Patent ID: 7854011

Claim:
A method of managing the rights to digital media, comprising: acting in a network environment, wherein the network environment includes a plurality of computers and one or more items of digital media loadable onto one or more of the computers, each item of digital media having (a) an allocated license number and (b) a user agent associated with the item of digital media, each user agent programmed to (i) initialize and control the loading of the digital media, (ii) control the operation of the item of digital media, (iii) broadcast network data packets containing the allocated license number information of the digital media loaded by that user agent to the network environment, and (iv) detect network data packets containing license number information of other digital media broadcast by other user agents in others of said computers on the network environment, wherein, at initialization of the digital media having an allocated license number and installed with the user agent on one of said computers, the user agent detects other network data packets and then looks for the license number information of the other digital media broadcast by other user agents in others of said computers on the network environment, and when the detected license number is identical to the license number of the digital media being initialized by the user agent, the user agent (a) preventing initialization of the digital media continuing on that computer, and (b) broadcasting to the network environment a packet with the target being another computer running a user agent associated with the same digital media license number and with content of the broadcast network packet containing a “halt” command, receiving the “halt” command in the other computer which had broadcast the same license number, and causing the other computer to shut down the associated digital media instance, and at the initialization of the digital media having the allocated license number and installed with the user agent on one of said computers, the user agent i) detects no packets or detects a packet and the detected license number associated therewith is not identical to the license number of the digital media being initialized by the user agent, allowing digital media initialization by the user agent and broadcasting the license number into the network in a data packet.