Patent ID: 6882979

Claim:
A method for facilitating automated sale of softgoods, comprising the steps of: (a) providing a creator program to a creator of the softgoods that automatically includes a unique identifier in each softgood before the softgood is distributed to prospective purchasers, said unique identifier specifically referencing the creator of the softgoods, the creator program producing softgoods that require the use of a player program to enable playback of softgoods authored with the creator program, the player program being configured to determine if the softgood is registered on the computing device on which the player program is installed before enabling playback of a softgood that was produced by the creator program, so that if a softgood is not registered on the computing device on which the player program is installed, the player program enables playback of said softgood in a demo mode, and if the softgood is registered on the computing device on which the player program is installed, the player program enables playback of said softgood in a full mode, wherein registration of the softgood is implemented by creating a registration value that is accessible by the computing device, a different registration value being created for each softgood registered on the computing device; (b) distributing the softgoods and the player program to prospective purchasers, such that the distribution is not limited to a distribution over private networks; and (c) providing an agency having a server that implements softgood purchase transactions and maintains a database in which data relating to the sale of softgoods are stored, unique identifiers of the softgoods being referenced in the database to track the softgood purchase transactions, such that for softgoods that are purchased, the database maintains data relating to purchasers of the softgoods for as long as the agency is managing purchases of the softgoods, said agency responding to a purchase of a softgood by transmitting the registration value in its entirety and independently of the softwood to a first computing device used to initiate the purchase, the registration value transmitted by the agency identifying the softgood that was purchased, so, that a first copy of the player program installed on the first computing device will recognize that the softgood that was purchased is registered on the first computing device and thus enable playback of the softgood that was purchased in the full mode, whereas a second copy of the player program installed on a different computing device does not enable playback of the softgood that was purchased in the full mode, unless the registration value for the softgood that was purchased is provided to the different computing device, thereby registering the softgood that was purchased on the different computing device, the registration value transmitted in its entirety by the agency in response to a purchase being the only data required by the player program to enable playback of the purchased softgood in the full mode.