements by at least: determining a duration of watermarked advertisements from a plurality of timecodes embedded in the one or more presented advertisements, determining whether or not a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has been presented, and, upon a determination that a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has not been presented, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement must be presented.
  • In another exemplary embodiment, the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks and the one or more advertisements do not include embedded watermarks. In this exemplary embodiment, the processor is configured to trigger presentation of the one or more advertisements by at least: determining a duration of watermarked advertisements based on an absence of watermarks as the entertainment content is being presented, determining whether or not a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has been presented, and, upon a determination that a sufficient duration or number of advertisements has not been presented, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement must be presented.
  • In still another exemplary embodiment, the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks and the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks. In this exemplary embodiment, the processor is configured to trigger presentation of the one or more advertisements by at least: identifying the entertainment content using the watermarks that are embedded in the entertainment content, identifying the one or more advertisements using the watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements, determining whether or not the identified one or more advertisements are non-skippable with respect to the identified entertainment content, and upon a determination that the identified one or more advertisements are non-skippable with respect to the identified entertainment content, triggering presentation of the one or more non-skippable advertisements.
  • Another aspect of the disclosed embodiments relates to a computer program product, embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium. The computer program product includes program code for receiving at least a portion of an entertainment content at a compliant device and program code for obtaining content policy information associated with the received entertainment content, where the content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content, and the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or in the received entertainment content, and (b) computation of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content. The computer program product further includes program code for triggering presentation of the one or more advertisements: before allowing presentation of advertisement-free playback of the entertainment content, or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content.
  • BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
  • FIG. 1 shows a high-level diagram of an advertising-supported content distribution system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • FIG. 2 illustrates some of the components within a compliant device in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • FIG. 3 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment in which one or more advertisements are watermarked.
  • FIG. 4 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment, in which the entertainment content is watermarked.
  • FIG. 5 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment in which the both the entertainment content and the advertisements are watermarked.
  • FIG. 6A illustrates a set of operations that can be carried out when content distribution using a CPI state (e.g., ‘ads-obliged state) is effected in a accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • FIG. 6B illustrates a set of operations 650 that can be carried out to control presentation of an entertainment content and associated advertisements in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • FIG. 7 illustrates a system 700 that can accommodate the disclosed embodiments.
  • FIG. 8 illustrates a simplified diagram of an exemplary device within which various disclosed embodiments may be implemented.
  • FIG. 9 illustrates a set of operations that can be carried out to effectuate advertising-supported content distribution in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • FIG. 10 illustrates a set of operations that may be carried out to trigger presentation of one or more advertisements in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.
  • DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF CERTAIN EMBODIMENTS
  • In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, details and descriptions are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the disclosed embodiments. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced in other embodiments that depart from these details and descriptions.
  • Additionally, in the subject description, the word “exemplary” is used to mean serving as an example, instance, or illustration. Any embodiment or design described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments or designs. Rather, use of the word exemplary is intended to present concepts in a concrete manner.
  • Watermarking has been used to enable the communication and enactment of use policies for audiovisual content across a broad range of distribution channels and devices. Watermarks are typically embedded substantially imperceptibly in one or more components of a multimedia content, such as in an audio component or a video component, and can be used for a variety of applications such as tamper detection, copy management, content identification, broadcast monitoring, etc. Digital watermarks can also be used to communicate Content Policy Information (CPI) between the content provider and the compliant consumer devices. Examples of CPI include Copy Once, No More Copy, No Home Use (i.e. the content that contains such CPI information is intended for theatrical release only but not for home use), Trusted Source (implying that the content should be protected by approved encryption). As will be described in the sections that follow, watermarks can also be used to enable the advertisement-obliged or advertisement supported content distribution, where the presentation of certain advertisements is required for, or facilitates, the viewing of the entertainment content. For example, the disclosed embodiments can be used to effect award-earning content distribution, where the viewers can earn award points by viewing the presentation of such content including advertisements.
  • The watermarked content is distributed through any means and may ultimately be used on devices that incorporate the watermark detection functionality. The detection functionality enables those devices to retrieve the information contained within the watermarks and apply the associated content use policies. For example, the retrieved information may indicate that the content is only intended for theatrical release and not for use in any consumer devices, or the content is intended for use only under the governance of certain content protection technologies.
  • In some implementations, devices such as Blu-ray Disc players read CPI from the audio track of audiovisual content that they are playing or copying, and may limit the use of the content when certain unauthorized uses are identified. Playback or copying of unauthorized copies may be stopped or audio may be muted as enforcement response, depending on which CPI is found and what operation is being performed. For example, when the use of content is restricted based on a CPI, an explanatory message may be provided on the video screen or on the front panel of the device as part of the enforcement response.
  • Revenue from advertisement is one of the major sources for content providers to fully monetize their assets and investment. Modern user interfaces allow the users to smoothly switch channels to skip viewing the commercials. Devices such as Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) allow programs to be recorded for later viewing. During replay of such recorded programs, commercials can be skipped, either manually by the users or automatically by certain devices. Moreover, commercials can be removed or replaced from content for unauthorized distribution (e.g., broadcasting and online distribution). For content providers and distributors, it is crucial to prevent the user from conveniently skipping the advertisements especially in an advertisement-supported content distribution model.
  • In some embodiments of the present application, a non-skippable (or an enforced) advertisement system is provided such that playback of necessary advertisements is enforced as a specific content policy based on the CPI embedded as watermarks in advertisement-obliged content or in advertisement materials.
  • To utilize an advertisement-obliged state, a compliant consumer device (i.e., a consumer device that is configured to detect the CPI and enforce the associated polices) is needed to enforce a policy related to watching non-skippable advertisements during playback of the content that contains such a CPI. An example of such a policy associated with an ad-support CPI is to require certain advertisements or certain amount of advertisements to be watched without skipping or shortening the duration of content viewing (e.g., not to use fast-forward or other trick playback modes) during playback of content items distributed by a specific distributor or channel. It should be noted that while in describing certain embodiments of the present application references are made to “viewing” or “watching” advertisements, it is understood, that the disclosed embodiments are also applicable to audio content.
  • In addition to the CPI state, watermarks may also contain the information that identities one or more of the following: One or more identifiers for the entertainment content title (“content ID” or CID); one or more identifiers for the content sources through which the content is distributed (“Content Source ID” or “SourceID”), such as TV networks, channels or content distributors; and/or one or more identifiers for individual segments of the content (for example a timecode, a counter value, and the like, that identifies temporal location of a content segment). For example, based on timecodes which identify each unique segment in a content item, the start and end of each watermarked segment of the content can also be identified. Thus, the duration of each watermarked segment can be calculated from the start and end positions of the segment in the content. CID, SourceID and timecodes are collectively called identification information. It should be noted that the above list of identification information is not exhaustive and the watermarks can carry additional information. Moreover, in some embodiments, one or more of the information carried on the watermark can be combined. It should also be noted that the identification information is not limited to being represented by the watermarks that are embedded in the content. Another representation of the identification information fingerprints, which are digests derived from features of the content without requiring modification of the content.
  • In the remainder of this disclosure, the term “content” is sometimes used to broadly cover audio and video contents, including, but not limited to, Movies, T V and Events, Music, Interactive Content, Mobile Content, UGC, Voice, Advertisements which are distributed by any means such as Terrestrial, cable, satellite, Internet Protocols, IPTV, OTT (Over-the-Top) Internet, Web, Mobile, Physical Media, and others. To avoid confusion, content that is dedicated for advertising is called an advertisement (sometimes abbreviated as “ad” or “ads”) while the remaining types of content is referred to as “entertainment content.” It is however understood that the content may have other purposes than entertainment. For example, news and documentaries are other non-exclusive types of content that may be referred to as “entertainment content” in this disclosure.
  • FIG. 1 shows a high-level diagram of an advertisement-obliged content distribution system in accordance with an exemplary embodiment. It should be noted that throughout this disclosure, the terms “advertisement obliged,” “advertisement supported,” and “advertisement enhanced” may be used interchangeably, in connection with content distribution, to refer to distribution of content that is accompanied by advertisements. These advertisements, among other things, may be required for viewing the content, may incentivize but not require a consumer to view the advertisements and/or allow financial transactions to occur that are associated with content and/or advertisements. As illustrated in FIG. 1, the entertainment content can be embedded with watermarks using the watermark embedder 102 and is stored at the content database 106. Similarly, the advertisement content can be embedded with watermarks using a watermark embedder 104 and stored at an ads database 108. The compliant device 110 can then access or be presented with) the embedded content and/or advertisements. It should be noted that while two separate watermark embedders 102, 104 and two separate ads/ content databases 106, 108 are shown (e.g., to show content and ads can be embedded and stored separately), in some embodiments, entertainment content and advertisement watermarking and/or storage may occur using the same watermark embedder (e.g., at the same facility) and/or the same database (or different portions of the same database) may be used to store the content and the advertisements.
  • The compliant device 110 of FIG. 1, can be any hardware, software (including system or application software), or combination of them that is capable of obtaining content policy information and taking actions in accordance with the policy. The actions may include granting award points in exchange for viewing the presentation of the award-earning content, controlling the presentation of the entertainment content and/or advertisements, and the like. Examples of the compliant device include Set-Top Boxes, Blu-ray players, tablets, mobile phones, PCs, TVs, media players, apps on mobile devices, etc.
  • FIG. 2 illustrates some of the components within a compliant device 200 in accordance with an exemplary embodiment. The exemplary compliant device 200 of FIG. 2 includes a media player 202 that plays the content including entertainment content and advertisements. The media player 200 can be equipped with various functionalities that allow, for example, playback of the content, in either or both forward and reverse directions, and at various speeds, allow skipping of the content, recording of the content and the like. The Advertisement Selector 206 is configured to select the advertisements from the Ads Local Inventory 210 based on, for example, personal preferences and other customization information. The Policy Enforcement Manager 204 is configured to execute the actions determined by Policy Manager 208. The Policy Manager 208 is configured to determine the actions based on the predefined policies associated with watermark payloads that are embedded in the content being played back. The Watermark Detector 212 is configured to detect watermarks from the content and recover the watermark payloads. The exemplary compliant device 200 of FIG. 2 can include fewer or additional items. For example, some of the components within FIG. 2 can be combined together and/or the compliant device 200 of FIG. 2 can include a processor, a memory, one or more communication units (which can include a receiver and/or a transmitter that is configured to receive and/or send data, information and signals to other entities through a communication channel), a display, speakers and other components to allow proper operations of the compliant device 200. For example, the compliant device 200 can include a content policy information detector that is configured to obtain the content policy information or state (e.g., the CPI that is specifically related to the advertisement-obliged content distribution) through one or more of extraction of watermarks, computation of fingerprints and obtaining the CPI associated with a content from a remote device. Such a content policy information detector can, for example, be incorporated as part of the Policy Manager 208. In some embodiments, the content policy information may be obtained from a different component or device that resides outside of the compliant device (e.g., from a content distributor, advertisement servers, or other trusted entities in the home network or in the cloud).
  • In the sections that follow, three exemplary scenarios are described based on whether the advertisements, entertainment content or both are watermarked. If one of them is not watermarked or does not contain the watermark information that identifies the CID, Content Source ID and/or timecodes (“identification information”), such identification information may be made available to a compliant device (e.g., provided by the distribution system or through other identification system such as metadata lookup or digital fingerprinting content recognition).
  • FIG. 3 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment in which one or more advertisements are watermarked. In FIG. 3, the shaded regions represent advertisements that are interspersed within the entertainment content, and are embedded with watermarks. The clear regions represent unwatermarked entertainment content or advertisements. It should be noted that while in some embodiments, the embedded advertisements may be presented in a time-multiplexed fashion with respect to the remaining segments of the content, in other embodiments, the embedded advertisements (or advertisements in general) may be presented simultaneously as the entertainment content. In case of the latter, the advertisements may be presented as pop-ups, as translucent overlays, or on a separate display or as a separate window as the entertainment content. When the exemplary content segments of FIG. 3 are received at a compliant device, the compliant device can recover the identification information from the watermarked advertisements. The duration of watermarked advertisements can be calculated from, for example, the detected timecodes. The duration of the entertainment content being played back can be estimated from the duration of absence of watermarks, and/or provided by the system clock of the compliant device. An example of enforcement action in this scenario includes preventing skipping of the advertisement by mandatorily playing back the advertisements when insufficient advertisement time has been accumulated since the start of the playback.
  • FIG. 4 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment, in which the entertainment content is watermarked. In FIG. 4, the shaded regions represent embedded sections of the entertainment content, and the clear regions represent an watermarked advertisements. When the exemplary content segments of FIG. 4 are received at a compliant device, the device can recover the identification information from the watermarked content. The duration of watermarked content can be calculated from, for example, the detected timecodes, and the duration of unwatermarked ads can be estimated from the duration of absence of watermarks or provided by compliant device when such ads are locally buffered. An example of enforcement action in this scenario includes preventing skipping of the advertisement by mandatorily playing back the advertisements when insufficient advertisement time has been accumulated since the start of the content playback.
  • FIG. 5 shows a sequence of content segments in accordance with an exemplary embodiment, in which the both the entertainment content and the advertisements are watermarked. In FIG. 5, the solid black regions represent embedded sections of the entertainment content, and the shaded regions represent watermarked advertisements. The embedded information can include CID. SourceID, timecodes, and the like. When the exemplary content segments of FIG. 5 are received at a compliant device, the device can recover the identification information from the watermarked entertainment content and/or advertisements. The duration of both the watermarked content and watermarked advertisements can be calculated during the playback. A compliant device is able to identify the entertainment content and the advertisements based on the extracted CIDs from the watermarked entertainment content and watermarked advertisements, respectively. An example enforcement action in this scenario includes enforcing the playback a list of specific non-skippable ads during the playback of a list of specific entertainment contents. For example, a car company can show a new car advertisement whenever a specific movie is played back during an ad-supported release window on any home entertainment platform such as mobile device, computers or smart TVs.
  • It should be noted that throughout the present application, the term release window sometimes used to refer to a specific time period or time interval, upon the termination of which the entertainment content may be released in a different form. For example, an entertainment content is often released by the movie studios in phases, or windows. In particular, release windows of a movie can include, but are not limited to, theatrical release in select theaters, release in all (or a larger number of theatres), release on Blu-ray. DVD, release on release as video on demand, release on cable/satellite subscription networks, release on Internet, release on over-the-air television, and the like. In some of the disclosed embodiments, each release window may be signaled using embedded watermarks that, for example, differ from one release window to another. In some embodiments, the release window can be signaled from external sources, such as a database (e.g., iMDb) that includes information regarding the history and latest release window of an entertainment content.
  • According to the some embodiments, advertisements can be customized to allow targeted advertising. For example, different advertisements can be played with the same entertainment content depending on user's information (e.g., user's preferences) privately stored in the compliant device. As a result, the users are presented with more relevant and less annoying advertisement materials while advertisers benefit from consumer information without having actual access to the information.
  • Moreover, in some embodiments, such targeted advertisements can be dynamic. That is, the same user may be presented with different advertisements each time the same entertainment content is played back. Dynamic advertising may improve the user's experience (by avoiding repeated advertisements) and improve the value of the entertainment content (by introducing new advertisements).
  • In some exemplary embodiments, a compliant device may select an advertisement from the local advertisement inventory according to at least one or more of the following:
  • The title or genre of the entertainment content that is being played back;
  • The advertisement presentation history on a specific device;
  • The entertainment programming contextual relevance of an advertisement;
  • The current date and time;
  • The feedback provided by the user regarding the advertisements (collected from, for example, on an additional screen of a separate device, or a separate window on the same device that displays the entertainment content);
  • The location (e.g., geographic location) information of the device that presents the content, or user of such device;
  • The playback platform (e.g., whether the content is being presented on a laptop, game console, mobile phone, tablet, smart TV, etc.);
  • The type of the media that is used to distribute the content (e.g., physical disc, digital in HD, digital on mobile, etc.); and/or
  • The content distributor and distribution channel (e.g., broadcast channel, OTT, VOD, etc.).
  • The advertisement can be delivered to the users through a variety of techniques, configurations and channels. In one example embodiment, the advertisements are part of the content or are bound together with the content. In these scenarios, the advertisements are, for example, inserted into the entertainment content prior to delivery for the application, such as video-on-demand (VOD). Such advertisements can be personalized by the VOD servers based on the information about devices, user profiles, the content that is being consumed, associated rights policies and the like. More details in this regard will be presented in the sections that follow.
  • In another exemplary embodiment, the advertisements are inserted during the delivery, for example, by the servers of Content Distribution Networks (CDN). In these scenarios, the advertisements can be regionally targeted. For example, local advertisements can be inserted for all customers in a particular local area.
