Patent ID: 9692847
Date: 2017-06-27
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L

Claim:
1. A content distribution method executed by a computer, the method comprising: determining, upon receiving authentication information indicating a group, whether a terminal device of the group exists in a network area of the computer; referring to a result of comparing information identifying content data stored in a storage device with information identifying content data stored in one or more other storage devices included in one or more other computers, with respect to the authentication information indicating the group of the terminal device that does not exist in the network area of the computer; collecting representative image data of content data not stored in the storage device from the one or more other storage devices included in the one or more other computers storing the content data not stored in the storage device, starting from one of the one or more other computers having a greatest number of pieces of the content data; and transmitting a list of the representative image data being collected to a sender of the authentication information, when a reference request is received from the sender.