Patent ID: 8631508

Claim:
A media system for managing distribution of media files based on licenses associated with the media files, the media system comprising: a central licensing (CL) device configured for allowing distribution of the media files from a primary storage device to at least one playback device by using a licensing manager data structure that stores, for each media file, a maximum number of playback devices on which the media file is permitted to be stored and a number of playback devices on which the media file is currently stored, wherein: each media file is associated with a plurality of different versions, wherein each version corresponds to a different maximum number of playback devices on which the media file is permitted to be stored, each media file is embedded with a version identifier that maps the media file to the corresponding one of the plurality of versions stored in the licensing manager data structure to control access to the media file that is stored according to the maximum number of playback devices on which the media file is permitted to be stored and the number of playback devices on which the media file is stored.