Patent ID: 7480314

Claim:
A method for providing multimedia data at a multimedia data server, the method comprising the steps of: maintaining a multimedia database including multimedia data; maintaining a user database including available period information with respect to a right to download for each user, respectively, in which the right to download of the multimedia data is granted to the user for a period of time determined by the available period information; receiving a request for download of predetermined multimedia data from a user terminal through a wired/wireless communication network; determining whether the right to download has been granted to the user by referring to available period information associated with the user, included in the user database; searching the multimedia data by referring to the multimedia database, in case that the right to download has been granted to the user; generating authenticated multimedia data including the searched multimedia data and the available period information associated with the user, in which the available period information is information about a playable period for which the authenticated multimedia data can be played; and transmitting the authenticated multimedia data to the user terminal through the wired/wireless communication network, so as to control the multimedia data to be played in the user terminal for the playable period information by using available period information included in the authenticated multimedia data.