Patent ID: 7703141

Claim:
A method, comprising: utilizing, by a media playback application of a consumer device, a public key associated with a component downstream from the media playback application to establish a secure communication channel between the media playback application and the downstream component, the utilizing establishing trust between the media playback application and the downstream component; enabling, by the consumer device, the media playback application to instruct the downstream component, by a command using the secure communication channel, to enable one or more of a number of different types of content protection technologies to protect media content that is provided over a physical connector to an output device; requesting, by the media playback application of the consumer device, status information from the downstream component using the secure communication channel; ascertaining, by the downstream component of the consumer device and based on the status request, whether the one or more content protection technologies are supported by hardware for the particular physical connector after the downstream component has verified an integrity of the command and the status request; and choosing, by the media playback application of the consumer device and based on the ascertaining and status information received from the downstream component via the secure communication channel, to play a limited version of the media content if the one or more content protection technologies are not wholly supported by hardware for the particular physical connector.