Patent ID: 8452589

Claim:
A method of storing one or more average speed contours or one or more democratic speed contours for use in playback of at least a portion of an audio or audio-visual work comprising: generating one or more average speed contours or one or more democratic speed contours for the audio or audio-visual work, wherein: (a) generating an average speed contour comprises: (i) presenting the audio or audio-visual work at a playback apparatus to a user a multiplicity of times, (ii) generating a speed contour for each of the presentations in response to user input at the playback apparatus, and (iii) averaging the speed contours to generate the average speed contour, and (b) generating a democratic speed contour comprises: (i) presenting the audio or audio-visual work at a playback apparatus to a multiplicity of users, (ii) generating a speed contour for each of the presentations in response to user input at the playback apparatus, and (iii) averaging the speed contours to generate the democratic speed contour; storing the average speed contours or democratic speed contours in a database apparatus; and associating retrieval information with the one or more stored contours in the database.