Patent ID: 7319988

Claim:
An audio processing system, comprising: a first receiver receiving one or more items of audio information; a processor processing the received one or more items of audio information; a generator generating an identifier, the identifier being based at least in part on one or more characteristics of the audio processing system, such one or more characteristics excluding any characteristic of the generator, different such one or more characteristics being usable to link access to different ones of the one or more items of audio information; a transmitter transmitting the identifier from the generator to a licensing processor; a second receiver receiving a password, based at least in part on the identifier, that links access to the one or more items of audio information to the audio processing system, the password generated using a technique which does not use any additional characteristic of the audio processing system; and a password validator accessing the identifier from the generator to validate the password, and permitting access to a selected one of the one or more items of audio information when the password is validated.