Abstract:
A system and method for the on-line licensing of reproducible digital works includes a listing service which allows a plurality of ad-hoc offers to be aggregated to create a licensing fee minimally acceptable to the creator of the work. All qualified contributors to the aggregated fee are thereafter entitled to a license to a reproduction of the work. The system allows the creator of the work to list the work on-line and specify a minimally acceptable licensing fee. The system keeps track of all offerors and their respective offers until the sum of the offers exceeds the minimum licensing fee specified by the owner of the work. The licensing fees are then collected from all offerors and the work is distributed. A listing fee may be extracted from the aggregate fee to be paid to the owner of the work.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/791,577, filed Apr. 12, 2006. 
     
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002]    The traditional model for the sale and/or licensing of property covered by some form of intellectual property protection consists of the sale of a hard media containing the licensed property, for example, a printed book, compact disk containing music or software, DVD, tape, and, earlier, records. These products therefore required manufacturing and distribution by third parties other than the author, such as a publisher or a record label, a distributor, and a retailer. 
         [0003]    There are generally four stages between the time a licensor creates a product and the time the licensee acquires a copy of that product. These four stages are: production, marketing, distribution and sales. 
         [0004]    Production consists of transferring a final version of the product onto the appropriate media and mass producing it. A written work may be typeset and illustrated, put into book form, and mass produced. A music compilation is mastered, put onto magnetic tape or compact disc, and mass produced. A film is edited, put on magnetic film or DVD, and mass produced. Traditionally, production has been a separate discipline outside the licensor&#39;s means, usually requiring contracts and concessions, and, of course, costs at each stage of the process. 
         [0005]    With advances in digital technology, licensors are capable of production on their own or with minimal outside help. Traditional distribution has been via the shipping of the hard media via conventional shipping methods, from the producer to the retailer, but becomes much simpler with digital works, which can be shipped via the internet. Even with respect to marketing, licensors are in a better position since communication with their audience has also improved with the advent of the internet. 
         [0006]    Therefore, there are fewer reasons today why a licensor can not effectively deal directly with his audience, circumventing inequitable and cumbersome traditional obstacles. Additional value-added costs at each stage of the process, from creator to consumer, adds to the final price of the product. As a result, the authors or creators of these works received only a small share of the purchase price paid by the consumer. 
         [0007]    As an example, consider The Beatles, who, in 1962, recorded their first single, “Love Me Do”. They signed a contract with Parlophone Company, in which they gave up all rights to the song for a period of 10 years. The band&#39;s share of revenues was one penny per single sold in the U.K. and a half of a penny for each overseas sale. Twenty-five percent of the proceeds went to the band&#39;s business manager. The typical retail price of a record of the song in 1962 was 50 pennies, of which The Beatles would split ¾ of a penny between the four members of the band, or about 1.5% of gross. The other 98.5% went to middlemen. If a million copies were sold, the band would receive £7,500, or £1,875 per band member. 
         [0008]    The inequities are not just financial. Talented writers, artists, filmmakers, musicians, software engineers and innovators, who are seldom adept at business negotiations, are separated from their audience by an obstacle course of middlemen who often do not recognize the product&#39;s value and potential. 
         [0009]    However, unlike in the past, licensors are now capable of distributing their works across the internet, especially through high-speed connections. Intellectual property in the digital age consists essentially of bits, not atoms. The fact that heretofore intellectual property was converted to atoms, or hard copy, and treated like tangible goods is, to this extent, an outdated model. The present invention capitalizes on the new paradigm to re-write the relationship between licensors and licensees. 
         [0010]    The new model, enabled by the internet, of digital distribution of these types of works can eliminate the need for publishers, distributors and retailers, allowing the creators of the works to realize a greater share of the purchase price paid by the consumer. Therefore, a greater number of sellers should now be able to deal directly with the end consumers of their products. 
