Patent ID: 8407224

Claim:
An apparatus for generating a collection profile of a collection of different media data items, the media items being audio files, comprising: a feature extractor for extracting at least two different features describing a content of a media data item from a plurality of media data items of the collection; and a profile creator for creating the collection profile by combining the extracted features or weighted extracted features for the plurality of media data items so that the collection profile represents a quantitative fingerprint of a content of the collection, wherein the apparatus further comprises an input for receiving information on a music taste of a user of the collection of different audio files, and wherein the profile creator is configured to create a raw collection profile without information on a user behavior logged by the profile creator or information on a music taste, and to weight the raw collection profile using weights derived from the information on the music taste or the user behavior to acquire the collection profile, wherein each media data item of the plurality of media data items comprises a data portion and an associated metadata portion, the metadata portion comprising the at least two different features, wherein the feature extractor is configured to parse the metadata portion and to read the features from the metadata portion, wherein the metadata portion comprises a first non-encrypted part and a second encrypted part, wherein the feature extractor is configured to retrieve a decryption key and to decrypt the second encrypted part, wherein the profile creator is configured to use more extracted features from the encrypted part than from the non-encrypted part for creating the collection profile, and wherein the second encrypted part comprises features describing the content of a media data item more detailed than a feature comprised in the first encrypted part, wherein at least one of the feature extractor and profile creator and the input comprises a hardware implementation.