Granted Patent B1

US 12,634,537 · App. 19/348,496 · Granted May 19, 2026

Inventor: Christopher Horton (Charleston, SC)

Assignee: Music IP Holdings, Inc.

H04N21/251H04N21/2393H04N21/25891G06F40/30

Abstract

Claims (78)

1 . A method comprising:

receiving a request for media content from a user device;

querying a plurality of content provider application programming interfaces (APIs) to retrieve media catalog data, wherein at least one content provider API of the plurality of content provider APIs returns media catalog data including licensing terms expressed in a rights expression schema comprising structured elements that define usage permissions and compensation requirements;

based on the media catalog data and the request for media content, generating a list of media recommendations;

receiving a selection of a media item from the list of media recommendations;

determining a rights expression schema for the licensing terms associated with the selected media item from among a plurality of supported rights expression schemas;

parsing the licensing terms according to the determined rights expression schema to extract compensation parameters specifying at least one of per-crawl pricing for automated data extraction, per-query pricing for search operations, or per-reference pricing;

automatically configuring payment parameters of a payment engine based on the extracted compensation parameters;

providing to a content provider system associated with the selected media item, an acquisition request based on the selected media item; and

retrieving the selected media item from the content provider system based on the acquisition request.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

accessing a user profile comprising media consumption data and non-media activity data, wherein the querying is based on at least one of the media consumption data and the non-media activity data.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein generating the list of media recommendations comprises:

calculating a base score for each media item based on the media consumption data; and

modifying the base score based on correlations between the non-media activity data and metadata of each media item.

4 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the non-media activity data comprises research activity indicating a future event, the method further comprising:

identifying a correlation between the future event and content metadata; and

prioritizing media recommendations that relate to the future event.

5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein:

the future event comprises a travel destination extracted from at least one of booking confirmations, calendar entries, or search history; and

the prioritized media recommendations comprise content with settings, themes, or cultural elements associated with the travel destination.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the licensing terms exposed by at least one content provider API comprise machine-readable licensing information in at least one of:

robots .txt format with licensing extensions;

Really Simple Licensing (RSL) format;

Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) format; or

Creative Commons Rights Language format.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein retrieving the selected media item comprises:

receiving access credentials from the content provider system; and

using the access credentials to establish a connection with the content provider system.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein the access credentials comprise at least one of:

a hosting endpoint URL;

an authentication token valid for a specified duration;

a decryption key; or

enforceable playback restrictions.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the request for media content comprises natural language text, the method further comprising:

converting the natural language text into structured search parameters prior to querying the plurality of content provider APIs.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein converting the natural language text comprises:

detecting an emotional state indicator in the natural language text; and

generating search parameters that include content attributes corresponding to the detected emotional state indicator.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the content attributes corresponding to the detected emotional state indicator comprise at least one of:

tempo ranges for audio content;

energy level specifications;

instrumentation preferences; or

mood regulation parameters.

12 . The method of claim 9 , wherein converting the natural language text comprises:

identifying an activity context in the natural language text, wherein the activity context comprises at least one of studying, exercising, relaxing, commuting, or working; and

generating search parameters for the identified activity context.

13 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

formatting the list of media recommendations as natural language text for presentation to the user device.

14 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining a geographic location associated with the user device; and

filtering the media catalog data based on territorial licensing restrictions associated with the geographic location.

15 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

aggregating the media catalog data from the plurality of content provider APIs into a unified searchable index; and

wherein generating the list of media recommendations comprises searching across content from multiple providers simultaneously through the unified searchable index.

16 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

maintaining a persistent conversation context across multiple request-response cycles associated with at least one of the user device or a user; and

refining the list of media recommendations based on accumulated context from the persistent conversation context.

17 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the content provider APIs are discovered through at least one of:

automated web crawling that identifies machine-readable licensing terms;

provider registration with an AI system; or

decentralized content registries.

18 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

monitoring usage of the selected media item to detect an event comprising at least one of a crawl event, a query event, or a reference event; and

processing a payment transaction through the payment engine based on the detected event and the configured payment parameters.

19 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

tracking content access events corresponding to the extracted compensation parameters; and

executing automated billing through the payment engine based on the tracked content access events.

20 . A method comprising:

receiving a request for media content from a user device;

querying a plurality of content provider application programming interfaces (APIs) to retrieve media catalog data, wherein at least one content provider API of the plurality of content provider APIs returns media catalog data including licensing terms expressed in a rights expression schema comprising structured elements that define usage permissions and compensation requirements;

based on the media catalog data and the request for media content, generating a list of media recommendations;

receiving a selection of a media item from the list of media recommendations;

determining a rights expression schema for the licensing terms associated with the selected media item from among a plurality of supported rights expression schemas;

parsing the licensing terms according to the determined rights expression schema to extract compensation parameters specifying at least one of per-crawl pricing for automated data extraction, per-query pricing for search operations, or per-reference pricing;

automatically configuring payment parameters of a payment engine based on the extracted compensation parameters;

providing to a content provider system associated with the selected media item, an acquisition request based on the selected media item; and

retrieving the selected media item from a hosting system based on the acquisition request.

References Cited (59)