Patent ID: 7603384

Claim:
A system for selecting and recording data, comprising: a network interface unit; a local storage unit for storing a subset of media content items and other content; a content selection unit to display a catalog of said media content items and other content, said content selection unit enabling a customer to browse, search, and select a media content item and other content from said catalog of media content items and other content, said content selection unit retrieving said selected media content item and other content from said local storage unit if said selected media content item and other content is found in said subset, and retrieving said selected media content item from a remote storage unit using said network interface unit if said selected media content item and other content is not included in said subset, said content selection unit configured to cache said retrieved media content item and other content in said local storage unit for a period of time based on the popularity of said retrieved media content item; a financial transaction unit to determine the cost of said retrieved media content item and other content and display the cost for review and payment by the customer; and an authoring system configured to format, encode, encrypt, and write said media content item and other content onto an article of media when the customer makes the payment.