Providing subscribed media content to portable media player devices associated with subscribers

摘要

Methods and apparatus for providing media content offered by media content subscription service to portable media player devices associated with subscribers of the service are described herein. In various embodiments, particular fulfillment module, request module and media player are provided to fulfillment server(s) of the subscription service, request client devices, and portable media player devices, respectively.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
receiving a request for media content by a fulfillment server of a media content subscription service from a computing device in communication with a subscriber of the media content subscription service, the media content request comprising a subscriber identifier used as media content descriptive information describing the media content requested by the computing device for a portable media player device coupled with the computing device, wherein the media descriptive information does not include a uniform resource locator of the requested media content; with the fulfillment server, accessing a data store and identifying one or more files and the files' stored location or locations based at least in part on the subscriber identifier used as media content descriptive information contained in the received request, and retrieving a copy or copies of the identified file or files; associating the retrieved copy or copies of the one or more identified files with a digital rights management data or logic, or both, used by the media content subscription service to protect the media content from unauthorized use; with the fulfillment server, selecting the computing device or the portable media player device as a receiving device; and feeding the retrieved copy or copies to the receiving device after the retrieved copy or copies have been associated with the digital rights management data or logic, or both.