Patent ID: 8868635

Claim:
A media content sharing system comprising: a plurality of broadcast operation centers configured to automatically acquire and distribute media content among one another based upon media content needs and inventories of media content stored in each broadcast operation center, wherein the media content needs are communicated from each broadcast operation center to the other broadcast operation centers, the media content sharing system is configured to eliminate any single-point of system failure in the media content sharing system by ensuring that an inventory of media content corresponding to a particular broadcast operation center remains available via decentralized sharing to the other broadcast operation centers remaining on the media content sharing system subsequent to failure of the particular broadcast operation center through the automatic acquisition and distribution of the media content among the plurality of broadcast operation centers, and wherein the plurality of broadcast operation centers are configured to automatically acquire and distribute the media content among the plurality of broadcast operation centers by acquiring and distributing the media content in response to commands from an overlay network based on an optimizer corresponding to each broadcast operation center.