  • In yet another exemplary embodiment, the advertisements are dynamically selected and inserted from a locally buffered advertisement inventory. Such insertion may be performed in real-time for broadcast or live content. Additionally, or alternatively, the insertion of such advertisements from a local inventory can be carried out for recorded content (e.g. using a DVR). Such advertisement inventory can be pulled by the compliant devices or pushed by the advertisement servers into the local advertisement storage during the same time as the content is being presented or distributed, or during previous presentation/distribution of the content. When advertisements are stored on local devices, they can be synchronized with Ads Servers periodically, manually, triggered by downloading/streaming of legitimate content, or triggered by extraction of watermark payloads. In one example embodiment, the reception of an entertainment content that includes one or more embedded watermarks can automatically trigger a watermark extractor to extract embedded watermarks. Based on the extracted watermarks, the compliant device can automatically select advertisements based on a particular criteria, and present the advertisements on the compliant device.
  • According to the disclosed embodiments, a variety of enforcement actions can be supported. Some examples of the actions are described below. However, it is understood that new actions may be defined, including, actions that are provided by combining the actions from one or more existing categories.
  • In some embodiments, the enforcement action is based on advertising time requirements. For example, such an enforcement policy can require a minimum time for presentation of advertisements during the playback of an entertainment content. In one exemplary embodiment, the enforcement policy requires that at least one advertisement to be presented for every 5- or 10-minute presentation of an entertainment content. In another exemplary embodiment, the enforcement policy requires that a specific “pre-roll” advertisement precede the presentation of an entertainment content. In still another exemplary embodiment, the enforcement policy requires playback of N % advertisement (measured, for example, in terms of a percentage of time) for presentation of every (100−N) % entertainment content. In all of the above cases, a failure to fulfill the enforcement policy can result in an enforcement action, such as stoppage of playback of content, display of warning or informational messages, disabling of fast-forward functionality, and the like. In some embodiments, failure to fulfill the enforcement policy may result in more than one enforcement action, or can allow the user to select between alternate enforcement actions, some of which may not be detrimental to viewing of the content. In some embodiments, a compliant player may be configured to enforce one particular enforcement policy, such as disabling the fast-forward or skip functionalities, in accordance with enforcement policy requirements.
  • In some embodiments, the enforcement action is based on using an award program. For example, the enforcement policy can allow certain award/loyalty points to be spent in order to skip or shorten the presentation of advertisements during presentations of the entertainment content. For instance, these award points can be purchased or earned through loyalty programs provided by content providers, content distributors, networks, marketers, advertisement agencies or other parties. Details of using and earning Advertisement Credits are described in the sections that follow.
  • In some embodiments, enforcement action is based on cross-media and cross-platform advertising. In this context, a platform includes a hardware architecture and a software framework (such as one or more application frameworks), where software, particularly application software such as media player and media streaming client, to able to be executed. Typical platforms such as Microsoft Windows or Google Android include an architecture, operating system, programming languages and related user interface. Cross-media and cross-platform advertising can, for example, introduce more opportunities to create brand awareness by bringing the same advertising message across multiple media formats (e.g., in HD, SD and mobile), through different distribution methods (e.g., linear TV or VOD, Internet, 4G, etc.), and across different consumption platforms/devices (e.g., Set-Top Boxes, Blu-ray players, tablets, mobile phones, PCs, etc.). In some exemplary embodiments, the enforcement action associated with the cross-media/cross-platform advertising requires that a specific advertisement (or a specific group of advertisements) to be presented during presentation of a specific entertainment content item (or a specific group of entertainment contents). In some embodiments, advertisements may be grouped according to various criteria such as the brand name, sponsors, industry, category of the advertised products. Additionally, or alternatively, in some embodiments, entertainment content may be grouped according to 1) production and rights information such as the rights holder, content creator, and content distributor; 2) distribution information such as content distribution channels, distribution platforms, consumption platforms, and content sources; and/or 3) other content metadata such as ranking, genre, release window, format of the content, producer, crew that took part in content production, and the like.
  • Cross-media advertising policy can be implemented by matching the identification information between the advertisement and entertainment content by a compliant device. Such identification information may be extracted from watermarks or made available to the compliant devices or through other means such as metadata from content distributors or content recognition through digital fingerprinting.
  • Some examples of cross-media and cross-platform advertising, include but are not limited to:
  • A series of advertisements promoting a product are presented on all platforms, such as TVs, mobile devices, and PCs, during each live and recorded presentation of a series of episodes of a specific TV show from a specific network within a specific time period.
  • An advertisement promoting a car is presented whenever a specific movie is presented on all compliant devices such as Blu-ray players, tablets, mobile phones or PCs.
  • Presentation of a TV show requires presentation of advertisements from a TV network or its affiliates that create and distribute the TV show.
  • Presentation of a movie requires presentation of one or more advertisements from an advertiser who sponsors the distribution of the movie.
  • According to the disclosed embodiments, advertisement award points may be utilized in advertising-supported content distribution. Advertisement award programs may be created by a multiple system operator (MSO), a retailer, an advertiser or sponsor, advertisement agency, an OTT provider such as Netflix or Amazon, or a TV network, or a content owner. In some example embodiments, the award points accumulated through advertisement award program created by a content distributor may be redeemed only for the benefits associated with the content distributed by such distributor and its affiliates. To this end, one or more identifiers that are obtained by the compliant device are associated with one or more award programs. For example, the points earned from the award program created by ABC Networks may be redeemed for premium content viewing with a discounted fee, allowing viewing of an entertainment content without (or with shortened) advertisements, or receiving discounts to purchase products at a Disney store. In some example embodiments, the user can spend the award points to skip or shorten the advertisements during the playback of the entertainment content that contains the CPI ‘ads-support’ state. For example, the award points are redeemed from the user's account associated with the award program that is created by the distributor of such entertainment content, and registered with the identification information of such entertainment content which is obtained by the compliant device. According to some embodiments, the user can redeem the accumulated advertisement award points to receive product discounts, gifts, or cash from advertisers.
  • The disclosed embodiments further allow advertisement award points to be earned and redeemed in different ways. For example, the points can be purchased, earned via purchase of a content (e.g., via download, VOD, DBD/BD, etc.), earned by viewing certain affiliates programs, or other promotions. Alternatively, or additionally, award points can be earned by viewing advertisements across multiple platforms such advertisements presented on a TV, on an online program, and/or on mobile device. Such award points may be calculated based on the number of advertising impressions exposed to a user or duration of the watched advertisements. Such watched advertisements can be identified and measured automatically by the compliant device that continuously identifies the entertainment content and advertisements during the their presentation. The award points can be stored locally at the compliant devices and/or submitted by the compliant device to a central location that keeps track of the award points. In additional or alternate embodiments, credits can be purchased, transferred, and further shared among family members.
  • In some embodiments, a user may create multiple accounts with different advertisement award programs. Each advertisement award program can, for example, correspond to one or more CIDs that are extracted from the entertainment content or advertisements. An advertisement award program can be established by an advertiser, advertisement sponsor, agency, promoter, content distributor or producer, and market intelligence firms to promote and sell the products or enrich the value of the ads. When an advertisement identified by a particular CID is presented to a user, the user (or the compliant device associated with that user) earns award points from one or more of the associated award programs that are registered with such identifier. When a particular CID is associated with more than one award program, the user or the compliant device may determine the preference of these programs so that the award points earned by watching the identified advertisements are only credited to the preferred award program. The award points can be redeemed against the offers provided by the owner of the award program. For example, the award points from an advertiser can be redeemed for coupons to buy the products or services provided by such advertiser. In another example, the award points from a content distributor may be redeemed for reduced advertisements on the program provided by such distributor or for personalized and exclusive content.
  • In additional or alternate embodiments, award points earned in different programs may be transferred, exchanged, and further shared among these programs subject to the collaboration and agreements among these programs.
  • FIG. 6A illustrates the operations 600 that can be carried out when content distribution using a CPI state (e.g., ‘ads-obliged state) is effected in a accordance with an exemplary embodiment. In particular, the operations 600 start at 602 when the CPI state (e.g., ‘ads-obliged’ state) is obtained. Next, at 604 an advertisement award program message is displayed to the user. For example, the message at 604 can indicate to the user that “N advertisement award points are required to continue playback” of the entertainment content. Upon seeing the message, the user can make a decision as to whether or not agree to use his/her accumulated award points. If received input at 606 is affirmative (i.e., “YES” at 606), at 610, the advertisement award points are updated (e.g., reduced to account for subtraction of N credits), and the playback of the entertainment content continues without advertisements or with a modified (e.g., an abbreviated) version of advertisements. If, on the other hand, received input at 606 is a “NO” (e.g., the user does not agree to use N award points), then the user may be optionally be prompted at 608 to answer whether or not he/she agrees to watch the advertisements. If the answer received at 608 is a “NO,” then presentation of content is stopped at 614 (or is prevented, if the operations 600 are carried out, for example, prior to presentation of the entertainment content). If the input received at 608 is affirmative (i.e., “YES” at 608), then at 612 one or more non-skippable advertisements are presented to the user. In some embodiments, the user may have the option of selecting the particular advertisement(s) for viewing, while in other embodiments, the advertisements may be selected for the user. Such a selection may be carried out based on the user profile (e.g., stored user preferences), at random, or based on other criteria, such as the type of platform, the content format, the content owner's preferences and the like. It should be noted that the various messages that are presented to the user in the exemplary operations 600 of FIG. 6A, may be displayed as interruptions in presentation of the entertainment content, as an overlay (a pop-up, a translucent overlay, or as a picture-in-picture screen), or on a companion device (e.g., on a tablet device, when the entertainment program is being presented on a television). It should be further noted that, in some embodiments, operations at 608 and 614 may not be implemented. That is, at 606, upon user's refusal to use the his/her award points, the operations 600 directly flows to 612, where non-skippable advertisement(s) are presented to the user.
  • FIG. 6B illustrates a set of operations 650 that can be carried out to control presentation of an entertainment content and associated advertisements in accordance with an exemplary embodiment. At 652, an indication at a compliant device is receive that an entertainment content is associated with a content policy information. The content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during, or prior to, presentation of the entertainment content. Further, the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content and (b) computation and matching of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content entertainment. At 654, an indication that the entertainment content is associated with an advertisement award program is received. At 656, an advertisement award program message is provided that indicates modified presentation of the one or more advertisements is allowed in exchange for a specific number of award points of an advertisement award program. At 658, upon receiving an indication that modified presentation of the one or more advertisements in exchange for the specific number of award points is desired, one or more advertisements are allowed to be presented in a modified form.
  • FIG. 7 illustrates a system 700 that can accommodate the disclosed embodiments. The system 700 includes a first device 702 that is configured to present a multimedia content that can include both the entertainment content and the advertisements. The first device 702 can be coupled to, or include, a display screen, a projector screen, one or more speakers and the associated circuitry, such as a processor and a memory, as well as software components to enable the reception, storage, processing and presentation of a multimedia content. The first device 702 can be in communication with a database 714. The database 714 includes one or more storage 718 devices for storage of a variety of multimedia content, including the entertainment content and the advertisements, as well as meta data, survey results, applications, instructions, etc., which may be stored on magnetic, optical, semiconductor and/or other types of memory devices. The database 714 can, for example, include a remote (e.g., cloud-based) storage device.
  • The first device 702 may, alternatively or additionally, be configured to receive multimedia content and metadata through one or more other sources 716, such as through the Internet, through a terrestrial broadcast channel, through a cable network, through a home network (e.g., a Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) compliant network), through a wired or wireless network (e.g., a local area network (LAN), wireless LAN (WLAN), a wide area network (WAN) and the like). Such a media content can also be a real-time (e.g., streaming) content that is broadcast, unicast or otherwise provided to the first device 702. The received content can be at least partially stored and/or buffered before being presented by the first device 702. In some embodiments, the first device 702 is a compliant device that is shown in FIG. 2.
  • Referring again to FIG. 7, in some embodiments, the first device 702 is also in communication with at least a second device 706 to, for example, present various questions or alerts to the user. In some embodiments, the second device 706 is also in communication with the database 714. Connectivity between the various devices in FIG. 7, and components therein, can be effectuated using any one of wired or wireless communication techniques, including but not limited to 802.11 protocol, Bluetooth, Infrared transmissions, and the like.
  • Certain aspects of the disclosed embodiments can be implemented as a device that includes a processor, and a memory comprising processor executable code, the processor executable code, when executed by the processor, configures the device to perform any one of and/or all operations that are described in the present application. In some examples, the devices that are described in the present application can comprise a processor, a memory unit, an interface that are communicatively connected to each other, and may range from desktop and/or laptop computers, to consumer electronic devices such as media players, mobile devices and the like. For example, FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of a device 800 within which various disclosed embodiments may be implemented. The device 800 comprises at least one processor 804 and/or controller, at least one memory 802 unit that is in communication with the processor 804, and at least one communication unit 806 that enables the exchange of data and information, directly or indirectly, through the communication link 808 with other entities, devices, databases and networks. The communication unit 806 may provide wired and/or wireless communication capabilities in accordance with one or more communication protocols, and therefore it may comprise the proper transmitter/receiver antennas, circuitry and ports, as well as the encoding/decoding capabilities that may be necessary for proper transmission and/or reception of data and other information. The exemplary device 800 of FIG. 8 may be integrated as part of a compliant device, such as the compliant device that is shown in FIG. 2, to carry out some or all of the operations that are described in the present application.
  • In some embodiments, the device 800 of FIG. 8 may also be incorporated into a device that resides at a remote database, such as database 714, that is shown in FIG. 7, and is configured to perform some or all of the operations that are described in accordance with various disclosed embodiments. FIG. 9 illustrates a set of operations 900 that can be carried out to effectuate advertising-supported content distribution in accordance with an exemplary embodiment. At 902, an entertainment content is received at a compliant device. At 904, content policy information associated with the received content is obtained. Such a content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content, and is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or the received entertainment content, and (b) computation of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content. At 906, presentation of one or more advertisements is triggered before allowing presentation of the entertainment content or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content. The presentation of the one or more advertisements can be done on the compliant device that is presenting the entertainment content, or on another device companion to the compliant device.
  • FIG. 10 illustrates a set of operations 1000 that may be carried out to trigger presentation of one or more advertisements in accordance with an exemplary embodiment. In particular, at 1002, at least a portion of an entertainment content is received at a compliant device. At 1004, content policy information associated with the received entertainment content id obtained. The content policy information relates to presentation of one or more advertisements during a specific release window of the entertainment content, and the content policy information is ascertained through one or both of: (a) extraction of watermarks that are embedded in the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content, and (b) computation and matching of fingerprints associated with the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content. At 1006, presentation of the one or more advertisements is triggered. Such presentation is provided before allowing presentation of advertisement-free playback of the entertainment content, or simultaneous with presentation of the entertainment content.
  • As noted earlier, the disclosed embodiments further allow delivery of targeted advertisements that are consistent and/or synchronized across multiple media, distribution methods and consumption platforms. Further, an award program in accordance with the presented embodiments allows the users to cam points by, for example, watching advertisements, and spending/applying the earned points to skip or shorten presentation of future advertisements. As such, the disclosed embodiments at the very least address the problems of advertisement skipping, inconsistent targeted advertisements across different media types and platforms, and lack of motivation/loyalty with respect to advertisement consumption.
  • It is understood that the various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented individually, or collectively, in devices comprised of various hardware and/or software modules, units and components. In describing the disclosed embodiments, sometimes separate components have been illustrated as being configured to carry out one or more operations. It is understood, however, that two or more of such components can be combined together and/or each component may comprise sub-components that are not depicted. Further, the operations that are described in the present application are presented in a particular sequential order in order to facilitate understanding of the underlying concepts. It is understood, however, that such operations may be conducted in a different sequential order, and further, additional or fewer steps may be used to carry out the various disclosed operations.
  • Various embodiments described herein are described in the general context of methods or processes, which may be implemented in one embodiment by a computer program product, embodied in a computer-readable medium, including computer-executable instructions, such as program code, executed by computers in networked environments. A computer-readable medium may include removable and non-removable storage devices including, but not limited to, Read Only Memory (ROM), Random Access Memory (RAM), compact discs (CDs), digital versatile discs (DVD), Blu-ray Discs, etc. Therefore, the computer-readable media described in the present application include non-transitory storage media. Generally, program modules may include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer-executable instructions, associated data structures, and program modules represent examples of program code for executing steps of the methods disclosed herein. The particular sequence of such executable instructions or associated data structures represents examples of corresponding acts for implementing the functions described in such steps or processes.
  • A content that is embedded with watermarks in accordance with the disclosed embodiments may be stored on a storage medium or transmitted through a communication channel. In some embodiments, such a content that includes one or more imperceptibly embedded watermarks, when accessed by a content handling device (e.g., a software or hardware media player) that is equipped with a watermark extractor and/or a fingerprint computation component, can trigger a watermark extraction or fingerprint computation process to trigger the various operations that are described in this application.
  • The foregoing description of embodiments has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. The foregoing description is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit embodiments of the present invention to the precise form disclosed, and modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments. The embodiments discussed herein were chosen and described in order to explain the principles and the nature of various embodiments and its practical application to enable one skilled in the art to utilize the present invention in various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. The features of the embodiments described herein may be combined in all possible combinations of methods, apparatus, modules, systems, and computer program products.

