Patent ID: 7103574

Claim:
An enforcement architecture for digital rights management, wherein the architecture enforces rights in protected digital content, the architecture comprising: a content server for distributing the digital content; a license server for issuing at least one digital license corresponding to and separate from the digital content; and a computing device for receiving the distributed digital content and for receiving and storing any digital license corresponding to the digital content, the computing device having: a rendering application for rendering the digital content; and a Digital Rights Management (DRM) system for being invoked by the rendering application upon such rendering application attempting to render the digital content, the DRM system for determining whether a right to render the digital content in the manner sought exists based on any digital license stored in the computing device and corresponding to the digital content, wherein the license server issues a digital license to the DRM system only if the license server trusts such DRM system to abide by the license, and wherein the content server distributes the digital content in an encrypted form, and wherein the DRM system includes a trusted black box for performing decryption and encryption functions for such DRM system.