         [0011]    However, the successful offering of new intellectual property directly to the consumer has not realized it&#39;s fullest potential because of the lack of a comprehensive revenue model for its online sale. The most successful model in this area has been the distribution of songs via such services as iTunes®. However, several problems exist with this model. First, most songs offered on iTunes® sell for the same price, without differentiation in price for popularity. Additionally, even this form of distribution, while eliminating the producer and distributor, still requires a retailer as the direct interface with the end consumer, thereby reducing the profits realized by the creators. 
         [0012]    Another example of the online distribution of intellectual property is the web site YouTube®, which allows the on-line viewing of videos which have been posted by users of the site. Many videos have achieved significant notoriety through a posting on YouTube®, however, YouTube® currently offers no model of how to generate a licensing fee back to the original poster of the video. 
         [0013]    Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a business model whereby creators of intellectual property are able to offer their works directly to the end consumer at a price set by the market based on demand for the work. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0014]    A business method which allows individual artists to mass license their works at market price, referred to as aggregate licensing, is disclosed herein. To facilitate the method, a web-based application is provided for tracking the transactions, collecting payment, and facilitating distribution of the product. 
         [0015]    In this method, a licensor offers his products for licensing. These works are typically non-tangible, electronically deliverable data, and may include works such as:
       Articles, reports, research, commentary, recipes, satire, books, etc.   Music, interviews, readings, debates, speeches, webcasts, etc.   Video clips, films, documentaries, animations, cartoons, photographs, etc.   Streaming live events such as concerts, sporting events, debates, etc.   Software, online help, real-time tech support, advice, how-to&#39;s, etc.       
 
         [0021]    The product is listed online, typically on a web site, together with an introduction, table of contents, excerpts, pictures, audio or video clips, reviews, critiques, and other promotional material that might help describe the product and generate interest, and is offered for licensing to end consumers. There is a listing fee that is charged to the potential licensor. The price at which the work is listed represents a minimum license fee (P i ) that the artist is willing to accept for the work. This minimum license fee must be equaled or exceeded by offers from any number of potential licensees before the work is licensed to any one of the potential licensees. Potential licensees decide to make a contributing offer to the total license fee in an amount which they are willing to pay for the license. When the aggregate of the contributions (P A ) from a number of potential licensees equals or exceeds the minimum license fee (P i ) set by the licensor, the work is distributed to all of the contributors to the aggregate license fee. As a result, some licensees will pay more or less than other licensees for the same license. 
         [0022]    There may be a required minimum offer amount (O min ) so that only offers that exceed this minimum count towards the aggregate license fee. Once the minimum license fee is reached, all offers above the minimum offer amount are entitled to receive a copy. Either or both of the minimum aggregate license fee and the minimum acceptable offer may be disclosed or concealed, at the discretion of the licensor. 
         [0023]    A special format for the listing may allow floating variables. This would allow principles to fine-tune various aspects of the listing during the listing period in order to optimize their interests. For example, the licensor may be allowed to adjust the minimum aggregate licensing fee and/or minimum acceptable offer, while the prospective licensee may be allowed to adjust his offer or make the offer valid for a finite duration. One example would be the case when a licensor realizes that a majority of received offers are below the minimum acceptable offer originally set by the licensor, but are significant enough by volume that it would warrant the lowering of the minimum acceptable offer to include those offers in the aggregate offer. Another example would be the case of a live event promoter who, shortly before the start of the event, sets the minimum acceptable offer based on a calculation of his optimized revenue. 
         [0024]    Unless the product is time sensitive material, the listing may remain open indefinitely, until the minimum aggregate license fee is reached, or for a set period as stipulated by the licensor or the online site hosting the offering. In case of live events, the listing will end on or about the start time of the event. 
         [0025]    Once the minimum aggregate license fee is reached, all qualified offers will be processed and the licensees notified. A copy of the product is sent or made available for download to all successful licensees. If the minimum aggregate license fee is not reached, then the work remains unlicensed and undistributed. The listing web site may choose to charge a listing fee which may be paid regardless of the outcome of the offering, or only when the artist is successful in licensing his work. 
