Patent ID: 8745260

Claim:
A method for transferring content from a sending system to a receiving system, the sending system and the receiving system being part of a network configured to handle a first network traffic and a second network traffic, the second network traffic having a higher priority than the first network traffic, the method comprising: receiving a first portion of a requested content file in a buffer of the receiving system, wherein the first portion is sent by the sending system over a network as a streaming media file, the receiving of the requested content file being associated with the first network traffic; playing the received portion of the streaming media file on the receiving system; providing a first alert to a user of the receiving system that provides a choice to continue receiving segments of the requested content file using a background delivery mode; receiving an instruction from the user in response to the first alert requesting the background delivery mode for delivery of the requested content file; suspending playing of the received portion of the streaming media file on the receiving system; and receiving a remaining portion of the requested content file in the background delivery mode from the sending system using surplus network capacity, the surplus network capacity being an amount of network capacity determined to be available at a given time period for handling the first network traffic without adversely affecting the second network traffic in the network, wherein the background delivery mode includes: stopping or pausing the playing of the received portion of the streaming media file; receiving the remaining portion of the requested content file using the surplus network capacity; and storing the remaining portion of the requested content file in a local storage of the receiving system for a subsequent playback of the requested content file.