Method and system for managing rights for digital music

Abstract

A method is described for managing rights for digital music, including registering music players, from among a plurality of music players, with digital archives that store songs, from among a plurality of digital archives, wherein songs can be copied from digital archives to music players, and from music players to digital archives, permitting a music player to copy a song from a digital archive for which it is registered, permitting a digital archive to copy a song from a music player that is registered with the digital archive, restricting a music player from copying a song from a digital archive for which it is not registered, and restricting a digital archive from copying a song from a music player that is not registered with the digital archive. A system and a computer-readable storage medium are also described.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present application claims priority from and is a divisional application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 893,473, filed on Jul. 16, 2004, published as U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005 / 0065624, entitled “Method and System for Managing Rights for Digital Music,” which is a continuation-in-part of assignee's pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 829,581, filed on Apr. 21, 2004, published as U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004 / 0267390, entitled “Portable Music Player and Transmitter,” which is a continuation-in-part of assignee's issued application U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 336,443, filed on Jan. 2, 2003, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,191,193, entitled “Automatic Digital Music Library Builder.”FIELD[0002]Embodiments of the present invention relate to rights management for digital musical recordings.BACKGROUND[0003]Copyright law regarding devices that make copies of digital recordings is set forth in 17 U.S.C, Chapter 10, referre...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016]Further, for an alternate embodiment of the present invention, copyright management may restrict the number of copies permitted to be made for a song resident on a source device. For example, when a recorder is used to copy songs to a plurality of players, up to three copies of a song may be permitted.

[0017]Thus, embodiments of the present invention enable audio device manufacturers to configure a flexible logic for digital rights management in accordance with legal requirements in their respective locales. Various such configurations are described in the detailed description hereinbelow.

Problems solved by technology

Consumers are generally aware to some extent of copyright laws concerning digital recordings, but there are no automatic features in place to assist consumers in abiding with them.

For example, a consumer who purchases a song on a CD, or through a subscription with an Internet music sharing service such as Napster, generally does not know if he is permitted to make personal copies of the song for himself, on one or more of his computers, or on one or more CDs, or on one or more MP3 players.

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