         [0026]    As an example of how the aggregate licensing works, consider an independent film maker who presents a film on a website designed to handle aggregate licensing transactions. The film is listed together with a description, trailer, reviews, etc. The film maker asks for offers for a single downloadable full length digital copy. The minimum that the film maker would be satisfied with is $15,000, so he sets the minimum aggregate license fee (P i ) to that amount. He may choose to reveal the amount of the minimum aggregate license fee, or not. He starts receiving tens, hundreds, or thousands of offers of various amounts: 10 Cents, 50 Cents, $1.00, $5.00, etc. As the offers come in, the web application on the site where the work is listed tracks the cumulative sum of all the offers. The film maker may have set a minimum offer for his work. If this is the case, then only offers above this minimum are counted towards the total. Once the aggregate total of all the offers above the minimum offer amount reaches $15,000.00, everyone who made a qualified offer receives a copy of the film. At this point, the filmmaker can decide to keep the item open for additional offers under the same terms, or change some of the terms and re-list it. 
         [0027]    The advantage for the film maker in this situation is that no middlemen stand between the film maker and the end consumers, so the filmmaker receives the entire licensing fee, minus any listing fees. Additionally, the artist retains the copyright rights in his work. 
     
     
       DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS 
         [0028]      FIG. 1  is a schematic representation of the web server and application for executing the present invention. 
           [0029]      FIG. 2  is a flow chart of the primary embodiment of the invention. 
           [0030]      FIG. 3  is a flow chart of an enhanced embodiment of the invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0031]      FIG. 1  shows one possible configuration of a computer network and web server capable of supporting the process of the present invention. Note that the configuration shown in  FIG. 1  is only one of many possible implementations of the invention and the invention is not meant to be limited to this particular configuration. Web server  100  may be run on any appropriate computer, preferably having a high speed internet connection. 
         [0032]    The preferred embodiment of the invention is shown in flow chart form in  FIG. 2 . In box  200 , licensor  10  creates a listing of his work on the web server. In this process, the licensor is able to set the minimum aggregate licensing fee acceptable (P i ). The licensor may also optionally set a minimum offer amount (O min ) or may choose to allow offers of any amount to count toward the aggregate licensing fee. Additionally, the total aggregate licensing fees offered (P A ) is set to zero. In box  202 , offer O n  is received from a potential licensee. In box  204 , if there is a minimum offer amount, the offer is checked to make sure that it is greater than or equal to the minimum acceptable offer O min . Should the offer be below the minimum acceptable offer, the offer will be archived in box  206 , and control will return to box  202  to await the next offer. 
         [0033]    Offers falling below the minimum acceptable offer are archived for at least three possible reasons. First, those submitting offers less than a minimum acceptable offer may be given a chance to raise their offer to a set amount at a later time. Second, during subsequent listing(s) under new terms, the offer may qualify to be counted toward the aggregate licensing fee, for example, if the potential licensor has lowered the minimum acceptable offer. Additionally, because the minimum acceptable offer may be adjusted throughout the duration of a special version of the offering, the licensor may choose to lower the minimum acceptable offer to include a greater number of offers in the aggregate offer. 
         [0034]    In box  204 , if it is determined that the current offer is greater than the minimum acceptable offer, processing proceeds to box  208  where the aggregate offer (P A ) is increased by adding the current offer to the previous aggregate offer (i.e., the sum of all previous offers.) In box  210  a comparison is done between the current aggregate offer (P A ) and the minimum acceptable licensing fee (P i ) specified by licensor  10 . If the current aggregate offer (P A ) does not exceed the minimum acceptable licensing fee (P i ) processing returns to box  202 , where the process waits for the next offer to be received. If the current aggregate offer (P A ) does exceed the minimum acceptable aggregate offer (P i ) then processing moves to box  212  where all acceptable offers contributing to the total aggregate offer are fulfilled. 
