MSAP - a protocol for efficient multimedia content search and distribution on the Internet

More and more music or movie consumers are using Internet to download multimedia content. Consumers have more to consider than just the name of the artist when they buy multimedia content online. With thousands of web sites that are available on the Internet, it is time consuming for consumers to obtain the desired multimedia content, starting from the beginning of searching a title to the end of placing a purchase order. In this paper, we propose a protocol MSAP (multimedia service announcement protocol) that enables consumers to search and download multimedia content more effectively and faster. It also helps to establish a secure channel for the producers of the multimedia content to distribute their original multimedia content to consumers. We have implemented the initial MSAP prototype in our test bed and the results indicate that our approach is efficient and accurate.