Claims (22)

1-15. (canceled)
16. A method for providing conditional access to a multimedia content, comprising:
receiving, at a first device, at least a portion of the multimedia content that includes an entertainment content and one or more advertisements;
initiating presentation of the multimedia content at the first device;
processing digital sample values of the entertainment content or the one or more advertisements using a processor that is implemented at least in-part in electronic circuitry, the processing comprising extracting of one or more watermark messages from the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content;
obtaining information indicative of a usage policy associated with the entertainment content based on a payload of the one or more watermark messages;
determining a particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy; and
triggering presentation of the one or more advertisements based on a determination as to whether only the entertainment content, or both the entertainment content and the one or more advertisements, include embedded watermark messages, wherein:
(A) upon a determination that the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks and the one or more advertisements do not include embedded watermarks:
determining a duration or a number of advertisements that have already been presented based on a duration of the multimedia content that excludes embedded watermark messages,
comparing the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented to the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, and
upon a determination that the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented is less than the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement, and
(B) upon a determination that both the entertainment content and the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks:
using a plurality of timecodes embedded in the one or more advertisements to determine a duration or a number of the advertisements that have already been presented,
comparing the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented to the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, and
upon a determination that the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented is less than the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement.
17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:
upon a determination that the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented is less than the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, triggering presentation of the at least one additional advertisement on a plurality of additional devices.
18. The method of claim 17, wherein:
each of the plurality of additional devices is categorized as one of: a mobile device, a set-top box device, a handheld device, a personal computer, or a Blu-ray device,
the usage policy provides for a different set of enforcement actions for each category of devices, and
the first device and each of the additional devices belong to the same category of devices.
19. The method of claim 16, further comprising, after allowing presentation of at least one advertisement, determining whether or not a sufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented that fulfills the usage policy, and upon a determination that an insufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented, triggering presentation of at least another advertisement.
20. The method of claim 16, wherein the one or more advertisements are selected to target a specific group of users or user devices based on a particular set of criteria.
21. The method of claim 20, wherein the particular set of criteria includes one or more of:
a title of the entertainment content,
an advertisement presentation history of the first device,
an advertisement presentation history of a user of the first device,
a programming contextual relevance of the one or more advertisements,
a current date and time,
feedback of a user related to the one or more advertisements,
a geographical location of the first device,
a platform on which the first device is implemented,
a type of the entertainment content,
a storage format of the entertainment content,
a distributor of the entertainment content, or
a distribution channel of the entertainment content.
22. The method of claim 16, further comprising obtaining identification information associated with the entertainment content or with the one or more advertisements using the one or more watermark messages that are extracted from the entertainment content or the one or more advertisements.
23. The method of claim 22, wherein the identification information includes one or more of: a content identifier (CID), a source identifier (SourceID) or a timecode.
24. The method of claim 16, wherein processing the digital sample values of the entertainment content or one or more advertisements includes computation of fingerprints that enable identification of the entertainment content or one or more advertisements.
25. The method of claim 16, wherein:
the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks, and the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks; and
triggering presentation of the one or more advertisements includes:
identifying the entertainment content using the one or more watermark messages that are extracted from the entertainment content,
identifying the one or more advertisements using the one or more watermark messages that are embedded in the one or more advertisements,
based on the usage policy, determining whether or not the identified advertisements are non-skippable with respect to the identified entertainment content, and
upon a determination that the identified advertisements are non-skippable, triggering presentation of the one or more non-skippable advertisements.
26. A media playback device, comprising:
a receiver to receive at least a portion of the multimedia content that includes an entertainment content and one or more advertisements;
a processor and a memory comprising processor executable code that upon execution by the processor configures the processor to:
initiate presentation of the multimedia content at the media playback device;
process digital sample values of the entertainment content or the one or more advertisements to extract one or more watermark messages from the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content;
obtain information indicative of a usage policy associated with the entertainment content based on a payload of the one or more watermark messages;
determine a particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy; and
trigger presentation of the one or more advertisements based on a determination as to whether only the entertainment content, or both the entertainment content and the one or more advertisements, include embedded watermark messages, wherein:
(A) upon a determination that the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks and the one or more advertisements do not include embedded watermarks the processor executable code upon execution by the processor configures the processor to:
determine a duration or a number of advertisements that have already been presented based on a duration of the multimedia content that excludes embedded watermark messages,
compare the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented to the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, and
upon a determination that the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented is less than the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, trigger presentation of at least one additional advertisement, and
(B) upon a determination that both the entertainment content and the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks the processor executable code upon execution by the processor configures the processor to:
determine a duration or a number of the advertisements that have already been presented using a plurality of timecodes embedded in the one or more advertisements,
compare the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented to the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, and
upon a determination that the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented is less than the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, trigger presentation of at least one additional advertisement.
27. The media playback device of claim 26, wherein:
upon a determination that the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented is less than the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, the processor executable code upon execution by the processor configures the processor to trigger presentation of the at least one additional advertisement on a plurality of additional devices.
28. The media playback device of claim 27, wherein:
each of the plurality of additional devices is categorized as one of: a mobile device, a set-top box device, a handheld device, a personal computer, or a Blu-ray device,
the usage policy provides for a different set of enforcement actions for each category of devices, and
the media playback device and each of the additional devices belong to the same category of devices.
29. The media playback device of claim 26, wherein the processor executable code upon execution by the processor further configures the processor to, after presentation of at least one advertisement, determine whether or not a sufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented that fulfills the usage policy, and upon a determination that an insufficient number or duration of advertisements has been presented, trigger presentation of at least another advertisement.
30. The media playback device of claim 26, wherein the one or more advertisements are selected to target a specific group of users or user devices based on a particular set of criteria.
31. The media playback device of claim 30, wherein the particular set of criteria includes one or more of:
a title of the entertainment content,
an advertisement presentation history of the media playback device,
an advertisement presentation history of a user of the media playback device,
a programming contextual relevance of the one or more advertisements,
a current date and time,
feedback of a user related to the one or more advertisements,
a geographical location of the media playback device,
a platform on which the media playback device is implemented,
a type of the entertainment content,
a storage format of the entertainment content,
a distributor of the entertainment content, or
a distribution channel of the entertainment content.
32. The media playback device of claim 26, wherein the processor executable code upon execution by the processor further configures the processor to obtain identification information associated with the entertainment content or with the one or more advertisements using the one or more watermarks that are extracted from the entertainment content or the one or more advertisements.
33. The media playback device of claim 32, wherein the identification information includes one or more of: a content identifier (CID), a source identifier (SourceID) or a timecode.
34. The media playback device of claim 26, wherein the processor executable code upon execution by the processor further configures the processor to use the digital sample values of the entertainment content or one or more advertisements to compute fingerprints that enable identification of the entertainment content or one or more advertisements.
35. The media playback device of claim 26, wherein:
the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks, and the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks; and
the processor executable code upon execution by the processor configures the processor to:
identify the entertainment content using the one or more watermark messages that are extracted from the entertainment content,
identify the one or more advertisements using the one or more watermark messages that are embedded in the one or more advertisements,
based on the usage policy, determine whether or not the identified advertisements are non-skippable with respect to the identified entertainment content, and
upon a determination that the identified advertisements are non-skippable, trigger presentation of the one or more non-skippable advertisements.
36. A computer program product embodied on one or more non-transitory computer medium, comprising:
program code for receiving at least a portion of the multimedia content that includes an entertainment content and one or more advertisements;
program code for initiating presentation of the multimedia content;
program code for processing digital sample values of the entertainment content or the one or more advertisements, the processing comprising extracting of one or more watermark messages from the one or more advertisements or the entertainment content;
program code for obtaining information indicative of a usage policy associated with the entertainment content based on a payload of the one or more watermark messages;
program code for determining a particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy; and
program code for triggering presentation of the one or more advertisements based on a determination as to whether only the entertainment content, or both the entertainment content and the one or more advertisements, include embedded watermark messages:
(A) the computer program product further includes program code for, upon a determination that the entertainment content includes embedded watermarks and the one or more advertisements do not include embedded watermarks:
determining a duration or a number of advertisements that have already been presented based on a duration of the multimedia content that excludes embedded watermark messages,
comparing the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented to the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, and
upon a determination that the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented is less than the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement, and
(B) the computer program product further includes program code for, upon a determination that both the entertainment content and the one or more advertisements include embedded watermarks:
using a plurality of timecodes embedded in the one or more advertisements to determine a duration or a number of the advertisements that have already been presented,
comparing the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented to the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, and
upon a determination that the duration or the number of the advertisements that have already been presented is less than the particular number of advertisements that must be presented in conformance with the usage policy, triggering presentation of at least one additional advertisement.
US15/199,566 2012-09-13 2016-06-30 Content distribution including advertisements Abandoned US20170055042A1 (en)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US15/199,566 US20170055042A1 (en) 2012-09-13 2016-06-30 Content distribution including advertisements

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US201261700830P 2012-09-13 2012-09-13
US13/763,269 US20140075469A1 (en) 2012-09-13 2013-02-08 Content distribution including advertisements
US15/199,566 US20170055042A1 (en) 2012-09-13 2016-06-30 Content distribution including advertisements

Related Parent Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US13/763,269 Continuation US20140075469A1 (en) 2012-09-13 2013-02-08 Content distribution including advertisements

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
US20170055042A1 true US20170055042A1 (en) 2017-02-23

Family

ID=50234773

Family Applications (3)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US13/763,247 Expired - Fee Related US9106964B2 (en) 2012-09-13 2013-02-08 Enhanced content distribution using advertisements
US13/763,269 Abandoned US20140075469A1 (en) 2012-09-13 2013-02-08 Content distribution including advertisements
US15/199,566 Abandoned US20170055042A1 (en) 2012-09-13 2016-06-30 Content distribution including advertisements

Family Applications Before (2)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
US13/763,247 Expired - Fee Related US9106964B2 (en) 2012-09-13 2013-02-08 Enhanced content distribution using advertisements
US13/763,269 Abandoned US20140075469A1 (en) 2012-09-13 2013-02-08 Content distribution including advertisements

Country Status (1)

Country Link
US (3) US9106964B2 (en)

Cited By (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US20200372256A1 (en) * 2019-05-10 2020-11-26 The Nielsen Company (Us), Llc Content-Modification System with Use of Multiple Fingerprint Data Types Feature
US11010452B2 (en) 2012-11-04 2021-05-18 Mining Ip Limited Content protection

Families Citing this family (72)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US7644282B2 (en) 1998-05-28 2010-01-05 Verance Corporation Pre-processed information embedding system
US6737957B1 (en) 2000-02-16 2004-05-18 Verance Corporation Remote control signaling using audio watermarks
US9609278B2 (en) 2000-04-07 2017-03-28 Koplar Interactive Systems International, Llc Method and system for auxiliary data detection and delivery
EP2442566A3 (en) 2002-10-15 2012-08-08 Verance Corporation Media Monitoring, Management and Information System
US7330511B2 (en) 2003-08-18 2008-02-12 Koplar Interactive Systems International, L.L.C. Method and system for embedding device positional data in video signals
US20060239501A1 (en) 2005-04-26 2006-10-26 Verance Corporation Security enhancements of digital watermarks for multi-media content
US9055239B2 (en) 2003-10-08 2015-06-09 Verance Corporation Signal continuity assessment using embedded watermarks
US7769756B2 (en) * 2004-06-07 2010-08-03 Sling Media, Inc. Selection and presentation of context-relevant supplemental content and advertising
US7917932B2 (en) 2005-06-07 2011-03-29 Sling Media, Inc. Personal video recorder functionality for placeshifting systems
US9998802B2 (en) 2004-06-07 2018-06-12 Sling Media LLC Systems and methods for creating variable length clips from a media stream
US8570586B2 (en) 2005-05-02 2013-10-29 Digimarc Corporation Active images through digital watermarking
US8020004B2 (en) 2005-07-01 2011-09-13 Verance Corporation Forensic marking using a common customization function
US9286388B2 (en) 2005-08-04 2016-03-15 Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc Method and apparatus for context-specific content delivery
US9386327B2 (en) 2006-05-24 2016-07-05 Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc Secondary content insertion apparatus and methods
US20090111584A1 (en) 2007-10-31 2009-04-30 Koplar Interactive Systems International, L.L.C. Method and system for encoded information processing
US8582781B2 (en) 2009-01-20 2013-11-12 Koplar Interactive Systems International, L.L.C. Echo modulation methods and systems
US9215423B2 (en) 2009-03-30 2015-12-15 Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc Recommendation engine apparatus and methods
US8715083B2 (en) 2009-06-18 2014-05-06 Koplar Interactive Systems International, L.L.C. Methods and systems for processing gaming data
US8813124B2 (en) 2009-07-15 2014-08-19 Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc Methods and apparatus for targeted secondary content insertion
US20110264530A1 (en) * 2010-04-23 2011-10-27 Bryan Santangelo Apparatus and methods for dynamic secondary content and data insertion and delivery
US8923548B2 (en) 2011-11-03 2014-12-30 Verance Corporation Extraction of embedded watermarks from a host content using a plurality of tentative watermarks
US8745403B2 (en) 2011-11-23 2014-06-03 Verance Corporation Enhanced content management based on watermark extraction records
US9323902B2 (en) 2011-12-13 2016-04-26 Verance Corporation Conditional access using embedded watermarks
US9571606B2 (en) 2012-08-31 2017-02-14 Verance Corporation Social media viewing system
US9106964B2 (en) 2012-09-13 2015-08-11 Verance Corporation Enhanced content distribution using advertisements
US8726304B2 (en) 2012-09-13 2014-05-13 Verance Corporation Time varying evaluation of multimedia content
US9460204B2 (en) * 2012-10-19 2016-10-04 Sony Corporation Apparatus and method for scene change detection-based trigger for audio fingerprinting analysis
JP5838151B2 (en) * 2012-12-28 2015-12-24 株式会社スクウェア・エニックス・ホールディングス CONTENT PROVIDING SYSTEM, CONTENT PROVIDING DEVICE, CLIENT DEVICE, CONTROL METHOD, AND PROGRAM
US20140229298A1 (en) * 2013-02-08 2014-08-14 Navteq B.V. Determining Whether Ad-Blocking Software is Executing on a Client Device
US9262793B2 (en) 2013-03-14 2016-02-16 Verance Corporation Transactional video marking system
US9485089B2 (en) 2013-06-20 2016-11-01 Verance Corporation Stego key management
US9251549B2 (en) 2013-07-23 2016-02-02 Verance Corporation Watermark extractor enhancements based on payload ranking
US9066116B2 (en) * 2013-08-13 2015-06-23 Yahoo! Inc. Encoding pre-roll advertisements in progressively-loading images
US9232285B2 (en) 2013-08-15 2016-01-05 Opentv, Inc. Time shifting of advertisements in digital content delivery services
US10027977B2 (en) * 2013-10-21 2018-07-17 Avago Technologies General Ip (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. Encoding method for distribution of multimedia contents with enforcement of commercial advertisement
US9208334B2 (en) 2013-10-25 2015-12-08 Verance Corporation Content management using multiple abstraction layers
US9325646B2 (en) * 2013-10-28 2016-04-26 Verizon Patent And Licensing Inc. Providing contextual messages relating to currently accessed content
US10089651B2 (en) * 2014-03-03 2018-10-02 Cisco Technology, Inc. Method and apparatus for streaming advertisements in a scalable data broadcasting system
US9336537B2 (en) * 2014-03-06 2016-05-10 Catalina Marketing Corporation System and method of providing a particular number of distributions of media content through a plurality of distribution nodes
US10504200B2 (en) 2014-03-13 2019-12-10 Verance Corporation Metadata acquisition using embedded watermarks
EP3117626A4 (en) 2014-03-13 2017-10-25 Verance Corporation Interactive content acquisition using embedded codes
US10264043B2 (en) * 2014-04-23 2019-04-16 Ericsson Ab Outage notification with client control modification in an ABR streaming network
WO2016028934A1 (en) 2014-08-20 2016-02-25 Verance Corporation Content management based on dither-like watermark embedding
EP3225034A4 (en) 2014-11-25 2018-05-02 Verance Corporation Enhanced metadata and content delivery using watermarks
US9942602B2 (en) 2014-11-25 2018-04-10 Verance Corporation Watermark detection and metadata delivery associated with a primary content
GB2534614B (en) * 2014-11-26 2021-07-21 Piksel Inc Delivering content
GB2534539A (en) 2014-11-26 2016-08-03 Piksel Inc Delivering content
US9602891B2 (en) 2014-12-18 2017-03-21 Verance Corporation Service signaling recovery for multimedia content using embedded watermarks
WO2016176056A1 (en) 2015-04-30 2016-11-03 Verance Corporation Watermark based content recognition improvements
WO2017015399A1 (en) 2015-07-20 2017-01-26 Verance Corporation Watermark-based data recovery for content with multiple alternative components
WO2017029990A1 (en) * 2015-08-17 2017-02-23 ソニー株式会社 Reception device, transmission device, and data processing method
US20170060405A1 (en) * 2015-08-28 2017-03-02 Facebook, Inc. Systems and methods for content presentation
US10027612B2 (en) 2015-11-23 2018-07-17 At&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. Method and apparatus for managing content distribution according to social networks
WO2017184648A1 (en) 2016-04-18 2017-10-26 Verance Corporation System and method for signaling security and database population
US10586023B2 (en) 2016-04-21 2020-03-10 Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc Methods and apparatus for secondary content management and fraud prevention
JP2017228867A (en) * 2016-06-21 2017-12-28 カシオ計算機株式会社 Output control device, output control method, and program
WO2018034956A1 (en) * 2016-08-14 2018-02-22 The Ticket Fairy, Inc. Automated system for target identification and management
EP3566421B1 (en) 2017-01-09 2021-12-29 Nokia Technologies Oy Method, computer programme and apparatus for coordinated content delivery in multicast / broadcast networks
WO2018237191A1 (en) 2017-06-21 2018-12-27 Verance Corporation Watermark-based metadata acquisition and processing
US11057685B2 (en) * 2018-03-29 2021-07-06 Ncr Corporation Media content proof of play over optical medium
US10469882B2 (en) * 2018-04-09 2019-11-05 M/S. Amagi Media Labs Pvt. Ltd System and method of server-side ad insertion for over the top (OTT) streams
US11468149B2 (en) 2018-04-17 2022-10-11 Verance Corporation Device authentication in collaborative content screening
US20190356939A1 (en) * 2018-05-16 2019-11-21 Calvin Kuo Systems and Methods for Displaying Synchronized Additional Content on Qualifying Secondary Devices
US11140460B2 (en) 2018-05-29 2021-10-05 At&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. Content distribution pipeline watermarking
US11917240B2 (en) * 2018-08-14 2024-02-27 Inscape Data, Inc. Dynamic content serving using automated content recognition (ACR) and digital media watermarks
US10581541B1 (en) * 2018-08-30 2020-03-03 The Nielsen Company (Us), Llc Media identification using watermarks and signatures
US11095927B2 (en) 2019-02-22 2021-08-17 The Nielsen Company (Us), Llc Dynamic watermarking of media based on transport-stream metadata, to facilitate action by downstream entity
TWI744947B (en) * 2019-06-24 2021-11-01 美商六科股份有限公司 Method, media client and computer-readable mediumfor use of watermarking to trigger fingerprint-related action
US11153616B2 (en) * 2019-09-13 2021-10-19 Roku, Inc. Method and system for re-uniting metadata with media-stream content at a media client, to facilitate action by the media client
US11403849B2 (en) 2019-09-25 2022-08-02 Charter Communications Operating, Llc Methods and apparatus for characterization of digital content
CN114245213A (en) * 2020-09-09 2022-03-25 腾讯科技(深圳)有限公司 Method and device for controlling multimedia information display and computing equipment
US11722741B2 (en) 2021-02-08 2023-08-08 Verance Corporation System and method for tracking content timeline in the presence of playback rate changes

