Patent ID: 8850532

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, at a set top box device, a first request to access multimedia content; determining a communicative distance between the set top box device and a mobile communication device associated with a user; performing a comparison of the communicative distance to a threshold distance to determine whether the mobile communication device is located within the threshold distance from the set top box device, wherein the threshold distance is defined by the user; determining whether to automatically grant authorization for the first request to access the multimedia content based on the comparison, wherein authorization for the first request to access the multimedia content is automatically granted in response to determining that the mobile communication device is located within the predetermined communicative threshold distance from the set top box device, and wherein authorization for the first request to access the multimedia content is not automatically granted in response to determining that the mobile communication device is not located within the threshold distance from the set top box device; and in response to determining that authorization for the first request to access the multimedia content is not automatically granted based on the comparison and in response to determining that the first request to access the multimedia content is received during a particular time period, transmitting, from the set top box device, a second request to the mobile communication device via a network, wherein the second request is for authorization to access the multimedia content at the set top box device.