Systems and methods for conditional access and digital rights management

Abstract

Conditional access (CA) and digital rights management (DRM) in digital media delivery, processing, and storage systems. Methods and apparatuses are provided for managing digital rights under the protection of multiple CA and / or DRM systems. Some embodiments provide secure and robust methods for bridging multiple DRM systems in the digital media content distribution and playback systems. The present invention simplifies content repurposing, after it has been bridged to a secondary DRM system, but still under the control of the original DRM system.

Description

[0001]This application is a continuation of co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 11 / 823,194 filed on Jun. 26, 2007.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The present invention generally relates to digital media delivery and management systems. More particularly, the present invention pertains to systems for digital rights management.[0004]2. Description of the Related Art[0005]Digital media usually refers to some form of electronic media that can be manipulated by digital processing systems in one way or another. Unlike analog media, digital media is typically transmitted, stored, and / or processed in digital forms, e.g., in binary formats.[0006]Use of digital media has been gaining popularity over the last few decades partly due to their technical advantages over the analog counterpart, such as robustness over noise, and partly due to the wide availability of various digital information processing systems such as personal computers and CD or DVD players. Dig...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides methods and apparatuses for conditional access and digital rights management in digital media delivery and management systems. It allows for secure bridging between different cas systems and enables the original DRM server to control the media content even after it has been moved to devices normally out of control. The invention also offers a process for securely protecting media content during bridging, providing upgrading service for the content at the source DRM system. Overall, the invention simplifies digital media content delivery, conditional access, and digital rights management and provides for the ability to "upgrade" service from a first to a second CA or DRM system.

Problems solved by technology

The better processing capability of digital media is, however, also one of the downsides of using digital media.

This has been a hindrance to wide-scale adoption of digital media in many potential application areas.

Even though these two different symbols are used for consistency whenever possible, it should be understood that, in symmetric key cryptography, the same or essentially equivalent keys are used for both encryption and decryption operations whereas, in public key cryptography, encryption keys (i.e., locks) and decryption keys (i.e., keys) are different and, in particular, it may not be computationally feasible to derive decryption keys from the corresponding encryption keys.

This can be a potentially vulnerable point in a business model involving multiple DRM systems such as the one shown in the figure where the original owner of the media passes the media control completely to other DRM systems.

The bridge protection schemes create certain problems for the end clients of the DRM system on how the inner DRM system will deal with the original DRM protection after the bridging has occurred.

The client normally has a subscription agreement with the DRM system, but typically does not deal directly with CA system, and therefore would have difficulty in changing the CA rules under the DRM system.

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