Family Cites Families (597)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5805635A (en) 1964-03-17 1998-09-08 The United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary Of The Navy Secure communication system
US3406344A (en) 1964-07-01 1968-10-15 Bell Telephone Labor Inc Transmission of low frequency signals by modulation of voice carrier
US3919479A (en) 1972-09-21 1975-11-11 First National Bank Of Boston Broadcast signal identification system
US3842196A (en) 1972-10-30 1974-10-15 Hazeltine Research Inc System for transmission of auxiliary information in a video spectrum
US3894190A (en) 1973-02-28 1975-07-08 Int Standard Electric Corp System for transferring wide-band sound signals
US3885217A (en) 1973-07-11 1975-05-20 Computer Specifics Corp Data transmission system
US4048562A (en) 1975-05-22 1977-09-13 A. C. Nielsen Company Monitoring system for voltage tunable receivers and converters utilizing voltage comparison techniques
US3973206A (en) 1975-05-22 1976-08-03 A. C. Nielsen Company Monitoring system for voltage tunable receivers and converters utilizing an analog function generator
JPS53144622A (en) 1977-05-24 1978-12-16 Sony Corp Video signal processing system
US4176379A (en) 1977-10-17 1979-11-27 Xerox Corporation Video input circuits for video hard copy controller
US4225967A (en) 1978-01-09 1980-09-30 Fujitsu Limited Broadcast acknowledgement method and system
US4281217A (en) 1978-03-27 1981-07-28 Dolby Ray Milton Apparatus and method for the identification of specially encoded FM stereophonic broadcasts
US4454610A (en) 1978-05-19 1984-06-12 Transaction Sciences Corporation Methods and apparatus for the automatic classification of patterns
US4230990C1 (en) 1979-03-16 2002-04-09 John G Lert Jr Broadcast program identification method and system
US4295128A (en) 1979-03-26 1981-10-13 University Of Tennessee Research Corp. Apparatus for measuring the degradation of a sensor time constant
JPS5744186A (en) 1980-08-29 1982-03-12 Takeda Riken Ind Co Ltd Waveform memory
US4425578A (en) 1981-01-12 1984-01-10 A. C. Nielsen Company Monitoring system and method utilizing signal injection for determining channel reception of video receivers
US4965825A (en) 1981-11-03 1990-10-23 The Personalized Mass Media Corporation Signal processing apparatus and methods
US4755884A (en) 1982-01-12 1988-07-05 Discovision Associates Audio evaluation of information stored on a record medium under control of video picture frame number
US4564862A (en) 1982-08-09 1986-01-14 Edwin Cohen Ghost signal elimination circuit
US4497060A (en) 1982-12-08 1985-01-29 Lockheed Electronics Co., Inc. Self-clocking binary receiver
US4547804A (en) 1983-03-21 1985-10-15 Greenberg Burton L Method and apparatus for the automatic identification and verification of commercial broadcast programs
US4639779A (en) 1983-03-21 1987-01-27 Greenberg Burton L Method and apparatus for the automatic identification and verification of television broadcast programs
US4967273A (en) 1983-03-21 1990-10-30 Vidcode, Inc. Television program transmission verification method and apparatus
US4805020A (en) 1983-03-21 1989-02-14 Greenberg Burton L Television program transmission verification method and apparatus
US4512013A (en) 1983-04-11 1985-04-16 At&T Bell Laboratories Simultaneous transmission of speech and data over an analog channel
US4703476A (en) 1983-09-16 1987-10-27 Audicom Corporation Encoding of transmitted program material
US4593904A (en) 1984-03-19 1986-06-10 Syntech International, Inc. Player interactive video gaming device
JPS60251724A (en) 1984-05-29 1985-12-12 Pioneer Electronic Corp Receiver for identifying program
US4807013A (en) 1984-10-17 1989-02-21 American Telephone And Telegraph Company At&T Bell Laboratories Polysilicon fillet
DE3523809A1 (en) 1985-05-21 1986-11-27 Polygram Gmbh, 2000 Hamburg METHOD FOR TIME COMPRESSION OF INFORMATION IN DIGITAL FORM
US4677466A (en) 1985-07-29 1987-06-30 A. C. Nielsen Company Broadcast program identification method and apparatus
US4669089A (en) 1985-09-30 1987-05-26 The Boeing Company Suppressed clock pulse-duration modulator for direct sequence spread spectrum transmission systems
US4789863A (en) 1985-10-02 1988-12-06 Bush Thomas A Pay per view entertainment system
US4706282A (en) 1985-12-23 1987-11-10 Minnesota Mining And Manufacturing Company Decoder for a recorder-decoder system
US5057915A (en) 1986-03-10 1991-10-15 Kohorn H Von System and method for attracting shoppers to sales outlets
JPS6317886A (en) 1986-07-11 1988-01-25 Kyorin Pharmaceut Co Ltd Production of spiropyrrolidine-2,5-dione derivative
US4739398A (en) 1986-05-02 1988-04-19 Control Data Corporation Method, apparatus and system for recognizing broadcast segments
GB8611014D0 (en) 1986-05-06 1986-06-11 Emi Plc Thorn Signal identification
US4723302A (en) 1986-08-05 1988-02-02 A. C. Nielsen Company Method and apparatus for determining channel reception of a receiver
US4755871A (en) 1986-11-25 1988-07-05 Magus, Ltd. Control of rf answer pulses in a TV answer back system
US4729398A (en) 1987-01-20 1988-03-08 Bellofram Corp. Current-to-pressure transducers
US4840602A (en) 1987-02-06 1989-06-20 Coleco Industries, Inc. Talking doll responsive to external signal
JPS63199801A (en) 1987-02-12 1988-08-18 Chisso Corp Stabilization treatment device for ferromagnetic metal powder
JPS63198367A (en) 1987-02-13 1988-08-17 Toshiba Corp Semiconductor device
US4764808A (en) 1987-05-05 1988-08-16 A. C. Nielsen Company Monitoring system and method for determining channel reception of video receivers
US4843562A (en) 1987-06-24 1989-06-27 Broadcast Data Systems Limited Partnership Broadcast information classification system and method
EP0298691B1 (en) 1987-07-08 1994-10-05 Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Method and apparatus for protection of signal copy
US4876736A (en) 1987-09-23 1989-10-24 A. C. Nielsen Company Method and apparatus for determining channel reception of a receiver
US4937807A (en) 1987-10-15 1990-06-26 Personics Corporation System for encoding sound recordings for high-density storage and high-speed transfers
US4807031A (en) 1987-10-20 1989-02-21 Interactive Systems, Incorporated Interactive video method and apparatus
US4943963A (en) 1988-01-19 1990-07-24 A. C. Nielsen Company Data collection and transmission system with real time clock
US4945412A (en) 1988-06-14 1990-07-31 Kramer Robert A Method of and system for identification and verification of broadcasting television and radio program segments
US4931871A (en) 1988-06-14 1990-06-05 Kramer Robert A Method of and system for identification and verification of broadcasted program segments
US5213337A (en) 1988-07-06 1993-05-25 Robert Sherman System for communication using a broadcast audio signal
US4930011A (en) 1988-08-02 1990-05-29 A. C. Nielsen Company Method and apparatus for identifying individual members of a marketing and viewing audience
US4969041A (en) 1988-09-23 1990-11-06 Dubner Computer Systems, Inc. Embedment of data in a video signal
US4939515A (en) 1988-09-30 1990-07-03 General Electric Company Digital signal encoding and decoding apparatus
GB8824969D0 (en) 1988-10-25 1988-11-30 Emi Plc Thorn Identification codes
NL8901032A (en) 1988-11-10 1990-06-01 Philips Nv CODER FOR INCLUDING ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IN A DIGITAL AUDIO SIGNAL WITH A PREFERRED FORMAT, A DECODER FOR DERIVING THIS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM THIS DIGITAL SIGNAL, AN APPARATUS FOR RECORDING A DIGITAL SIGNAL ON A CODE OF RECORD. OBTAINED A RECORD CARRIER WITH THIS DEVICE.
US4972471A (en) 1989-05-15 1990-11-20 Gary Gross Encoding system
US5319453A (en) 1989-06-22 1994-06-07 Airtrax Method and apparatus for video signal encoding, decoding and monitoring
US4972503A (en) 1989-08-08 1990-11-20 A. C. Nielsen Company Method and apparatus for determining audience viewing habits by jamming a control signal and identifying the viewers command
US5214792A (en) 1989-09-27 1993-05-25 Alwadish David J Broadcasting system with supplemental data transmission and storge
US5210831A (en) 1989-10-30 1993-05-11 International Business Machines Corporation Methods and apparatus for insulating a branch prediction mechanism from data dependent branch table updates that result from variable test operand locations
US5191615A (en) 1990-01-17 1993-03-02 The Drummer Group Interrelational audio kinetic entertainment system
US5210820A (en) 1990-05-02 1993-05-11 Broadcast Data Systems Limited Partnership Signal recognition system and method
US5080479A (en) 1990-07-30 1992-01-14 Rosenberg Stanley L Automatic implanting of identification data in any recorded medium
US5390207A (en) 1990-11-28 1995-02-14 Novatel Communications Ltd. Pseudorandom noise ranging receiver which compensates for multipath distortion by dynamically adjusting the time delay spacing between early and late correlators
US5161251A (en) 1991-02-19 1992-11-03 Mankovitz Roy J Apparatus and methods for providing text information identifying audio program selections
EP0508845B1 (en) 1991-03-11 2001-11-07 Nippon Telegraph And Telephone Corporation Method and apparatus for image processing
US5200822A (en) 1991-04-23 1993-04-06 National Broadcasting Company, Inc. Arrangement for and method of processing data, especially for identifying and verifying airing of television broadcast programs
JPH04332089A (en) 1991-05-07 1992-11-19 Takayama:Kk Method for registering finger print data
US5251041A (en) 1991-06-21 1993-10-05 Young Philip L Method and apparatus for modifying a video signal to inhibit unauthorized videotape recording and subsequent reproduction thereof
US5402488A (en) 1991-08-30 1995-03-28 Karlock; James A. Method and apparatus for modifying a video signal
FR2681997A1 (en) 1991-09-30 1993-04-02 Arbitron Cy METHOD AND DEVICE FOR AUTOMATICALLY IDENTIFYING A PROGRAM COMPRISING A SOUND SIGNAL
GB2292506B (en) 1991-09-30 1996-05-01 Arbitron Company The Method and apparatus for automatically identifying a program including a sound signal
JPH0543159U (en) 1991-11-08 1993-06-11 カシオ電子工業株式会社 Image forming device
US5319735A (en) 1991-12-17 1994-06-07 Bolt Beranek And Newman Inc. Embedded signalling
US5294982A (en) 1991-12-24 1994-03-15 National Captioning Institute, Inc. Method and apparatus for providing dual language captioning of a television program
US5414729A (en) 1992-01-24 1995-05-09 Novatel Communications Ltd. Pseudorandom noise ranging receiver which compensates for multipath distortion by making use of multiple correlator time delay spacing
US5436653A (en) 1992-04-30 1995-07-25 The Arbitron Company Method and system for recognition of broadcast segments
JP3427392B2 (en) 1992-05-25 2003-07-14 ソニー株式会社 Encoding method
US5270480A (en) 1992-06-25 1993-12-14 Victor Company Of Japan, Ltd. Toy acting in response to a MIDI signal
US5237611A (en) 1992-07-23 1993-08-17 Crest Industries, Inc. Encryption/decryption apparatus with non-accessible table of keys
US5721788A (en) 1992-07-31 1998-02-24 Corbis Corporation Method and system for digital image signatures
US5502576A (en) 1992-08-24 1996-03-26 Ramsay International Corporation Method and apparatus for the transmission, storage, and retrieval of documents in an electronic domain
GB9222972D0 (en) 1992-11-03 1992-12-16 Thames Television Transmitting audio and data signals simultaneously
NZ259776A (en) 1992-11-16 1997-06-24 Ceridian Corp Identifying recorded or broadcast audio signals by mixing with encoded signal derived from code signal modulated by narrower bandwidth identification signal
CA2106143C (en) 1992-11-25 2004-02-24 William L. Thomas Universal broadcast code and multi-level encoded signal monitoring system
US5379345A (en) 1993-01-29 1995-01-03 Radio Audit Systems, Inc. Method and apparatus for the processing of encoded data in conjunction with an audio broadcast
JPH06268615A (en) 1993-03-11 1994-09-22 Sanyo Electric Co Ltd Fm multiplex broadcast transmitter and fm multiplex broadcast receiver
US5523794A (en) 1993-04-16 1996-06-04 Mankovitz; Roy J. Method and apparatus for portable storage and use of data transmitted by television signal
US5408258A (en) 1993-04-21 1995-04-18 The Arbitron Company Method of automatically qualifying a signal reproduction device for installation of monitoring equipment
US5404160A (en) 1993-06-24 1995-04-04 Berkeley Varitronics Systems, Inc. System and method for identifying a television program
JP3053527B2 (en) 1993-07-30 2000-06-19 インターナショナル・ビジネス・マシーンズ・コーポレイション Method and apparatus for validating a password, method and apparatus for generating and preliminary validating a password, method and apparatus for controlling access to resources using an authentication code
US5481294A (en) 1993-10-27 1996-01-02 A. C. Nielsen Company Audience measurement system utilizing ancillary codes and passive signatures
US6636615B1 (en) 1998-01-20 2003-10-21 Digimarc Corporation Methods and systems using multiple watermarks
US6614914B1 (en) 1995-05-08 2003-09-02 Digimarc Corporation Watermark embedder and reader
US5841978A (en) 1993-11-18 1998-11-24 Digimarc Corporation Network linking method using steganographically embedded data objects
US5862260A (en) 1993-11-18 1999-01-19 Digimarc Corporation Methods for surveying dissemination of proprietary empirical data
US5832119C1 (en) 1993-11-18 2002-03-05 Digimarc Corp Methods for controlling systems using control signals embedded in empirical data
US5748763A (en) 1993-11-18 1998-05-05 Digimarc Corporation Image steganography system featuring perceptually adaptive and globally scalable signal embedding
US5636292C1 (en) 1995-05-08 2002-06-18 Digimarc Corp Steganography methods employing embedded calibration data
US7171016B1 (en) 1993-11-18 2007-01-30 Digimarc Corporation Method for monitoring internet dissemination of image, video and/or audio files
US6681029B1 (en) 1993-11-18 2004-01-20 Digimarc Corporation Decoding steganographic messages embedded in media signals
ATE237197T1 (en) 1993-11-18 2003-04-15 Digimarc Corp IDENTIFICATION/CREDITION CODING METHOD AND APPARATUS
US6983051B1 (en) 1993-11-18 2006-01-03 Digimarc Corporation Methods for audio watermarking and decoding
US6574350B1 (en) 1995-05-08 2003-06-03 Digimarc Corporation Digital watermarking employing both frail and robust watermarks
US6516079B1 (en) 2000-02-14 2003-02-04 Digimarc Corporation Digital watermark screening and detecting strategies
US5581658A (en) 1993-12-14 1996-12-03 Infobase Systems, Inc. Adaptive system for broadcast program identification and reporting
JPH07163765A (en) 1993-12-16 1995-06-27 B I:Kk Remote control toy
US6947571B1 (en) 1999-05-19 2005-09-20 Digimarc Corporation Cell phones with optical capabilities, and related applications
US5508754A (en) 1994-03-22 1996-04-16 National Captioning Institute System for encoding and displaying captions for television programs
US5424785A (en) 1994-03-22 1995-06-13 National Captioning Institute System for encoding and displaying captions for television programs
US5450490A (en) 1994-03-31 1995-09-12 The Arbitron Company Apparatus and methods for including codes in audio signals and decoding
US5404377A (en) 1994-04-08 1995-04-04 Moses; Donald W. Simultaneous transmission of data and audio signals by means of perceptual coding
US5526427A (en) 1994-07-22 1996-06-11 A.C. Nielsen Company Universal broadcast code and multi-level encoded signal monitoring system
US5719619A (en) 1994-10-08 1998-02-17 Sony Corporation Bidirectional broadcasting method, bidirectional broadcasting system and receiver apparatus for bidirectional broadcast
US6021432A (en) 1994-10-31 2000-02-01 Lucent Technologies Inc. System for processing broadcast stream comprises a human-perceptible broadcast program embedded with a plurality of human-imperceptible sets of information
US7986806B2 (en) 1994-11-16 2011-07-26 Digimarc Corporation Paper products and physical objects as means to access and control a computer or to navigate over or act as a portal on a network
US7007166B1 (en) 1994-12-28 2006-02-28 Wistaria Trading, Inc. Method and system for digital watermarking
US5745569A (en) 1996-01-17 1998-04-28 The Dice Company Method for stega-cipher protection of computer code
US5892900A (en) 1996-08-30 1999-04-06 Intertrust Technologies Corp. Systems and methods for secure transaction management and electronic rights protection
US5943422A (en) 1996-08-12 1999-08-24 Intertrust Technologies Corp. Steganographic techniques for securely delivering electronic digital rights management control information over insecure communication channels
JPH08288928A (en) 1995-04-14 1996-11-01 Toshiba Corp Spread spectrum communication equipment
US5519454A (en) 1995-04-21 1996-05-21 Thomson Consumer Electronics, Inc. Luma/chroma separation filter with common delay element for comb filter separation and recursive noise reduction of composite video input signal
US6590996B1 (en) 2000-02-14 2003-07-08 Digimarc Corporation Color adaptive watermarking
US7224819B2 (en) 1995-05-08 2007-05-29 Digimarc Corporation Integrating digital watermarks in multimedia content
US6728390B2 (en) 1995-05-08 2004-04-27 Digimarc Corporation Methods and systems using multiple watermarks
US6738495B2 (en) 1995-05-08 2004-05-18 Digimarc Corporation Watermarking enhanced to withstand anticipated corruptions
US7054462B2 (en) 1995-05-08 2006-05-30 Digimarc Corporation Inferring object status based on detected watermark data
US6760463B2 (en) 1995-05-08 2004-07-06 Digimarc Corporation Watermarking methods and media
US5613004A (en) 1995-06-07 1997-03-18 The Dice Company Steganographic method and device
US5699427A (en) 1995-06-23 1997-12-16 International Business Machines Corporation Method to deter document and intellectual property piracy through individualization
US6411725B1 (en) 1995-07-27 2002-06-25 Digimarc Corporation Watermark enabled video objects
US6505160B1 (en) 1995-07-27 2003-01-07 Digimarc Corporation Connected audio and other media objects
US7711564B2 (en) 1995-07-27 2010-05-04 Digimarc Corporation Connected audio and other media objects
US7562392B1 (en) 1999-05-19 2009-07-14 Digimarc Corporation Methods of interacting with audio and ambient music
US7006661B2 (en) 1995-07-27 2006-02-28 Digimarc Corp Digital watermarking systems and methods
US7171018B2 (en) 1995-07-27 2007-01-30 Digimarc Corporation Portable devices and methods employing digital watermarking
US6829368B2 (en) 2000-01-26 2004-12-07 Digimarc Corporation Establishing and interacting with on-line media collections using identifiers in media signals
US5937000A (en) 1995-09-06 1999-08-10 Solana Technology Development Corporation Method and apparatus for embedding auxiliary data in a primary data signal
US5822360A (en) 1995-09-06 1998-10-13 Solana Technology Development Corporation Method and apparatus for transporting auxiliary data in audio signals
JPH0983926A (en) 1995-09-07 1997-03-28 Sony Corp Id reading and writing device
EP0766468B1 (en) 1995-09-28 2006-05-03 Nec Corporation Method and system for inserting a spread spectrum watermark into multimedia data
US5850249A (en) 1995-10-12 1998-12-15 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. Receiver monitoring system with local encoding
US5752880A (en) 1995-11-20 1998-05-19 Creator Ltd. Interactive doll
US5687191A (en) 1995-12-06 1997-11-11 Solana Technology Development Corporation Post-compression hidden data transport
US5719937A (en) 1995-12-06 1998-02-17 Solana Technology Develpment Corporation Multi-media copy management system
WO1997022206A1 (en) 1995-12-11 1997-06-19 Philips Electronics N.V. Marking a video and/or audio signal
WO1997025798A1 (en) 1996-01-11 1997-07-17 Mrj, Inc. System for controlling access and distribution of digital property