         [0035]    Referring back now to  FIG. 1 , licensor  10  uploads content via the internet to web server  100 , where it is stored in products database  22 . The content in this case consists essentially of the work that the licensor wishes to license and may be, for example, music, videos, software, text or any other kind of work which is in digital format and which may be delivered via the internet. 
         [0036]    Licensor  10  may then create a listing via the create listing module  102 . Listings may include descriptions of the work and any additional type of advertising or promotional material that licensor  10  wishes to post to entice potential licensees to make offers or to entice potential licensees to make higher offers. This may include, for example, excerpts, pictures, audio or video clips, reviews of the work and any other promotional materials typically used for such items. Create listing module  102  will arrange the listing into a formatted web page which can be viewed by potential licensees  12  through the internet. The listing, as well as any supporting promotional materials, are stored in listings database  24   
         [0037]    Potential licensees  12  can log on to web server  100  and register as an official offeror. Information regarding all individuals making offers is kept in the offeror database  20 . Potential licensees  12  can utilize the search facility  104  on the web server  100  to locate listings in which they may be interested, perhaps by subject matter, by author or by any other criteria available to segregate the various listings. 
         [0038]    After reviewing the web page describing a particular work, potential licensee  12  may decide to make an offer. All offer processing is performed by offer processing module  106 . If a minimum acceptable offer has been established for the listing, the offer processing module will determine if the offer is greater than the minimum acceptable offer and, if so, will record the offer in the listings database  24 . The aggregate offer is also updated to include the newly received offer. 
         [0039]    Listing manager  108  tracks the overall listing and makes a determination as to when the listing should end, either via the expiration of a preset duration set by potential licensor  10  or by the hosting web site  100 , or by determining that the aggregate of all acceptable offers received and processed by offer processing module  106  have exceeded the minimum aggregate license fee set by licensor  10 . 
         [0040]    Financial module  110  is responsible for all transfers of funds at the conclusion of a listing. Financial module  110  will extract the amount of the offers from all successful offerors  12  at the conclusion of the listing. Payment from offerors  12  may be made in traditional ways payment is made for typical internet e-commerce sites, such as via a third party payment facility, like PayPal®, or directly via credit card. Financial module  110  will also arrange payment to licensor  10  and is also responsible for extracting the listing fee retained by the web server  100  for the listing services. Listing fees may be a percentage of the aggregate offer or may be a flat fee. Additionally, listing fees may be collected at the time of the listing, only after the minimum aggregate licensing fee has been reached, or a combination of both. 
         [0041]    Fulfillment module  112  is responsible for making the licensed product available to successful offerors  12 . Depending upon the type of product, the product may be sent via email to all successful offerors  12  or may be made available for download from web server  100 . In any case, fulfillment module  110  is responsible for notifying successful licensee that their offer has been successful and for arranging, via whatever method, the delivery of the product from products database  22  to successful offerors  12 . 
         [0042]    Once licensor  10  receives the initial aggregate licensing fee, he may choose to re-list the product for further licensing. The minimum aggregate licensing fee at which the product is subsequently listed may be different than the original minimum aggregate licensing fee and may require a different minimum offer. Alternatively, the product may be re-listed for a set unit price. 
         [0043]    In an alternative embodiment of the invention, a special type of listing permits floating variables, allowing the principles to adjust parameters of the listing on the fly to optimize their respective interests. For licensors  10 , the minimum aggregate licensing fee or minimum acceptable offer may be adjusted. For offerors  12 , an offer may be made stipulating a finite duration, or the amount of the offer may be adjusted prior to the end of the listing. Other variations may also be possible. 
