Patent ID: 8060901

Claim:
A method for providing music information from a server to a terminal through a network, the method comprising: specifying a genre or artist of music information in the terminal; transmitting from the server to the terminal music information selected according to the specified genre or artist; receiving the transmitted music information from the server at the terminal; playing back the received music information in real time in the terminal; determining a charge to the terminal for playing back the music information based on an amount of time the music information was played back from start thereof or based on an amount of information which was played back such that (i) if the amount of time is less than a first predetermined amount of time or if the amount of information is less than a first predetermined amount of information the charge is free, (ii) if the amount of time is more than the first predetermined amount of time and less than a total time which corresponds to a time to play back the music information in its entirety the charge is determined based on an actual amount of time the music information was played back or if the amount of information is more than the first predetermined amount of information and less than a total amount of information which corresponds to the music information in its entirety the charge is determined based on an actual amount of information played back, and (iii) if the amount of time is the total time or if the amount of information is the total amount of information the charge is a full amount; and evaluating the music information representative of each of a plurality of songs during playback to determine which genre a user does not like, in which the evaluating involves determining whether a respective genre is associated with 70% or more of all songs wherein (i) the amount of time the music information of each song which was played back from start thereof is less than the first predetermined amount of time or (ii) the amount of information of each song which was played back is less than the first predetermined amount of information, and when 70% or more of said all songs are determined to be associated with said respective genre determining that the user does not like the respective genre.