US5822432A (en) 1996-01-17 1998-10-13 The Dice Company Method for human-assisted random key generation and application for digital watermark system
US5761606A (en) 1996-02-08 1998-06-02 Wolzien; Thomas R. Media online services access via address embedded in video or audio program
US6035177A (en) 1996-02-26 2000-03-07 Donald W. Moses Simultaneous transmission of ancillary and audio signals by means of perceptual coding
US5901178A (en) 1996-02-26 1999-05-04 Solana Technology Development Corporation Post-compression hidden data transport for video
EP0875107B1 (en) 1996-03-07 1999-09-01 Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Zur Förderung Der Angewandten Forschung E.V. Coding process for inserting an inaudible data signal into an audio signal, decoding process, coder and decoder
US5949885A (en) 1996-03-12 1999-09-07 Leighton; F. Thomson Method for protecting content using watermarking
US5664018A (en) 1996-03-12 1997-09-02 Leighton; Frank Thomson Watermarking process resilient to collusion attacks
AU2435297A (en) 1996-04-02 1997-11-07 Theodore G Handel Data embedding
US5828325A (en) 1996-04-03 1998-10-27 Aris Technologies, Inc. Apparatus and method for encoding and decoding information in analog signals
US5870030A (en) 1996-04-04 1999-02-09 Motorola, Inc. Advertiser pays information and messaging system and apparatus
US20030056103A1 (en) 2000-12-18 2003-03-20 Levy Kenneth L. Audio/video commerce application architectural framework
US6128597A (en) 1996-05-03 2000-10-03 Lsi Logic Corporation Audio decoder with a reconfigurable downmixing/windowing pipeline and method therefor
US6381341B1 (en) 1996-05-16 2002-04-30 Digimarc Corporation Watermark encoding method exploiting biases inherent in original signal
US5893067A (en) 1996-05-31 1999-04-06 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology Method and apparatus for echo data hiding in audio signals
US5778108A (en) 1996-06-07 1998-07-07 Electronic Data Systems Corporation Method and system for detecting transitional markers such as uniform fields in a video signal
US7177429B2 (en) 2000-12-07 2007-02-13 Blue Spike, Inc. System and methods for permitting open access to data objects and for securing data within the data objects
US7159116B2 (en) 1999-12-07 2007-01-02 Blue Spike, Inc. Systems, methods and devices for trusted transactions
US5889868A (en) 1996-07-02 1999-03-30 The Dice Company Optimization methods for the insertion, protection, and detection of digital watermarks in digitized data
US6078664A (en) 1996-12-20 2000-06-20 Moskowitz; Scott A. Z-transform implementation of digital watermarks
US7123718B1 (en) 1999-03-24 2006-10-17 Blue Spike, Inc. Utilizing data reduction in stegnographic and cryptographic systems
JP3982836B2 (en) 1996-07-16 2007-09-26 コーニンクレッカ フィリップス エレクトロニクス エヌ ヴィ Method for detecting watermark information embedded in an information signal
US6282299B1 (en) 1996-08-30 2001-08-28 Regents Of The University Of Minnesota Method and apparatus for video watermarking using perceptual masks
US6061793A (en) 1996-08-30 2000-05-09 Regents Of The University Of Minnesota Method and apparatus for embedding data, including watermarks, in human perceptible sounds
US7366908B2 (en) 1996-08-30 2008-04-29 Digimarc Corporation Digital watermarking with content dependent keys and autocorrelation properties for synchronization
US6031914A (en) 1996-08-30 2000-02-29 Regents Of The University Of Minnesota Method and apparatus for embedding data, including watermarks, in human perceptible images
US5848155A (en) 1996-09-04 1998-12-08 Nec Research Institute, Inc. Spread spectrum watermark for embedded signalling
US5809139A (en) 1996-09-13 1998-09-15 Vivo Software, Inc. Watermarking method and apparatus for compressed digital video
JP3109575B2 (en) 1996-09-30 2000-11-20 日本電気株式会社 Image data processing device
US5986692A (en) 1996-10-03 1999-11-16 Logan; James D. Systems and methods for computer enhanced broadcast monitoring
US5825892A (en) 1996-10-28 1998-10-20 International Business Machines Corporation Protecting images with an image watermark
JP3716519B2 (en) 1996-11-15 2005-11-16 オムロン株式会社 Camera, external device and image processing device
JP3172475B2 (en) 1996-12-26 2001-06-04 日本アイ・ビー・エム株式会社 Data hiding method and data extraction method using statistical test
GB9700854D0 (en) 1997-01-16 1997-03-05 Scient Generics Ltd Sub-audible acoustic data transmission mechanism
JP2000509588A (en) 1997-01-27 2000-07-25 コーニンクレッカ フィリップス エレクトロニクス エヌ ヴィ Method and system for transferring content information and related supplementary information
CA2227381C (en) 1997-02-14 2001-05-29 Nec Corporation Image data encoding system and image inputting apparatus
US5940429A (en) 1997-02-25 1999-08-17 Solana Technology Development Corporation Cross-term compensation power adjustment of embedded auxiliary data in a primary data signal
US6189123B1 (en) 1997-03-26 2001-02-13 Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson Method and apparatus for communicating a block of digital information between a sending and a receiving station
US6044156A (en) 1997-04-28 2000-03-28 Eastman Kodak Company Method for generating an improved carrier for use in an image data embedding application
US6181364B1 (en) 1997-05-16 2001-01-30 United Video Properties, Inc. System for filtering content from videos
EP1002388B1 (en) 1997-05-19 2006-08-09 Verance Corporation Apparatus and method for embedding and extracting information in analog signals using distributed signal features
US5940135A (en) 1997-05-19 1999-08-17 Aris Technologies, Inc. Apparatus and method for encoding and decoding information in analog signals
US6427012B1 (en) 1997-05-19 2002-07-30 Verance Corporation Apparatus and method for embedding and extracting information in analog signals using replica modulation
IL128233A0 (en) 1997-05-29 1999-11-30 Koninkl Philips Electronics Nv Method and arrangement for detecting a watermark
US5960081A (en) 1997-06-05 1999-09-28 Cray Research, Inc. Embedding a digital signature in a video sequence
US6067440A (en) 1997-06-12 2000-05-23 Diefes; Gunther Cable services security system
JPH118753A (en) 1997-06-18 1999-01-12 Nec Corp Electronic watermark insertion device
US6222932B1 (en) 1997-06-27 2001-04-24 International Business Machines Corporation Automatic adjustment of image watermark strength based on computed image texture
JP2915904B2 (en) 1997-07-07 1999-07-05 松下電器産業株式会社 Data control method, data control information embedding method, data control information detection method, data control information embedding device, data control information detection device, and recording device
GB9715067D0 (en) 1997-07-16 1997-09-24 Forward Hygiene Services Limit Tamper resistant bait station for rats
US5940124A (en) 1997-07-18 1999-08-17 Tektronix, Inc. Attentional maps in objective measurement of video quality degradation
IL121642A0 (en) 1997-08-27 1998-02-08 Creator Ltd Interactive talking toy
CN1160935C (en) 1997-09-02 2004-08-04 皇家菲利浦电子有限公司 Watermaking information signal
KR100306457B1 (en) 1997-09-02 2001-10-19 가나이 쓰도무 Data transmission method for embedded data, data transmitting and reproducing apparatuses and information recording medium therefor
DE69828148T2 (en) 1997-09-02 2005-12-22 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR WATERMARK EVALUATION
US6253189B1 (en) 1997-09-15 2001-06-26 At&T Corp. System and method for completing advertising time slot transactions
JP4064506B2 (en) 1997-09-17 2008-03-19 パイオニア株式会社 Digital watermark superimposing method, detecting method and apparatus
PT1020077E (en) 1997-10-08 2002-12-31 Digimarc Corp PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR A UNIQUE COPY WATER BRAND FOR A VIDEO GRAVACATION
US6388712B1 (en) 1997-10-09 2002-05-14 Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba System for verifying broadcast of a commercial message
US6094228A (en) 1997-10-28 2000-07-25 Ciardullo; Daniel Andrew Method for transmitting data on viewable portion of a video signal
US5945932A (en) 1997-10-30 1999-08-31 Audiotrack Corporation Technique for embedding a code in an audio signal and for detecting the embedded code
US6173271B1 (en) 1997-11-26 2001-01-09 California Institute Of Technology Television advertising automated billing system
US6330672B1 (en) 1997-12-03 2001-12-11 At&T Corp. Method and apparatus for watermarking digital bitstreams
US6037984A (en) 1997-12-24 2000-03-14 Sarnoff Corporation Method and apparatus for embedding a watermark into a digital image or image sequence
US6804376B2 (en) 1998-01-20 2004-10-12 Digimarc Corporation Equipment employing watermark-based authentication function
IL137370A0 (en) 1998-01-20 2001-07-24 Digimarc Corp Multiple watermarking techniques
JP3673664B2 (en) 1998-01-30 2005-07-20 キヤノン株式会社 Data processing apparatus, data processing method, and storage medium
US6145081A (en) 1998-02-02 2000-11-07 Verance Corporation Method and apparatus for preventing removal of embedded information in cover signals
JP3502554B2 (en) 1998-02-04 2004-03-02 シャープ株式会社 Developing device
CN1153456C (en) 1998-03-04 2004-06-09 皇家菲利浦电子有限公司 Water-mark detection
US6373974B2 (en) 1998-03-16 2002-04-16 Sharp Laboratories Of America, Inc. Method for extracting multiresolution watermark images to determine rightful ownership
TW440819B (en) 1998-03-18 2001-06-16 Koninkl Philips Electronics Nv Copy protection schemes for copy protected digital material
US6661905B1 (en) 1998-03-23 2003-12-09 Koplar Interactive Systems International Llc Method for transmitting data on a viewable portion of a video signal
US6256736B1 (en) 1998-04-13 2001-07-03 International Business Machines Corporation Secured signal modification and verification with privacy control
US6557103B1 (en) 1998-04-13 2003-04-29 The United States Of America As Represented By The Secretary Of The Army Spread spectrum image steganography
US7756892B2 (en) 2000-05-02 2010-07-13 Digimarc Corporation Using embedded data with file sharing
US6160986A (en) 1998-04-16 2000-12-12 Creator Ltd Interactive toy
US6314106B1 (en) 1998-04-20 2001-11-06 Alcatel Internetworking, Inc. Receive processing for dedicated bandwidth data communication switch backplane
US6888943B1 (en) 1998-04-21 2005-05-03 Verance Corporation Multimedia adaptive scrambling system (MASS)
JP3358532B2 (en) 1998-04-27 2002-12-24 日本電気株式会社 Receiving device using electronic watermark
US6487301B1 (en) 1998-04-30 2002-11-26 Mediasec Technologies Llc Digital authentication with digital and analog documents
JP3214555B2 (en) 1998-05-06 2001-10-02 日本電気株式会社 Digital watermark insertion device
US6792542B1 (en) 1998-05-12 2004-09-14 Verance Corporation Digital system for embedding a pseudo-randomly modulated auxiliary data sequence in digital samples
JP3201347B2 (en) 1998-05-15 2001-08-20 日本電気株式会社 Image attribute change device and digital watermark device
US6553127B1 (en) 1998-05-20 2003-04-22 Macrovision Corporation Method and apparatus for selective block processing
US6400826B1 (en) 1998-05-21 2002-06-04 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology System, method, and product for distortion-compensated information embedding using an ensemble of non-intersecting embedding generators
US6233347B1 (en) 1998-05-21 2001-05-15 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology System method, and product for information embedding using an ensemble of non-intersecting embedding generators
US6912315B1 (en) 1998-05-28 2005-06-28 Verance Corporation Pre-processed information embedding system
US7644282B2 (en) 1998-05-28 2010-01-05 Verance Corporation Pre-processed information embedding system
EP1080442A1 (en) 1998-05-28 2001-03-07 Solana Technology Development Corporation Pre-processed information embedding system
JP3156667B2 (en) 1998-06-01 2001-04-16 日本電気株式会社 Digital watermark insertion system, digital watermark characteristic table creation device
US6332194B1 (en) 1998-06-05 2001-12-18 Signafy, Inc. Method for data preparation and watermark insertion
US6285774B1 (en) 1998-06-08 2001-09-04 Digital Video Express, L.P. System and methodology for tracing to a source of unauthorized copying of prerecorded proprietary material, such as movies
US6523113B1 (en) 1998-06-09 2003-02-18 Apple Computer, Inc. Method and apparatus for copy protection
US6154571A (en) 1998-06-24 2000-11-28 Nec Research Institute, Inc. Robust digital watermarking
JP2000020600A (en) 1998-07-06 2000-01-21 Hitachi Ltd Method for providing digital contents, method for monitoring its illegal usage, its providing device and device for monitoring its illegal usage
US6490355B1 (en) 1998-07-14 2002-12-03 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Method and apparatus for use of a time-dependent watermark for the purpose of copy protection
US6530021B1 (en) 1998-07-20 2003-03-04 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Method and system for preventing unauthorized playback of broadcasted digital data streams
US6438235B2 (en) 1998-08-05 2002-08-20 Hewlett-Packard Company Media content protection utilizing public key cryptography
US6944313B1 (en) 1998-08-06 2005-09-13 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha Method and device for inserting and decoding a watermark in digital data
JP4083302B2 (en) 1998-08-12 2008-04-30 株式会社東芝 Video scrambling / descrambling device
US6226618B1 (en) 1998-08-13 2001-05-01 International Business Machines Corporation Electronic content delivery system
US6253113B1 (en) 1998-08-20 2001-06-26 Honeywell International Inc Controllers that determine optimal tuning parameters for use in process control systems and methods of operating the same
JP3722995B2 (en) 1998-08-21 2005-11-30 株式会社メガチップス Watermark encoding method and decoding method
AU6131899A (en) 1998-08-31 2000-03-21 Digital Video Express, L.P. Watermarking system and methodology for digital multimedia content
US6704431B1 (en) 1998-09-04 2004-03-09 Nippon Telegraph And Telephone Corporation Method and apparatus for digital watermarking
US7043536B1 (en) 1998-09-11 2006-05-09 Lv Partners, L.P. Method for controlling a computer using an embedded unique code in the content of CD media
US7373513B2 (en) 1998-09-25 2008-05-13 Digimarc Corporation Transmarking of multimedia signals
US8332478B2 (en) 1998-10-01 2012-12-11 Digimarc Corporation Context sensitive connected content
KR100351485B1 (en) 1998-10-08 2002-09-05 마츠시타 덴끼 산교 가부시키가이샤 Data processor and data recorded medium
US6209094B1 (en) 1998-10-14 2001-03-27 Liquid Audio Inc. Robust watermark method and apparatus for digital signals
JP3881794B2 (en) 1998-10-27 2007-02-14 興和株式会社 Digital watermark embedding method and decoding method thereof
JP3733251B2 (en) 1998-11-13 2006-01-11 キヤノン株式会社 Information processing apparatus, control method therefor, and computer-readable recording medium
JP3596590B2 (en) 1998-11-18 2004-12-02 ソニー株式会社 Apparatus and method for appending accompanying information, apparatus and method for detecting accompanying information
JP2000163870A (en) 1998-11-20 2000-06-16 Sony Corp Voice information control device and method
JP4130503B2 (en) 1998-11-30 2008-08-06 株式会社東芝 Digital watermark embedding device
JP4240614B2 (en) 1998-12-04 2009-03-18 キヤノン株式会社 Embedded device and computer-readable storage medium
US6678389B1 (en) 1998-12-29 2004-01-13 Kent Ridge Digital Labs Method and apparatus for embedding digital information in digital multimedia data
GB2363300B (en) 1998-12-29 2003-10-01 Kent Ridge Digital Labs Digital audio watermarking using content-adaptive multiple echo hopping
US7162642B2 (en) 1999-01-06 2007-01-09 Digital Video Express, L.P. Digital content distribution system and method
US6442283B1 (en) 1999-01-11 2002-08-27 Digimarc Corporation Multimedia data embedding
JP3397157B2 (en) 1999-01-13 2003-04-14 日本電気株式会社 Digital watermark insertion system
US6591365B1 (en) 1999-01-21 2003-07-08 Time Warner Entertainment Co., Lp Copy protection control system
JP2000216981A (en) 1999-01-25 2000-08-04 Sony Corp Method for embedding digital watermark and digital watermark embedding device
EP1022678B1 (en) 1999-01-25 2011-03-23 Nippon Telegraph And Telephone Corporation Method, apparatus and program storage medium for embedding and detecting a digital watermark
WO2000045604A1 (en) 1999-01-29 2000-08-03 Sony Corporation Signal processing method and video/voice processing device
US6449496B1 (en) 1999-02-08 2002-09-10 Qualcomm Incorporated Voice recognition user interface for telephone handsets
GB9905777D0 (en) 1999-03-12 1999-05-05 Univ London A method and apparatus for generating multiple watermarked copies of an information signal
US6556688B1 (en) 1999-03-15 2003-04-29 Seiko Epson Corporation Watermarking with random zero-mean patches for printer tracking
JP3607521B2 (en) 1999-03-24 2005-01-05 株式会社東芝 Digital watermark embedding device, digital watermark detection device, digital information distribution device, and storage medium
US7319759B1 (en) 1999-03-27 2008-01-15 Microsoft Corporation Producing a new black box for a digital rights management (DRM) system
US7334247B1 (en) 1999-03-29 2008-02-19 The Directv Group, Inc. Method and apparatus for watermarking received television content
US6823455B1 (en) 1999-04-08 2004-11-23 Intel Corporation Method for robust watermarking of content
US6510234B1 (en) 1999-05-12 2003-01-21 Signafy, Inc. Method for increasing the functionality of a media player/recorder device
US6522769B1 (en) 1999-05-19 2003-02-18 Digimarc Corporation Reconfiguring a watermark detector
US6801999B1 (en) 1999-05-20 2004-10-05 Microsoft Corporation Passive and active software objects containing bore resistant watermarking
US6952774B1 (en) 1999-05-22 2005-10-04 Microsoft Corporation Audio watermarking with dual watermarks
US6871180B1 (en) 1999-05-25 2005-03-22 Arbitron Inc. Decoding of information in audio signals
US6757908B1 (en) 1999-05-28 2004-06-29 3Com Corporation Graphical representation of impairment or other conditions in a data-over-cable system
US6785815B1 (en) 1999-06-08 2004-08-31 Intertrust Technologies Corp. Methods and systems for encoding and protecting data using digital signature and watermarking techniques
GB2351405B (en) 1999-06-21 2003-09-24 Motorola Ltd Watermarked digital images
JP2001005783A (en) 1999-06-23 2001-01-12 Namco Ltd Personal identification system
JP2001022366A (en) 1999-07-12 2001-01-26 Roland Corp Method and device for embedding electronic watermark in waveform data
US7020285B1 (en) 1999-07-13 2006-03-28 Microsoft Corporation Stealthy audio watermarking
US7430670B1 (en) 1999-07-29 2008-09-30 Intertrust Technologies Corp. Software self-defense systems and methods
US6577747B1 (en) 1999-08-05 2003-06-10 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N. V. Detection of auxiliary data in an information signal
DK1198959T3 (en) 1999-08-06 2003-06-02 Macrovision Corp A scaling independent technique for watermarking images
JP2001061052A (en) 1999-08-20 2001-03-06 Nec Corp Method for inserting electronic watermark data, its device and electronic watermark data detector
US7502759B2 (en) 1999-08-30 2009-03-10 Digimarc Corporation Digital watermarking methods and related toy and game applications
US6834344B1 (en) 1999-09-17 2004-12-21 International Business Machines Corporation Semi-fragile watermarks
US6810527B1 (en) 1999-09-27 2004-10-26 News America, Inc. System and method for distribution and delivery of media context and other data to aircraft passengers
KR100740792B1 (en) 1999-09-27 2007-07-20 코닌클리케 필립스 일렉트로닉스 엔.브이. Watermark detection method and watermark detection system
US6697944B1 (en) 1999-10-01 2004-02-24 Microsoft Corporation Digital content distribution, transmission and protection system and method, and portable device for use therewith
JP2001119555A (en) 1999-10-19 2001-04-27 Kowa Co Electronic watermark for time series processed linear data
