Patent ID: 7433471
Filing Date: 2008-10-07
Classification: G06F,H04N

Abstract:
1. A method of protecting digital content with digital rights expression, said method of protecting the digital content comprising: parsing a digital item declaration (DID) related to digital content of a MPEG-21 scope, the DID carrying (i) a rights and protection holder containing rights and protection information applied to the digital content with a corresponding content identifier, and (ii) an intellectual property management and protection (IPMP) control graph holder or a right expression language (REL)-IPMP control graph holder; retrieving a digital item identification (DII) which identifies the digital content; detecting the IPMP control graph holder or the REL-IPMP control graph holder from the DID parsed by said parsing of the DID; retrieving a flag from the IPMP control graph holder or the REL-IPMP control graph holder detected by said detecting, the flag indicating whether the digital content is protected content or free content; processing description information carried in the IPMP control graph holder or the REL-IPMP control graph holder; checking whether rights descriptions or metadata descriptions, related to the digital content, are digitally signed by retrieving a flag attached to rights or metadata related to the digital content, and, if the flag attached to the rights or the metadata indicates that the rights descriptions or the metadata descriptions are digitally signed, preparing a corresponding digital signing tool identified by a ToolID; retrieving a key license from a protected license manager; checking integrity of the rights or the metadata using the digital signing tool; parsing rights and conditions of the rights according to predefined rules including REL rules, and storing entitled rights and conditions of the rights in a buffer for future checking; checking whether the digital content is encrypted by retrieving a flag attached to the digital content, and, if the digital content is encrypted, preparing a corresponding encryption tool identified by a ToolID; un-protecting the encrypted digital content (i) using the corresponding encryption tool with the ToolID identifying the corresponding encryption tool, and (ii) using other information; checking if the digital content is watermarked by retrieving another flag attached to the digital content, and, if the digital content is watermarked, preparing a corresponding watermarking tool identified by a ToolID for further action; processing a user's request for rights against entitled rights and conditions of the rights stored in the buffer; exercising the rights requested by the user if the rights requested by the user are determined to be entitled by said processing of the user's request; and acting on the un-protected content by at least one of playing, rendering, recording, modifying, deleting, and adapting the un-protected content.