Patent ID: 7653943

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, with a client component, encrypted content that is to be protected during a rendering process; receiving a manifest associated with the content, the manifest specifying protected media path requirements for the rendering process; verifying that the client component is a trusted component; creating a primary authenticator that can be used to authenticate one or more components downstream from the client component, the downstream components each having an associated address and a signature, at least one downstream component to pass the content to another downstream component; articulating, to the primary authenticator, one or more downstream components that need to be authenticated; authenticating one or more downstream components using the primary authenticator; creating at least one secondary authenticator; articulating to the secondary authenticator one or more downstream components that need to be authenticated; and authenticating the signatures of the one or more downstream components at the addresses of said another downstream components that the downstream components pass the content to using the secondary authenticator wherein at least some of the components are hardware component.