US6571144B1 (en) 1999-10-20 2003-05-27 Intel Corporation System for providing a digital watermark in an audio signal
EP1098522A1 (en) 1999-11-05 2001-05-09 Sony United Kingdom Limited Method and apparatus for identifying a digital signal with a watermark
US6628729B1 (en) 1999-11-12 2003-09-30 Zenith Electronics Corporation Apparatus and method for downloading and storing data from a digital receiver
US6947893B1 (en) 1999-11-19 2005-09-20 Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corporation Acoustic signal transmission with insertion signal for machine control
JP2001242786A (en) 1999-12-20 2001-09-07 Fuji Photo Film Co Ltd Device and method for distribution, and recording medium
TW535406B (en) 1999-12-20 2003-06-01 Ibm Method and apparatus to determine ""original"" copyright infringer of web documents via content transcoding
JP2001175270A (en) 1999-12-21 2001-06-29 Sony Corp Digital watermark inserting method and computer readable recording medium
WO2001047269A1 (en) 1999-12-21 2001-06-28 Robbins Thomas D Automatic reminder system using transmitted id codes
JP2001188549A (en) 1999-12-29 2001-07-10 Sony Corp Information process, information processing method and program storage medium
WO2001050665A1 (en) 1999-12-30 2001-07-12 Digimarc Corporation Watermark-based personal audio appliance
US6915481B1 (en) 2000-01-11 2005-07-05 Cognicity, Inc. Transactional watermarking
WO2001054035A1 (en) 2000-01-19 2001-07-26 California Institute Of Technology Internet based tracking of commercial airings
US20020019769A1 (en) * 2000-01-19 2002-02-14 Steven Barritz System and method for establishing incentives for promoting the exchange of personal information and targeted advertising
JP2001218006A (en) 2000-01-31 2001-08-10 Canon Inc Picture processor, picture processing method and storage medium
US6625297B1 (en) 2000-02-10 2003-09-23 Digimarc Corporation Self-orienting watermarks
US8355525B2 (en) 2000-02-14 2013-01-15 Digimarc Corporation Parallel processing of digital watermarking operations
US6737957B1 (en) 2000-02-16 2004-05-18 Verance Corporation Remote control signaling using audio watermarks
US7426750B2 (en) 2000-02-18 2008-09-16 Verimatrix, Inc. Network-based content distribution system
JP3789069B2 (en) 2000-02-29 2006-06-21 キヤノン株式会社 Digital watermark embedding apparatus and method, program and storage medium, and digital watermark extraction apparatus and method, program and storage medium
US6654501B1 (en) 2000-03-06 2003-11-25 Intel Corporation Method of integrating a watermark into an image
EP1134977A1 (en) 2000-03-06 2001-09-19 Irdeto Access B.V. Method and system for providing copies of scrambled content with unique watermarks, and system for descrambling scrambled content
JP3656728B2 (en) 2000-03-10 2005-06-08 株式会社日立製作所 Information embedding method and extraction method using digital watermark
WO2001069452A2 (en) 2000-03-14 2001-09-20 Blue Dolphin Group, Inc. Method of selecting content for a user
US7142691B2 (en) 2000-03-18 2006-11-28 Digimarc Corporation Watermark embedding functions in rendering description files
ATE359563T1 (en) 2000-03-20 2007-05-15 Ibm METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR REVERSIBLE MARKING OF A TEXT DOCUMENT WITH A SAMPLE OF ADDITIONAL SPACES FOR CERTIFICATION
EP1137250A1 (en) 2000-03-22 2001-09-26 Hewlett-Packard Company, A Delaware Corporation Improvements relating to digital watermarks
US7046808B1 (en) 2000-03-24 2006-05-16 Verance Corporation Method and apparatus for detecting processing stages applied to a signal
US7673315B1 (en) 2000-03-30 2010-03-02 Microsoft Corporation System and method for providing program criteria representing audio and/or visual programming
US6707926B1 (en) 2000-03-31 2004-03-16 Intel Corporation Template for watermark decoder synchronization
WO2001075794A2 (en) 2000-04-05 2001-10-11 Sony United Kingdom Limited Identifying material
JP3690726B2 (en) 2000-04-13 2005-08-31 インターナショナル・ビジネス・マシーンズ・コーポレーション Data processing apparatus, image processing apparatus, and methods thereof
AU2001255445A1 (en) 2000-04-17 2001-10-30 Digimarc Corporation Authentication of physical and electronic media objects using digital watermarks
JP2001312570A (en) 2000-04-28 2001-11-09 Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd Copyright protection device, copyright protection system, copyright protection verification device, medium and information collectivity
US7167599B1 (en) 2000-05-03 2007-01-23 Thomson Licensing Method and device for controlling multimedia data watermark
JP2001326952A (en) 2000-05-15 2001-11-22 Nec Corp Broadcast confirmation system, method and device for broadcast confirmation, and recording medium with broadcast confirmation program recorded thereon
JP2002042413A (en) 2000-05-18 2002-02-08 Sony Corp Data recording medium, method and device for recording data, method and device for reproducing data, method and device for recording and reproducing data, method and device for transmitting data, method and device for receiving data, and contents data
US20050071283A1 (en) 2000-05-25 2005-03-31 Randle William M. Quality assured secure and coordinated transmission of separate image and data records representing a transaction
JP2001339700A (en) 2000-05-26 2001-12-07 Nec Corp Digital watermark processor, its insertion method and its detection method
US20040021549A1 (en) 2000-06-10 2004-02-05 Jong-Uk Choi System and method of providing and autheticating works and authorship based on watermark technique
JP2002010057A (en) 2000-06-20 2002-01-11 Ricoh Co Ltd Color image forming device
US7617509B1 (en) 2000-06-23 2009-11-10 International Business Machines Corporation Method and system for automated monitoring of quality of service of digital video material distribution and play-out
JP2002027223A (en) 2000-07-05 2002-01-25 Konica Corp Data processing device and data controlling system
JP3973346B2 (en) 2000-07-06 2007-09-12 株式会社日立製作所 CONTENT DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM, CONTENT REPRODUCTION DEVICE, CONTENT DISTRIBUTION DEVICE, AND STORAGE MEDIUM
JP3809323B2 (en) 2000-07-06 2006-08-16 株式会社日立製作所 Method for embedding digital watermark information and method for analyzing possibility of embedding digital watermark information
JP4305593B2 (en) 2000-07-17 2009-07-29 ソニー株式会社 DATA RECORDING / REPRODUCING METHOD AND DEVICE, DATA RECORDING DEVICE AND METHOD
US6594373B1 (en) 2000-07-19 2003-07-15 Digimarc Corporation Multi-carrier watermarks using carrier signals modulated with auxiliary messages
US6721439B1 (en) 2000-08-18 2004-04-13 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Method and system of watermarking digital data using scaled bin encoding and maximum likelihood decoding
US6430301B1 (en) 2000-08-30 2002-08-06 Verance Corporation Formation and analysis of signals with common and transaction watermarks
JP3691415B2 (en) 2000-09-01 2005-09-07 松下電器産業株式会社 REPRODUCTION DEVICE, REPRODUCTION DEVICE SPECIFICING DEVICE, AND METHOD THEREOF
JP3511502B2 (en) 2000-09-05 2004-03-29 インターナショナル・ビジネス・マシーンズ・コーポレーション Data processing detection system, additional information embedding device, additional information detection device, digital content, music content processing device, additional data embedding method, content processing detection method, storage medium, and program transmission device
JP3700565B2 (en) 2000-09-11 2005-09-28 セイコーエプソン株式会社 Printing system and content data reproduction system
US7246239B2 (en) 2001-01-24 2007-07-17 Digimarc Corporation Digital watermarks for checking authenticity of printed objects
US6760464B2 (en) 2000-10-11 2004-07-06 Digimarc Corporation Halftone watermarking and related applications
US6674876B1 (en) 2000-09-14 2004-01-06 Digimarc Corporation Watermarking in the time-frequency domain
AU2001292910B2 (en) 2000-09-22 2008-05-01 Sca Ipla Holdings, Inc. Systems and methods for preventing unauthorized use of digital content
US20040064416A1 (en) 2000-10-03 2004-04-01 Ariel Peled Secure distribution of digital content
US6829582B1 (en) 2000-10-10 2004-12-07 International Business Machines Corporation Controlled access to audio signals based on objectionable audio content detected via sound recognition
US6512837B1 (en) 2000-10-11 2003-01-28 Digimarc Corporation Watermarks carrying content dependent signal metrics for detecting and characterizing signal alteration
JP3807220B2 (en) 2000-10-18 2006-08-09 日本電気株式会社 Digital watermark detection apparatus and digital watermark detection method
JP4346809B2 (en) 2000-10-19 2009-10-21 エヌ・ティ・ティ・ソフトウェア株式会社 Digital watermark information detection method
US6748360B2 (en) 2000-11-03 2004-06-08 International Business Machines Corporation System for selling a product utilizing audio content identification
US7085613B2 (en) 2000-11-03 2006-08-01 International Business Machines Corporation System for monitoring audio content in a video broadcast
AU2001296667A1 (en) 2000-11-09 2002-05-21 Macrovision Corporation Method and apparatus for determining digital a/v content distribution terms based on detected piracy levels
US7043049B2 (en) 2000-11-30 2006-05-09 Intel Corporation Apparatus and method for monitoring streamed multimedia quality using digital watermark
US6925342B2 (en) 2000-12-05 2005-08-02 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. System and method for protecting digital media
JP4320951B2 (en) 2000-12-06 2009-08-26 ソニー株式会社 Recording apparatus and recording / reproducing apparatus
EP1215907A3 (en) 2000-12-07 2006-04-26 Sony United Kingdom Limited Watermarking material and transferring watermarked material
US20020080976A1 (en) 2000-12-14 2002-06-27 Schreer Scott P. System and method for accessing authorized recordings
US20040059918A1 (en) 2000-12-15 2004-03-25 Changsheng Xu Method and system of digital watermarking for compressed audio
US6483927B2 (en) 2000-12-18 2002-11-19 Digimarc Corporation Synchronizing readers of hidden auxiliary data in quantization-based data hiding schemes
US8055899B2 (en) 2000-12-18 2011-11-08 Digimarc Corporation Systems and methods using digital watermarking and identifier extraction to provide promotional opportunities
US6965683B2 (en) * 2000-12-21 2005-11-15 Digimarc Corporation Routing networks for use with watermark systems
AU2002232817A1 (en) 2000-12-21 2002-07-01 Digimarc Corporation Methods, apparatus and programs for generating and utilizing content signatures
US6856693B2 (en) 2000-12-22 2005-02-15 Nec Laboratories America, Inc. Watermarking with cone-forest detection regions
US6912294B2 (en) 2000-12-29 2005-06-28 Contentguard Holdings, Inc. Multi-stage watermarking process and system
FR2819672B1 (en) 2001-01-18 2003-04-04 Canon Kk METHOD AND DEVICE FOR TRANSMITTING AND RECEIVING DIGITAL IMAGES USING AN IMAGE MARKER FOR DECODING
US7058815B2 (en) 2001-01-22 2006-06-06 Cisco Technology, Inc. Method and system for digitally signing MPEG streams
US20030192060A1 (en) * 2001-01-30 2003-10-09 Levy Kenneth L. Digital watermarking and television services
JP4019303B2 (en) 2001-02-02 2007-12-12 日本電気株式会社 ENCRYPTION DEVICE AND DECRYPTION DEVICE USING ENCRYPTION KEY INCLUDED IN ELECTRONIC WATERMARK AND METHOD THEREOF
ATE505905T1 (en) 2001-02-09 2011-04-15 Canon Kk INFORMATION PROCESSING DEVICE AND ITS CONTROL METHODS, COMPUTER PROGRAM, AND STORAGE MEDIUM
US6891958B2 (en) 2001-02-27 2005-05-10 Microsoft Corporation Asymmetric spread-spectrum watermarking systems and methods of use
US6664976B2 (en) 2001-04-18 2003-12-16 Digimarc Corporation Image management system and methods using digital watermarks
US6931536B2 (en) 2001-03-06 2005-08-16 Macrovision Corporation Enhanced copy protection of proprietary material employing multiple watermarks
TW582022B (en) 2001-03-14 2004-04-01 Ibm A method and system for the automatic detection of similar or identical segments in audio recordings
US20020141582A1 (en) 2001-03-28 2002-10-03 Kocher Paul C. Content security layer providing long-term renewable security
US7987510B2 (en) 2001-03-28 2011-07-26 Rovi Solutions Corporation Self-protecting digital content
US7111169B2 (en) 2001-03-29 2006-09-19 Intel Corporation Method and apparatus for content protection across a source-to-destination interface
US6785401B2 (en) 2001-04-09 2004-08-31 Tektronix, Inc. Temporal synchronization of video watermark decoding
US7047413B2 (en) 2001-04-23 2006-05-16 Microsoft Corporation Collusion-resistant watermarking and fingerprinting
US7024018B2 (en) 2001-05-11 2006-04-04 Verance Corporation Watermark position modulation
JP2003091927A (en) 2001-05-14 2003-03-28 Sony Corp Recording medium, playback apparatus and method for recording medium, recording apparatus and method of recording medium and data output method
US20030056213A1 (en) 2001-05-16 2003-03-20 Mcfaddin James E. Method and system for delivering a composite information stream over a computer network
WO2002095727A1 (en) 2001-05-17 2002-11-28 International Business Machines Corporation Content boundary detecting device, monitoring method, content position determining method, program, and storge medium
US6996717B2 (en) 2001-05-24 2006-02-07 Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Semi-fragile watermarking system for MPEG video authentication
US7113613B2 (en) 2001-06-08 2006-09-26 Hitachi, Ltd. Watermark information detection method
US7581103B2 (en) 2001-06-13 2009-08-25 Intertrust Technologies Corporation Software self-checking systems and methods
DE10129239C1 (en) 2001-06-18 2002-10-31 Fraunhofer Ges Forschung Audio signal water-marking method processes water-mark signal before embedding in audio signal so that it is not audibly perceived
JP2003008873A (en) 2001-06-21 2003-01-10 Nippon Telegr & Teleph Corp <Ntt> Method and device for electronic key management
US20030016825A1 (en) 2001-07-10 2003-01-23 Eastman Kodak Company System and method for secure watermarking of a digital image sequence
JP4333091B2 (en) 2001-07-13 2009-09-16 ソニー株式会社 VIDEO INFORMATION RECORDING DEVICE, RECORDING METHOD, STORAGE MEDIUM, PROGRAM, AND VIDEO INFORMATION RECORDING METHOD
US7877438B2 (en) 2001-07-20 2011-01-25 Audible Magic Corporation Method and apparatus for identifying new media content
JP2003039770A (en) 2001-07-27 2003-02-13 Canon Inc Image processor and its controlling method
US7298865B2 (en) 2001-07-30 2007-11-20 Sarnoff Corporation Secure robust high-fidelity watermarking
JP4398242B2 (en) 2001-07-31 2010-01-13 グレースノート インコーポレイテッド Multi-stage identification method for recording
US20030031317A1 (en) 2001-08-13 2003-02-13 Michael Epstein Increasing the size of a data-set and watermarking
US20030053655A1 (en) 2001-08-16 2003-03-20 Barone Samuel T. Digital data monitoring and logging in an ITV system
US7068809B2 (en) 2001-08-27 2006-06-27 Digimarc Corporation Segmentation in digital watermarking
GB2379349B (en) 2001-08-31 2006-02-08 Sony Uk Ltd Embedding data in material
US6592516B2 (en) 2001-10-09 2003-07-15 Ching-Chuan Lee Interactive control system of a sexual delight appliance
US7006656B2 (en) 2001-10-15 2006-02-28 The Research Foundation Of Suny Lossless embedding of data in digital objects
WO2003034313A2 (en) 2001-10-18 2003-04-24 Macrovision Corporation Systems and methods for providing digital rights management compatibility
US7487363B2 (en) 2001-10-18 2009-02-03 Nokia Corporation System and method for controlled copying and moving of content between devices and domains based on conditional encryption of content key depending on usage
JP3902536B2 (en) 2001-11-28 2007-04-11 日本ビクター株式会社 Variable length data encoding method and variable length data encoding apparatus
JP2003168262A (en) 2001-11-29 2003-06-13 Toshiba Corp Apparatus and method for recording contents containing watermark
US7515730B2 (en) 2001-12-13 2009-04-07 Digimarc Corporation Progressive image quality control using watermarking
GB2383220B (en) 2001-12-13 2005-11-30 Sony Uk Ltd Data processing apparatus and method
US8059815B2 (en) 2001-12-13 2011-11-15 Digimarc Corporation Transforming data files into logical storage units for auxiliary data through reversible watermarks
US7392394B2 (en) 2001-12-13 2008-06-24 Digimarc Corporation Digital watermarking with variable orientation and protocols
US7392392B2 (en) 2001-12-13 2008-06-24 Digimarc Corporation Forensic digital watermarking with variable orientation and protocols
US20030115504A1 (en) 2001-12-19 2003-06-19 Holliman Matthew J. Measurement of data degradation using watermarks
US6944771B2 (en) 2001-12-20 2005-09-13 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Method and apparatus for overcoming a watermark security system
CN100534181C (en) 2001-12-21 2009-08-26 皇家飞利浦电子股份有限公司 Increasing integrity of watermarks using robust features
US20030131350A1 (en) 2002-01-08 2003-07-10 Peiffer John C. Method and apparatus for identifying a digital audio signal
US6996249B2 (en) 2002-01-11 2006-02-07 Nec Laboratories America, Inc. Applying informed coding, informed embedding and perceptual shaping to design a robust, high-capacity watermark
WO2003062960A2 (en) 2002-01-22 2003-07-31 Digimarc Corporation Digital watermarking and fingerprinting including symchronization, layering, version control, and compressed embedding
US7840005B2 (en) 2002-01-22 2010-11-23 Digimarc Corporation Synchronization of media signals
US7231061B2 (en) 2002-01-22 2007-06-12 Digimarc Corporation Adaptive prediction filtering for digital watermarking
US7328345B2 (en) 2002-01-29 2008-02-05 Widevine Technologies, Inc. Method and system for end to end securing of content for video on demand
JP4107851B2 (en) 2002-02-13 2008-06-25 三洋電機株式会社 Digital watermark embedding method and encoding device and decoding device capable of using the method
US7054461B2 (en) 2002-02-15 2006-05-30 Pitney Bowes Inc. Authenticating printed objects using digital watermarks associated with multidimensional quality metrics
GB2386782B (en) 2002-03-22 2005-09-21 Sony Uk Ltd Material storage
JP4186531B2 (en) 2002-03-25 2008-11-26 富士ゼロックス株式会社 Data embedding method, data extracting method, data embedding extracting method, and system
US7533027B2 (en) 2002-04-02 2009-05-12 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Methods and apparatus for uniquely identifying a large number of film prints
US6912010B2 (en) 2002-04-15 2005-06-28 Tektronix, Inc. Automated lip sync error correction
US7389421B2 (en) 2002-04-18 2008-06-17 Microsoft Corporation Countermeasure against estimation-based attacks of spread-spectrum watermarks
MXPA04010349A (en) 2002-04-22 2005-06-08 Nielsen Media Res Inc Methods and apparatus to collect audience information associated with a media presentation.
JP2003316556A (en) 2002-04-24 2003-11-07 Canon Inc Transaction system, terminal equipment, terminal, transaction method, transaction program and computer- readable recording medium with transaction program recorded thereon
WO2003093961A2 (en) 2002-05-02 2003-11-13 Shieldip, Inc. Method and apparatus for protecting information and privacy
AU2003264750A1 (en) 2002-05-03 2003-11-17 Harman International Industries, Incorporated Multi-channel downmixing device
CN100353767C (en) 2002-05-10 2007-12-05 皇家飞利浦电子股份有限公司 Watermark embedding and retrieval
JP3780510B2 (en) 2002-05-28 2006-05-31 日本電信電話株式会社 Multiple digital watermark processing method, multiple digital watermark processing apparatus, multiple digital watermark processing program, and storage medium storing the processing program
US6954541B2 (en) 2002-05-29 2005-10-11 Xerox Corporation Method of detecting changes occurring in image editing using watermarks
US7519819B2 (en) 2002-05-29 2009-04-14 Digimarc Corporatino Layered security in digital watermarking
US7039931B2 (en) 2002-05-30 2006-05-02 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. Multi-market broadcast tracking, management and reporting method and system