         [0044]    In another alternative embodiment of the invention, offers On made by offerors  12  may be subsidized by a third party in exchange for the inclusion of advertising content either with the delivered product or on the web pages displayed by web server  100 . In this embodiment of the invention, an advertiser may subsidize the offer of a particular offeror  12  based on any criteria, for example, the offeror&#39;s profile or past experience. The subsidies may be a set amount or may be in different amounts depending on the advertiser&#39;s evaluation of each offeror  12 , or may include different advertisements depending upon an offeror&#39;s profile or interests. The subsidy amount and type of advertising is determined by subsidy module  114 . The amount of the subsidy is handed off to offer processing module  106  and is added to the offer O n  of offeror  12  to form subsidized offer O s . 
         [0045]    The subsidy may entice interested parties to make offers, and may help to increase a greater number of offers over the minimum acceptable offer, if one has been specified. In all cases, the subsidy will help the aggregate offer to reach the minimum aggregate licensing fee specified by licensor  10  sooner. 
         [0046]    This embodiment of the invention is shown in  FIG. 3 .  FIG. 3  is identical to  FIG. 2  with the exception of the addition of boxes  220  and  222 . In box  220 , the subsidy to be added to a particular offer is determined, preferably via an analysis of offeror  12 , but any other means may be used to determine the subsidy, including providing a set subsidy for all offers. In box  222  the determined subsidy is added to the offer O n  to create a subsidized offer O s . 
         [0047]    In another aspect of the invention, a profit sharing model has been created to allow successful licensees  12  to share in the profits generated by additional sales of the product. In this aspect of the invention, in subsequent listings of the work, the licensor may choose to share a percentage of subsequent net revenues with those who initially made offers above the minimum acceptable offer, in proportion to their original offers. For example, if the minimum acceptable offer was 50 cents, and successful licensees made offers equal to or in excess of 50 cents, those licensees would share a pro rata portion of a percentage of future revenues generated by the work, in proportion to the amount of their offer, or the amount of their offer exceeding the minimum offer. These people are thus designated as “patrons” who helped launch the product and will share the profits thereafter. Licensor  10  may designate a percentage of future profits to be shared in the original listing of the product to entice offerors to make offers above the minimum acceptable offer. After licensor  10  receives his initial price (P i ) he may then re-list the same work for subsequent aggregate licensing, or offer it for a flat fee. If the subsequent listing is successful then the specified percentage of the revenue generated by that offering will be distributed among the patrons who initially made a successful offer. Profit sharing module  116  is responsible for calculating the shared profit for each of the patrons, and for distributing that profit. Each patron&#39;s share will be determined on a pro-rata basis by the equation 
         [0000]        D= ( r*p*O   n )/ P   i          Where:   D is the patron&#39;s share;   r is the percentage of the profits to be shared;   p is the subsequent aggregate licensing totals;   O n  is any qualified offers from previous listing above the minimum acceptable offer; and   P i  is the initial price.         
         [0054]    The pro-rata share may be determined by the initial offer made by the successful licensee or the initial offer minus any minimum required offer. Note that a hidden benefit of the profit sharing is to discourage the illegal sharing of licensed products, because licensees  12  have a vested interested in the continued marketing and sale of the work. 
         [0055]    In yet another aspect of the invention, it is also possible that the present application may be applied to tangible goods when an economy of scale is required prior to manufacturing to either launch new products or to lower per unit costs of the product. Typically, items in this category would include tangible goods at the pre-manufacture stage. As an example, a small private aircraft manufacturer may list his aircraft and invite offers as preorders for building several of the aircrafts. Often in the case with such products, the number of vehicles to be built greatly effects the single user pricing. It may be the case that the aircraft can only be produced economically when a minimum number of the aircraft are ordered. Alternatively, the method can also be used to lower the per unit costs. For example, a manufacturer may determine a single aircraft can be built for $350,000, four aircrafts can be built for $200,000 each or ten aircrafts can be built at $110,000. Interested parties would make their offers at the price that they are willing to pay. For example, one may offer $200,000 and hope that three others will make the same offer, or that nine others would make offers of $110,000 so they all can get the aircraft at the discounted price. 
         [0056]    Note that the examples of implementations given herein are for exemplary purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention, which is set forth in the claims which follow.