Patent ID: 7191332

Claim:
A system for distributing licensed content to users via an internetwork, said system comprising: an archive storing packaged content files wherein each packaged content file includes encrypted multimedia content and protection identification information, and wherein said encrypted multimedia content can be decrypted using a respective key corresponding to said protection identification information; a multicast server coupled to said archive for providing multicast streams of said packaged content files to said internetwork, wherein each of said streams includes repetitive transmission of said respective protection identification information within a respective content file, wherein each of said streams comprises a plurality of packets, and wherein said respective protection identification information comprises inserted objects that are included in each of said streams after each nth packet, where n is an integer greater than 1; a web server for providing announcements corresponding to said packaged content files, each announcement including multicast link information; and a digital rights server storing each of said respective keys in association with said protection identification information; whereby a user can access one of said announcements from said web server, join a corresponding one of said multicast streams to receive said protection identification information, contact said digital rights server in response to said protection identification information to obtain said respective key from said digital rights server after providing predetermined authorization information to said digital rights server, receive said encrypted multimedia content from said one multicast stream, and decrypt said encrypted multimedia content in response to said respective key.