Patent ID: 8850053

Claim:
A method for providing information to a user in a communication network, the method comprising: receiving, by a metadata server, from a content server via an internet protocol network, a multimedia data stream that is being multicast by the content server via the internet protocol network to a plurality of user devices, the multimedia data stream carrying multimedia content; generating, by the metadata server, real-time metadata relating to the multimedia data stream, based on the multimedia content, the real-time metadata comprising information specifying how the real-time metadata is to be packaged into packets for transmission in accordance with internet protocols; providing, by the metadata server, the real-time metadata in real-time in a metadata stream to one of the plurality of user devices, via the internet protocol network; and providing, in the metadata stream, information relating to a content provider policy specifying that the multimedia data stream may be accessed only by users located in a specified geographic region.