Patent ID: 9667364
Date: 2017-05-30
CPC Classifications: H04H,H04L,H04N

Claim:
1. A method of seeding a peer to peer network by broadcasting content, the method comprising: providing a peer to peer (P2P) network enabling any peer device connected to the P2P network to receive first content over the P2P network; selecting, from a plurality of peer devices on the P2P network, a set of peer devices to operate as origin peer devices, wherein each of the set of peer devices is selected based on having at least a portion of available resources for distributing the first content over the P2P network; specifying a scheduled time for a broadcast of second content by a broadcast system, the second content to be distributed via the broadcast to the set of peer devices on the P2P network, wherein each of the set of peer devices is operable to listen for the broadcast, and wherein the broadcast system is outside and independent of the P2P network; and causing the second content to be broadcast at the scheduled time, the second content being received by the set of peer devices, wherein a first peer device in the set of peer devices is operable to transmit the first content to at least a second peer device on the P2P network after at least a portion of the second content is received by the first peer device, the first content including the portion of the second content received by the first peer device, and wherein the second peer device on the P2P network is unable to receive the second content broadcasted by the broadcast system at the scheduled time; providing, to the second peer device, metadata information about the set of peer devices; upon the second peer device receiving the metadata information, determining that the second peer device has initiated a download process for obtaining the first content; and responsive to initiating the download process, sending, to the second peer device, a response identifying one or more peer devices in the set of peer devices from which to download the first content, wherein the second peer device downloads the first content from the identified one or more peer devices based on the response.