Ad-Based Credit Broker for Secure Digital Content Streaming
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current digital content broadcasting systems face challenges in securely distributing content while preventing unauthorized access and illegal sharing, as users can often save and share media streams due to lack of effective encryption and access control.
Innovation Solution
A data-publishing system that encodes data streams into an unreadable format, using an 'encoding sauce' to generate a 'secret sauce' for authorized users, allowing only personalized and encrypted content access, with brokers managing access and providing advertisements to earn credits for content consumption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional broadcasting encryption is used, then content security is improved, but device complexity increases due to provisioning and key management requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the secret sauce generation and management functions from the content delivery system, isolating them in a separate broker component. This allows the main broadcasting system to use simple encoded data streams while the complex cryptographic operations are performed only where needed, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining security.
Solution Approach 2:
The broker acts as an intermediary between the encoded data stream and the secret sauce, mediating the decryption process. This intermediary handles the complex key management and secret sauce generation, shielding the content delivery infrastructure from cryptographic complexity while ensuring secure access control.
2Productivity
If identical media streams are transmitted to multiple consumers, then broadcasting efficiency is improved, but unauthorized sharing becomes possible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by making each consumer's data stream locally unique through embedded watermarks and device-specific secret sauces. While the base content remains identical for efficient broadcasting, local modifications ensure that each recipient has a distinct copy that cannot be illegally shared, as the watermark identifies the source of any unauthorized distribution.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses watermarking technology that subtly modifies each data stream with unique identifiers, analogous to color changes. These imperceptible modifications allow the system to maintain visual identicalness for user experience while enabling detection and prevention of unauthorized sharing through watermark verification.
3Reliability
If proprietary streaming applications are used, then content protection is improved, but user accessibility worsens due to platform restrictions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements universality by designing a platform-agnostic secret sauce mechanism that works across different devices and operating systems. The broker-generated secret sauces are device-independent, allowing users to access protected content through any application or device type, thereby maintaining content protection while significantly improving user accessibility and eliminating platform restrictions.
4Quantity of substance
If advertisement-based credit systems are implemented, then revenue generation is improved, but system complexity increases due to credit management requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the credit management system with the existing broker infrastructure that handles secret sauce distribution. The broker simultaneously manages both the cryptographic key distribution and the advertisement-to-credit conversion processes, consolidating multiple functions into a single component and reducing overall system complexity while enabling revenue generation through advertisement-based credits.
Data Source
AI summary
A content broker can receive a request from a user's client device for access to a data stream, and determines whether the client device has a sufficient number of credits to consume the digital content. If the client device does not have a sufficient number of credits, the broker can provide the client device an opportunity to earn credits. The broker can send to the client device an advertisement stream, and a corresponding challenge query that includes a set of instructions for generating a challenge-response that proves the client device has consumed the advertisement stream. If the broker receives a valid challenge response from the client device, the broker can assign a predetermined number of credits to the user's account.