Method and system for ensuring royalty payments for data delivered over a network

A method of delivering data over a communication network, comprising the steps of:

• generating a partially-degraded version of the data by altering a portion of the data to reduce its perceived quality when utilized;
• providing the partially-degraded version of the data over the network to a customer at a user terminal connected to the network;
• and
• providing a higher quality version of the data to the customer over the network if the customer is entitled to receive the higher quality version, wherein the step of providing a higher quality version of the data includes the steps of:
• providing the customer with an option to select from a plurality of increasingly higher quality versions of the data;
• and
• providing the selected higher quality version to the customer over the network upon payment of a royalty fee in an amount corresponding to the selected data quality.

A method of delivering data over a communication network, comprising the steps of:

• generating a partially-degraded version of the data by altering a portion of the data to reduce its perceived quality when utilized;
• providing the partially-degraded version of the data over the network to a customer at a user terminal connected to the network;
• and
• providing a higher quality version of the data to the customer over the network if the customer is entitled to receive the higher quality version, said method further including the steps of:
• receiving a request for the data from the customer at the user terminal;
• retrieving the requested data from an information database;
• partially degrading the data to produce the partially-degraded version;
• transmitting the partially-degraded version to the customer over the communication network;
• and
• determining whether the customer is entitled to receive the higher quality version of the data.

A method of delivering data over a communication network, comprising the steps of:

• receiving a request for the data from a customer at a user terminal connected to the network;
• determining if the customer is entitled to receive a higher quality version of the data;
• generating a partially-degraded version of the data by altering a portion of the data;
• providing the partially-degraded version of the data to the customer if the customer is not entitled to receive the higher quality version of the data;
• and
• providing the higher quality version of the data to the customer if the customer is entitled to receive the higher quality version, wherein the step of providing the higher quality version includes the steps of:
• retrieving remaining data from an information database;
• and
• transmitting the remaining data to the user terminal over the network.

A method of delivering data over a communication network, comprising the steps of:

• receiving a request for the data from a customer at a user terminal connected to the network;
• determining if the customer is entitled to receive a higher quality version of the data;
• generating a partially-degraded version of the data by altering a portion of the data;
• providing the partially-degraded version of the data to the customer if the customer is not entitled to receive the higher quality version of the data;
• and
• providing the higher quality version of the data to the customer if the customer is entitled to receive the higher quality version, wherein the step of providing the higher quality version includes the steps of:
• retrieving the higher quality version from an information database;
• and
• transmitting the higher quality version to the user terminal over the network.