Patent ID: 7631259

Claim:
A system for selectively presenting media embedded in a message, comprising: an input interface to receive a media-enabled message, wherein the media-enabled message includes an image of a media object that is viewable by a recipient of the media-enabled message and a digital signature that is associated with the image, wherein the digital signature includes a unique identifier and a time stamp, and wherein the image is linked to the media object and is at least a partial representation of the media object and is a lower resolution than the media object; a messaging client, communicating with the input interface, the messaging client presenting the media-enabled message to a user and receiving a selection of the image from the user; a media server, communicating with the messaging client, the media server: (1) receiving one or more media objects from one or more messaging clients, (2) storing the one or more media objects including the media object, (3) deactivating a link to the media object after a threshold period of time, wherein the time stamp is used to determine when the threshold period of time is reached, and (4) preventing the duplicate storage of more than one copy of a particular media object on the media server using the digital signature associated with the particular media object as a unique identifier; and a media player, communicating with the messaging client and the media server, the media player, upon receiving the selection of the image, downloading an enhanced representation of the media object from the media server and presenting the enhanced representation of the media object to the user, wherein the enhanced representation is a higher-resolution representation of the media object than the image.