Patent ID: 7337147

Claim:
A method for managing portable content license rights for digital content usable with a plurality of computing systems, comprising: (a) obtaining a plurality of portable use licenses by a plurality of users wherein each portable use license comprises license parameters for digital content, each of the plurality of users having a corresponding user identifier, and each user identifier corresponding to a different one of the plurality of portable use licenses, wherein each of the portable use licenses comprises license parameters for the digital content that are specific to each corresponding user identifier; (b) receiving by a remote computing system a request for a specific content package comprising the digital content; (c) downloading the specific content package to a local computer; (d) logging on to the local computer by at least two of the plurality of users by inputting at least two of the user identifiers into the local computer; (e) transmitting the at least two user identifiers from the local computer to the remote computing system; (f) determining by the remote computing system at least two portable use licenses and transmitting from the remote computing system to the local computer the at least two portable use licenses corresponding to the at least two user identifiers; (g) receiving the at least two portable use licenses at the local computer and determining license parameters specific to each of the at least two user identifiers from the portable use licenses; (h) accessing together by the at least two users, the digital content at the local computer, wherein each of the two users accesses the digital content using the determined license parameters that is specific to each corresponding user identifier; (i) logging off of the local computer by at least one of the two users; and (j) based on the logging off of the at least one user, deleting the corresponding portable use license at the local computer and preventing access to the digital content at the local computer with the deleted portable use license until the at least one user logs back on.