Digital Media Entitlement Allocation via Segmented Encryption
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The ease of reproduction and distribution of digital media content poses challenges in ensuring authorized secondary distribution while preventing unauthorized overuse and redistribution, as digital media can be copied and stored on personal computers, making it difficult to verify ownership transfer and protect creators' rights.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for allocating access to digital media content by assigning secondary licenses, allowing genuine purchasers to transfer usage rights, with options for temporary or permanent access limitations, enabling sharing while protecting against unauthorized redistribution through encryption and digital rights management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If digital media content is made easily reproducible and distributable, then ease of sharing content improves, but unauthorized redistribution and overuse increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the digital media content into multiple encrypted portions or segments that are distributed across different storage locations. No single segment contains the complete content, and segments can only be reassembled with proper authorization credentials. This segmentation prevents unauthorized redistribution because stolen segments alone are useless without the decryption keys and assembly credentials held by authorized users.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary licensing server or credential verification system that mediates between content distributors and end users. This intermediary verifies user credentials, issues decryption keys, and controls access to content segments. The intermediary ensures that only authorized users can access and reconstruct the complete content, while preventing unauthorized redistribution by validating credentials before each access.
2Adaptability or versatility
If digital media content can be copied and stored on personal computers, then accessibility and sharing improve, but verification of ownership transfer becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by embedding unique cryptographic credentials, digital watermarks, or ownership identifiers into the content or associated metadata before distribution. These preliminary markers are embedded in the content itself or in license files, enabling automatic verification of ownership transfer without requiring complex manual verification processes later.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs feedback mechanisms where the system automatically verifies ownership credentials when content is accessed or transferred. The licensing server receives feedback from users attempting to access content, verifies their credentials against recorded ownership information, and provides immediate verification feedback. This automated feedback loop makes ownership transfer verification transparent and reliable.
3Reliability
If traditional sharing methods are used (transferring physical medium), then proprietary rights are protected, but convenience of sharing deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the mechanical system of physical medium transfer with a digital credential-based access system. Instead of physically transferring CDs, DVDs, or other tangible media, the system uses electronic credentials, decryption keys, and digital licenses that can be instantly transferred or shared remotely. This substitution maintains proprietary rights protection through cryptographic verification while providing the convenience of instant digital sharing without physical transfer.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
There is provided a method and system for allocating an entitlement to digital media content. In one implementation, the system includes a media server accessible over a communications network and configured to utilize a processor to issue the entitlement including a transferable authorization to access the digital media content to a first user, and to store an entitlement record identified with the first user and authorizing access to the digital media content by the first user in a memory of the media server. The media server is further configured to receive a communication including a data corresponding to the transferable authorization to access the digital media content from a second user and to update the entitlement record to authorize access to the digital media content by the second user.