Patent ID: 7711647

Claim:
Apparatus operative in a distributed network in which content providers offload given content for delivery from servers managed by a content delivery network service provider, wherein the given content is secured by a digital rights management scheme comprising: a set of processors located across the distributed network; and computer memory associated with each processor and holding computer program instructions that when executed by the processor comprise a license server processor that is operative to receive and verify a token generated according to a secret shared only by a given content provider and the content delivery network service provider to thereby generate a license by which an end user client obtains rights for given content of the given content provider, the license including a decryption key; wherein the license server processors executed on the set of processors located across the distributed network comprise a distributed set of license server processors that operate autonomously from one another to enable decryption keys to be generated and managed from individual license server processors in a de-centralized manner and without access to authentication information associated with end users requesting the given content.