Patent ID: 8645229

Claim:
A method comprising: a second owner obtaining a plurality of portable storage mediums from a set of one or more first owners, wherein each of the portable storage mediums comprises a copy of a media content item, wherein media content items stored on the portable storage mediums are subject to a copyright of at least one copyright holder, wherein legal possession of the portable storage mediums represents ownership of a utilization right for the media content items stored therein; the second owner acquiring an ownership interest in a plurality of copies of media content items stored in the plurality of portable storage mediums from the set of one or more first owners via a transfer of ownership of the portable storage mediums between the second owner and the set of one or more first owners, wherein the first owners have previously purchased one or more portable storage mediums comprising legal copies of the media content items, whereby a first sale doctrine of copyright law or other provision of law exhausts a copyright holder's right to control how ownership of purchased legal copies of the portable storage mediums comprising the plurality of copies of the media content items is able to be disposed of, thereby permitting the owners to convey ownership interest in the portable storage mediums comprising the plurality of copies of the media content items to second owner; a secondary marketplace utilizing the acquired ownership interest of the second owner in the plurality of copies of the media content items to provide, via one or more computing devices, potential consumers with a set of digital media content items, wherein a one-to-one correspondence exists between the digital media content items and the copies of the media content items, wherein the secondary marketplace provides the potential customers with the set of digital media content items without any of the portable storage mediums obtained from the set of one or more first owners being conveyed to the potential customers, wherein the secondary marketplace legally provides the set of digital media content items to the potential customers without obtaining permission from the first owner or from any other right-holding-entity, said other right-holding entity being an entity having an acquired or retained copyright right to the media content items; and the secondary marketplace, via one or more computing devices, permitting the potential consumers to utilize one or more user selected ones of the digital media content items for a fee, wherein a right by the secondary marketplace to permit the potential consumers to utilize the digital media content items is by virtue of the acquired ownership interests of the second owner in the plurality of copies of the media content items.