CN100458949C (en) 2002-06-03 2009-02-04 皇家飞利浦电子股份有限公司 Re-embedding of watermarks in multimedia signals
KR100888589B1 (en) 2002-06-18 2009-03-16 삼성전자주식회사 Method and apparatus for extracting watermark from repeatedly watermarked original information
US8601504B2 (en) 2002-06-20 2013-12-03 Verance Corporation Secure tracking system and method for video program content
US7818763B2 (en) * 2002-06-25 2010-10-19 Starz Entertainment, Llc Video advertising
US7188248B2 (en) 2002-07-09 2007-03-06 Kaleidescope, Inc. Recovering from de-synchronization attacks against watermarking and fingerprinting
US7003131B2 (en) 2002-07-09 2006-02-21 Kaleidescape, Inc. Watermarking and fingerprinting digital content using alternative blocks to embed information
US20040091111A1 (en) 2002-07-16 2004-05-13 Levy Kenneth L. Digital watermarking and fingerprinting applications
JP3754403B2 (en) 2002-07-26 2006-03-15 株式会社東芝 Digital watermark detection method and apparatus
EP1553775A4 (en) 2002-07-29 2007-07-11 Ibm Wm signal generation device, wm signal generation method, computer-executable program for executing wm signal generation method and computer readable recording medium on which the program is recorded, digital watermarking device, and digital tv set including the digital watermarking device
US8176508B2 (en) 2002-08-02 2012-05-08 Time Warner Cable Method and apparatus to provide verification of data using a fingerprint
JP2004070606A (en) 2002-08-05 2004-03-04 Kanazawa Inst Of Technology Contents management method and device
JP3749884B2 (en) 2002-08-28 2006-03-01 株式会社東芝 Digital watermark embedding device, digital watermark analysis device, digital watermark embedding method, digital watermark analysis method, and program
US7133534B2 (en) 2002-09-03 2006-11-07 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Copy protection via redundant watermark encoding
TWI290286B (en) 2002-09-05 2007-11-21 Matsushita Electric Ind Co Ltd Group formation/management system, group management device, member device, registration device, authentication method used in a group management device, and recording medium storing a computer program used in a group management device
JP4266677B2 (en) 2002-09-20 2009-05-20 三洋電機株式会社 Digital watermark embedding method and encoding device and decoding device capable of using the method
EP2442566A3 (en) 2002-10-15 2012-08-08 Verance Corporation Media Monitoring, Management and Information System
US20040088556A1 (en) 2002-10-31 2004-05-06 Weirauch Charles R. Using digital watermarking for protection of digital data
JP3960959B2 (en) 2002-11-08 2007-08-15 三洋電機株式会社 Digital watermark embedding apparatus and method, and digital watermark extraction apparatus and method
KR100448888B1 (en) 2002-11-28 2004-09-18 한국전자통신연구원 Broadcasting server system for protection and management of digital broadcasting contents, processing method in its
GB2396267A (en) 2002-12-09 2004-06-16 Sony Uk Ltd Method of embedding and extracting codewords in data
JP2004193843A (en) 2002-12-10 2004-07-08 Nippon Hoso Kyokai <Nhk> Device, method, and program for content delivery and device, method, and program for reproducing content
JP2004194233A (en) 2002-12-13 2004-07-08 Mitsubishi Electric Corp Contents management apparatus and contents distribution apparatus
RU2324301C2 (en) 2003-02-10 2008-05-10 Конинклейке Филипс Электроникс Н.В. Import control of content
AU2003206940A1 (en) 2003-02-21 2004-09-09 Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (Publ) Method for embedding and detecting a watermark in a digital audio signal
JP4823890B2 (en) 2003-03-06 2011-11-24 ディジマーク コーポレイション Document authentication method
US20040202324A1 (en) 2003-04-11 2004-10-14 Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd Program electronic watermark processing apparatus
KR100624751B1 (en) 2003-04-25 2006-09-19 (주)마크텍 A method for embedding watermark into an image and digital video recoreder using said method
US20040216157A1 (en) 2003-04-25 2004-10-28 Richard Shain System and method for advertising purchase verification
CN102509031B (en) 2003-06-23 2014-12-24 索尼电影娱乐公司 Method for identifying media source, device and system of fingerprint addition
US7206649B2 (en) 2003-07-15 2007-04-17 Microsoft Corporation Audio watermarking with dual watermarks
JP4200106B2 (en) 2003-07-15 2008-12-24 株式会社リコー Image processing apparatus, image processing method, computer program, and storage medium for storing computer program
US7254250B2 (en) 2003-07-31 2007-08-07 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Watermark embedding and extraction method and apparatus in compressed streams
EP1658586A1 (en) 2003-08-19 2006-05-24 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Detecting a watermark using a subset of available detection methods
JP4269861B2 (en) 2003-09-12 2009-05-27 沖電気工業株式会社 Printed material processing system, watermarked document printing device, watermarked document reading device, printed material processing method, information reading device, and information reading method
US20050071663A1 (en) 2003-09-26 2005-03-31 General Instrument Corporation Separation of copy protection rules for digital rights management
US7706565B2 (en) 2003-09-30 2010-04-27 Digimarc Corporation Multi-channel digital watermarking
US7616776B2 (en) 2005-04-26 2009-11-10 Verance Corproation Methods and apparatus for enhancing the robustness of watermark extraction from digital host content
US20060239501A1 (en) 2005-04-26 2006-10-26 Verance Corporation Security enhancements of digital watermarks for multi-media content
US9055239B2 (en) * 2003-10-08 2015-06-09 Verance Corporation Signal continuity assessment using embedded watermarks
US7369677B2 (en) * 2005-04-26 2008-05-06 Verance Corporation System reactions to the detection of embedded watermarks in a digital host content
US20070039018A1 (en) 2005-08-09 2007-02-15 Verance Corporation Apparatus, systems and methods for broadcast advertising stewardship
WO2005038778A1 (en) 2003-10-17 2005-04-28 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Signal encoding
KR100907121B1 (en) 2003-12-05 2009-07-09 모션 픽쳐 어쏘시에이션 오브 아메리카 System and method for controlling display of copy-never content
US20050154891A1 (en) 2004-01-08 2005-07-14 Eastman Kodak Company Metadata-based, anti-fraudulant identification card method and production system
US8023882B2 (en) 2004-01-14 2011-09-20 The Nielsen Company (Us), Llc. Portable audience measurement architectures and methods for portable audience measurement
CN1910612A (en) 2004-01-15 2007-02-07 皇家飞利浦电子股份有限公司 Method of allocating payload bits of a watermark
EP1709760A1 (en) 2004-01-16 2006-10-11 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Method of allocating optimal payload space
US20070214049A1 (en) * 2004-03-01 2007-09-13 Richard Postrel Broadcast television reward program and method of use for issuing, aggregating and redeeming sponsor's reward points
CN102169693B (en) 2004-03-01 2014-07-23 杜比实验室特许公司 Multichannel audio coding
AU2005220863B2 (en) 2004-03-09 2010-03-04 Google Llc Dynamic data delivery apparatus and method for same
US8117595B2 (en) 2004-03-23 2012-02-14 Microsoft Corporation Method for updating data in accordance with rights management policy
US7711140B2 (en) 2004-04-21 2010-05-04 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha Secure recorded documents
US7966391B2 (en) 2004-05-11 2011-06-21 Todd J. Anderson Systems, apparatus and methods for managing networking devices
US7693297B2 (en) 2004-08-05 2010-04-06 Xiao-Ping Zhang Watermark embedding and detecting methods, systems, devices and components
WO2006017659A2 (en) * 2004-08-06 2006-02-16 Digimarc Corporation Fast signal detection and distributed computing in portable computing devices
JP4155956B2 (en) 2004-09-16 2008-09-24 三洋電機株式会社 Digital watermark embedding apparatus and method, and digital watermark extraction apparatus and method
WO2006051043A1 (en) 2004-11-10 2006-05-18 Thomson Licensing Method for securely binding content protection information to a content and method for verifying this binding
JP4034776B2 (en) 2004-11-12 2008-01-16 株式会社東芝 Digital watermark detection apparatus, digital watermark detection method, and program
PT1684265E (en) 2005-01-21 2008-10-27 Unltd Media Gmbh Method of embedding a digital watermark in a useful signal
US20060227968A1 (en) 2005-04-08 2006-10-12 Chen Oscal T Speech watermark system
US7983922B2 (en) 2005-04-15 2011-07-19 Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten Forschung E.V. Apparatus and method for generating multi-channel synthesizer control signal and apparatus and method for multi-channel synthesizing
CA2605641A1 (en) 2005-04-26 2006-11-02 Verance Corporation Security enhancements of digital watermarks for multi-media content
US7200576B2 (en) 2005-06-20 2007-04-03 Microsoft Corporation Secure online transactions using a captcha image as a watermark
CN100461864C (en) 2005-06-25 2009-02-11 华为技术有限公司 Multimedia video communication objective quality appraising method based on digital watermark
US8020004B2 (en) 2005-07-01 2011-09-13 Verance Corporation Forensic marking using a common customization function
US8781967B2 (en) 2005-07-07 2014-07-15 Verance Corporation Watermarking in an encrypted domain
JP4935015B2 (en) 2005-07-29 2012-05-23 ソニー株式会社 Content distribution system, content distribution method, content transmission terminal, and content reception terminal
KR100901142B1 (en) 2005-08-04 2009-06-04 니폰 덴신 덴와 가부시끼가이샤 Digital watermark detecting method, digital watermark detection device, and program
US7630497B2 (en) 2005-09-19 2009-12-08 International Business Machines Corporation System and method for assigning sequence keys to a media player to enable hybrid traitor tracing
GB2431837A (en) 2005-10-28 2007-05-02 Sony Uk Ltd Audio processing
CN101313331A (en) 2005-11-24 2008-11-26 皇家飞利浦电子股份有限公司 Multibit forensic watermark with encrypted detection key
WO2007076459A2 (en) 2005-12-21 2007-07-05 Digimarc Corporation Rules driven pan id metadata routing system and network
US7788181B2 (en) 2005-12-27 2010-08-31 Microsoft Corporation Software licensing using certificate issued by authorized authority
US7536373B2 (en) 2006-02-14 2009-05-19 International Business Machines Corporation Resource allocation using relational fuzzy modeling
EP1999999B1 (en) 2006-03-24 2011-11-02 Dolby Sweden AB Generation of spatial downmixes from parametric representations of multi channel signals
KR20090020632A (en) 2006-06-19 2009-02-26 파나소닉 주식회사 Information burying device and detecting device
JP5049288B2 (en) 2006-11-09 2012-10-17 パナソニック株式会社 Tamper detection system, tamper detection method, tamper detection program, recording medium, integrated circuit, authentication information generation device, and tamper detection device
GB2445765A (en) 2006-12-14 2008-07-23 Media Instr Sa Movable audience measurement system
US9179200B2 (en) 2007-03-14 2015-11-03 Digimarc Corporation Method and system for determining content treatment
EP1968316A1 (en) 2007-03-06 2008-09-10 Nagravision S.A. Method to control the access to conditional access audio/video content
EP2135376A4 (en) 2007-03-22 2012-12-19 Nielsen Co Us Llc Digital rights management and audience measurement systems and methods
US9349153B2 (en) 2007-04-25 2016-05-24 Digimarc Corporation Correcting image capture distortion
KR101383307B1 (en) 2007-06-14 2014-04-09 톰슨 라이센싱 Method and apparatus for setting a detection threshold given a desired false probability
US20090033617A1 (en) 2007-08-02 2009-02-05 Nokia Corporation Haptic User Interface
JP2009158055A (en) 2007-12-27 2009-07-16 Toshiba Corp Audio data processing system and audio data processing method
JP2009163496A (en) 2008-01-07 2009-07-23 Funai Electric Co Ltd Content reproduction system
KR101442836B1 (en) 2008-01-07 2014-11-04 삼성전자주식회사 Method for providing additional information of video using visible communication and apparatus for the same
US8138930B1 (en) 2008-01-22 2012-03-20 Google Inc. Advertising based on environmental conditions
US8527651B2 (en) 2008-06-19 2013-09-03 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. Content identification method and system, and SCIDM client and server
US8259938B2 (en) 2008-06-24 2012-09-04 Verance Corporation Efficient and secure forensic marking in compressed
US8346532B2 (en) 2008-07-11 2013-01-01 International Business Machines Corporation Managing the creation, detection, and maintenance of sensitive information
US8543773B2 (en) 2008-08-25 2013-09-24 International Business Machines Corporation Distributed shared memory
EP2166725A1 (en) 2008-08-28 2010-03-24 Alcatel, Lucent Control of delivery of digital content, and an apparatus therefor
US20100069151A1 (en) 2008-09-18 2010-03-18 Edward Suchocki Gaming device with integrated advertising
EP2175443A1 (en) 2008-10-10 2010-04-14 Thomson Licensing Method and apparatus for for regaining watermark data that were embedded in an original signal by modifying sections of said original signal in relation to at least two different reference data sequences
US8423761B2 (en) 2008-10-31 2013-04-16 Motorola Solutions, Inc. Method and device for enabling a trust relationship using an expired public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate
EP2605485B1 (en) 2008-10-31 2017-05-03 Orange Communication system incorporating ambient sound pattern detection and method of operation thereof
WO2010073236A1 (en) 2008-12-22 2010-07-01 France Telecom A method of and apparatus for authenticating data content
US8529264B2 (en) 2008-12-23 2013-09-10 Benjamin J. Hamlin Method facilitating language learning
US9003512B2 (en) 2009-01-16 2015-04-07 Cox Communications, Inc. Content protection management system
US8938401B2 (en) * 2009-02-17 2015-01-20 Comcast Cable Holdings, Llc Systems and methods for signaling content rights through release windows life cycle
KR20100095245A (en) 2009-02-20 2010-08-30 삼성전자주식회사 Method and apparatus for embedding watermark
JP5742057B2 (en) 2009-03-03 2015-07-01 ディジマーク コーポレイション Narrow casting from public displays and related arrangements
KR20100009384U (en) 2009-03-17 2010-09-29 주식회사 리수산업 Connecting clamp of h beam with rail type guide tool
JP2010272920A (en) 2009-05-19 2010-12-02 Mitsubishi Electric Corp Electronic watermark embedding apparatus, electronic watermark embedding method, and electronic watermark embedding program
US8489774B2 (en) 2009-05-27 2013-07-16 Spot411 Technologies, Inc. Synchronized delivery of interactive content
US8718805B2 (en) 2009-05-27 2014-05-06 Spot411 Technologies, Inc. Audio-based synchronization to media
US8429365B2 (en) 2009-06-26 2013-04-23 Sandisk Technologies Inc. Memory device and method for embedding host-identification information into content
JP5266396B2 (en) 2009-10-30 2013-08-21 パナソニック株式会社 AV data receiving apparatus, AV data receiving method, and AV data transmitting / receiving system
US8954434B2 (en) 2010-01-08 2015-02-10 Microsoft Corporation Enhancing a document with supplemental information from another document
JP5864437B2 (en) 2010-01-15 2016-02-17 ディジマーク コーポレイション Method and configuration for signal rich art
EP2362382A1 (en) 2010-02-26 2011-08-31 Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Angewandten Forschung e.V. Watermark signal provider and method for providing a watermark signal
US20110214143A1 (en) 2010-03-01 2011-09-01 Rits Susan K Mobile device application
US9342661B2 (en) 2010-03-02 2016-05-17 Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc Apparatus and methods for rights-managed content and data delivery
US8645699B2 (en) 2010-03-15 2014-02-04 Blackberry Limited Use of certificate authority to control a device's access to services
WO2011116309A1 (en) 2010-03-19 2011-09-22 Digimarc Corporation Intuitive computing methods and systems
US8452106B2 (en) 2010-03-23 2013-05-28 Microsoft Corporation Partition min-hash for partial-duplicate image determination
EP2387033A1 (en) 2010-05-11 2011-11-16 Thomson Licensing Method and apparatus for detecting which one of symbols of watermark data is embedded in a received signal
US9009339B2 (en) 2010-06-29 2015-04-14 Echostar Technologies L.L.C. Apparatus, systems and methods for accessing and synchronizing presentation of media content and supplemental media rich content
US9607131B2 (en) * 2010-09-16 2017-03-28 Verance Corporation Secure and efficient content screening in a networked environment
US9767823B2 (en) 2011-02-07 2017-09-19 Qualcomm Incorporated Devices for encoding and detecting a watermarked signal
US8189861B1 (en) 2011-04-05 2012-05-29 Google Inc. Watermarking digital documents
US9380356B2 (en) 2011-04-12 2016-06-28 The Nielsen Company (Us), Llc Methods and apparatus to generate a tag for media content
KR20120119793A (en) 2011-04-22 2012-10-31 삼성전자주식회사 Method and apparatus for watermarking for tracing hacked contents, and method and apparatus for blocking hacked contents
US20120304206A1 (en) 2011-05-26 2012-11-29 Verizon Patent And Licensing, Inc. Methods and Systems for Presenting an Advertisement Associated with an Ambient Action of a User
US8848969B2 (en) 2011-06-06 2014-09-30 Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc Methods and apparatus for watermarking and distributing watermarked content
US20130031579A1 (en) * 2011-07-28 2013-01-31 United Video Properties, Inc. Systems and methods for selectively modifying the display of advertisements and providing supplementary media content
US8615104B2 (en) 2011-11-03 2013-12-24 Verance Corporation Watermark extraction based on tentative watermarks
US8682026B2 (en) 2011-11-03 2014-03-25 Verance Corporation Efficient extraction of embedded watermarks in the presence of host content distortions
US8923548B2 (en) 2011-11-03 2014-12-30 Verance Corporation Extraction of embedded watermarks from a host content using a plurality of tentative watermarks
WO2013067439A1 (en) 2011-11-03 2013-05-10 Verance Corporation Watermark extraction based on tentative watermarks
US8533481B2 (en) 2011-11-03 2013-09-10 Verance Corporation Extraction of embedded watermarks from a host content based on extrapolation techniques
US9281013B2 (en) 2011-11-22 2016-03-08 Cyberlink Corp. Systems and methods for transmission of media content
US8745403B2 (en) 2011-11-23 2014-06-03 Verance Corporation Enhanced content management based on watermark extraction records
US9547753B2 (en) * 2011-12-13 2017-01-17 Verance Corporation Coordinated watermarking
US20130151855A1 (en) 2011-12-13 2013-06-13 Verance Corporation Watermark embedding workflow improvements
US9323902B2 (en) 2011-12-13 2016-04-26 Verance Corporation Conditional access using embedded watermarks
US8909536B2 (en) 2012-04-20 2014-12-09 Nuance Communications, Inc. Methods and systems for speech-enabling a human-to-machine interface
US9571606B2 (en) 2012-08-31 2017-02-14 Verance Corporation Social media viewing system
US8869222B2 (en) 2012-09-13 2014-10-21 Verance Corporation Second screen content
US8726304B2 (en) 2012-09-13 2014-05-13 Verance Corporation Time varying evaluation of multimedia content
US9106964B2 (en) 2012-09-13 2015-08-11 Verance Corporation Enhanced content distribution using advertisements
US20140074855A1 (en) 2012-09-13 2014-03-13 Verance Corporation Multimedia content tags
WO2014160324A1 (en) 2013-03-13 2014-10-02 Verance Corporation Multimedia presentation tracking in networked environment
US9262793B2 (en) 2013-03-14 2016-02-16 Verance Corporation Transactional video marking system
TW201448590A (en) 2013-03-15 2014-12-16 Verance Corp Media handling method and device, computer program product embodied on a media, and system comprising said device
CN105308980A (en) 2013-04-25 2016-02-03 凡瑞斯公司 Real-time anti-piracy for broadcast streams
WO2014176550A1 (en) 2013-04-25 2014-10-30 Verance Corporation Live broadcast content protection based on watermarking

