Patent ID: 8209611

Claim:
A data-providing apparatus for editing image data in response to a demand transmitted from a data-processing apparatus through a network, said data-providing apparatus comprising: securing means for providing a first storage area for each of a plurality of users identified by a corresponding user ID; receiving means for receiving image data uploaded by a user of the plurality of users and for storing the received image data in the first storage area; means for receiving a designation by the user indicating whether the image data uploaded by the user can be shared with all other users of the plurality of users and for storing the designation in a second storage area; means for generating thumbnails of all image data designated as shared image data uploaded by all other users of the plurality of users; means for transmitting the generated thumbnails to the data-processing apparatus and for causing the data-processing apparatus to display all of the thumbnails in a single window; means for receiving a designation of first image data selected by the user from the displayed thumbnails of shared image data uploaded by all other users of the plurality of users and stored in the first storage area, and for storing the user ID of the user in association with a data ID of the first image data in the second storage area; generating means for generating a video clip in response to instructions from the user by mixing a plurality of image data, including at least the image data uploaded by the user and the first image data uploaded by the another user, the generating means including means for loading all of the received image data of the user stored in the first storage area, and for loading the first image data based on information stored in the second storage area and the user ID; and storing means for storing the generated video clip generated in the first storage area of the user.