Patent ID: 7400726

Claim:
An apparatus for preventing an unauthorized use of a physical copyrighted medium, comprising: an encrypted physical copyrighted medium for sale; a copyrighted medium identification database storing a copyrighted medium unique identifier uniquely identifying said physical copyrighted medium and a cipher key for said physical copyrighted medium; a recording medium; a recording medium data reading/writing device, for writing data into said recording medium; and a fingerprint authentication device for collating and identifying fingerprint data of a purchaser of said physical copyrighted medium, wherein data read from said copyrighted medium identification database, including the copyrighted medium unique identifier and the cipher key for said physical copyrighted medium, are written into said recording medium using said recording medium data reading/writing device, fingerprint data of the purchaser of said physical copyrighted medium is read using said fingerprint authentication device, and the fingerprint data of the purchaser, the copyrighted medium unique identifier, and the cipher key for the physical copyrighted medium are written into said recording medium using said recording medium data reading/writing device.