US Patent 8060598 Computer network multicasting traffic monitoring and compensation

A method is provided for monitoring multicasting traffic in an internetwork between a multicasting source in a first domain and a multicasting destination in a second domain. The multicasting source offers connections to a predetermined multicast stream according to predetermined multicast group information. The multicasting destination sends a join message to a router within the internetwork in order to initiate routing of the predetermined multicast stream to the multicasting destination. A notification of the joining is sent from the router to a ledger application, the notification including identifying information of the multicasting destination and the multicasting source. The multicasting source transmitting datagrams of the predetermined multicast stream to the multicasting destination via the router. The ledger application receives and logs the notification as a transaction event. The transaction events are aggregated in response to the first domain of the multicasting source and in response to the second domain of the multicasting destination, thereby allowing reimbursement of costs between domains for transporting the multicasting traffic.