Cited By (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US11010452B2 (en) 2012-11-04 2021-05-18 Mining Ip Limited Content protection
US20200372256A1 (en) * 2019-05-10 2020-11-26 The Nielsen Company (Us), Llc Content-Modification System with Use of Multiple Fingerprint Data Types Feature
US11450110B2 (en) * 2019-05-10 2022-09-20 Roku, Inc. Content-modification system with use of multiple fingerprint data types feature
US11770593B2 (en) 2019-05-10 2023-09-26 Roku, Inc. Content-modification system with use of multiple fingerprint data types feature

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
US20140075469A1 (en) 2014-03-13
US9106964B2 (en) 2015-08-11
US20140075466A1 (en) 2014-03-13

Similar Documents

Publication Publication Date Title
US9106964B2 (en) Enhanced content distribution using advertisements
US20210337272A1 (en) Rules-based delivery and presentation of non-programming media items at client device
US10104430B2 (en) Time shifting of advertisements in digital content delivery services
KR20150088827A (en) Attention-based, multi-screen advertisement scheduling
US20140229975A1 (en) Systems and Methods of Out of Band Application Synchronization Across Devices
US10425700B2 (en) Dynamic scheduling and channel creation based on real-time or near-real-time content context analysis
US9311651B2 (en) Identity-Media Measurement Model (IMMM)
US20210368221A1 (en) Method and system for managing a pre-encoded media asset for immediate playback
US20240056642A1 (en) Systems and methods for overlaying media assets stored on a digital video recorder on a menu or guide
US20240089524A1 (en) Dynamic scheduling and channel creation based on external data
US20210377595A1 (en) Systems and methods for playing media assets stored on a digital video recorder in performing customer service or messaging
US11812095B2 (en) Systems and methods for using metadata to play media assets stored on a digital video recorder
US11595724B2 (en) Systems and methods for selecting and restricting playing of media assets stored on a digital video recorder
US20230188780A1 (en) Systems and methods for playing media assets stored on a digital video recorder
US11265613B2 (en) Systems and methods for playing media assets stored on a digital video recorder while a customer service representative is online

Legal Events

Date Code Title Description
AS Assignment

Owner name: VERANCE CORPORATION, CALIFORNIA

Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:ZHAO, JIAN;REEL/FRAME:043705/0487

Effective date: 20170921

STPP Information on status: patent application and granting procedure in general

Free format text: NON FINAL ACTION MAILED

STCB Information on status: application discontinuation

Free format text: ABANDONED -- FAILURE TO RESPOND TO AN OFFICE ACTION