Patent ID: 7209900

Claim:
A system for distributing music to at least one customer household, the system comprising: (a) a data transmission system for blanket transmitting at least one music selections to the at least one customer household in digital format; (b) a user station for placement at the at least one customer households, enabling the at least one customer household to preview the at least one music selection a predetermined number of times before billing the at least one customer household for the at least one music selection, the user station including: i. a user interface for permitting the at least one customer household to preselect a transmitted music selection for recording; ii. a receiver; iii. a high capacity storage medium, in communication with the receiver for recording the preselected music selection in digital form; and iv. an audio output for outputting audio signals from the high capacity storage medium to a playback device for enabling the at least one customer household to playback the recorded music selection; v. a circuit for degrading a quality of the previewed preselected music selections by compressing the preselected music selections by a process selected from the group consisting of: compressing the preselected music selections; adding distortion to the preselected music selections; overlaying voice over the preselected music selections; and deleting sections from the preselected music selections; vi. an anti-piracy module to embed an ID tag in decoded music selections; vii. an output device for supplying the decoded music selections to the at least one customer household from a decoder; (c) a central controller system having a database for storing therein information corresponding to the at least one customer household and having a key unique to the music selections; (d) a communications link for placement between the at least one customer household and the central controller system for verifying to the controller system when a preselected music selection has been made available for playback; and (e) a billing system associated with the central controller system to bill the at least one customer household for a music selection that has been made available for playback.