Patent ID: 7958248

Claim:
An information providing system, comprising: a network contents providing apparatus operable to provide network contents on demand to a location of a user in response to an electronically transmitted instruction by the user demanding the network contents, the network contents referencing broadcast contents for concurrent display with the network contents; a broadcast contents providing apparatus operable to broadcast the broadcast contents for simultaneous reception at a multiplicity of receiving locations; a third information providing apparatus operable to hold authentication information for authenticating a reference to the broadcast contents by the network contents, the network contents providing apparatus being operable to provide the network contents to the information processing apparatus; and an information processing apparatus operable to: receive the network contents from the network contents providing apparatus, receive the broadcast contents being broadcast by the broadcast contents providing apparatus, extract address information for accessing the third information providing apparatus from the received broadcast contents, not display the received broadcast contents referenced by the received network contents in response to being unable to extract the address information from the received broadcast contents, access the third information providing apparatus based on the extracted address information, transmit a request to authenticate the received broadcast contents and the received network contents to the third information providing apparatus, receive a determination result from the third information providing apparatus based on authentication information associated with the received broadcast contents and the received network contents, concurrently display the received broadcast contents referenced by the received network contents together with the received network contents in response to the received determination result permitting such display, and not display the received broadcast contents referenced by the received network contents in response to the received determination result not permitting such display; and the third information providing apparatus being operable to: hold the authentication information, authenticate a reference by the network contents to the broadcast contents using the held authentication information when accessed from the information processing apparatus, and send a determination result of the authenticating to the information processing apparatus.