Patent ID: 7809138

Claim:
A streaming media player providing content protection and digital rights management, including: a port configured to receive a digital bit stream, the digital bit stream comprising at least two sub-streams which have been mixed together, the digital bit stream including: content which is encrypted at least in part, and control information for controlling use of the content, the control information including at least one key suitable for decryption of at least a portion of the content, and a first rule or rule set including at least one rule specifying that the content can only be decrypted on a system having a predefined system identifier; a control arrangement including: means for extracting cryptographic keys from the digital bit stream; a second rule or rule set governing at least one aspect of usage of at least one sub-stream or object, wherein the second rule or rule set includes at least one rule stored in a non-volatile memory internally integrated with the player; and means for enforcing the first rule or rule set and the second rule or rule set, the means for enforcing including means for selectively passing at least one key to a stream controller in accordance with the first rule or rule set; a demux designed to separate and route the sub-streams; a decompression unit configured to decompress at least one of the sub-streams, the decompression unit and the demux being connected by a pathway for the transmission of information; a rendering unit designed to process decompressed content information for rendering; and a stream controller operatively connected to the decompression unit and the control arrangement, the stream controller including decryption functionality configured to decrypt at least a portion of a sub-stream based on at least one key passed from the control arrangement and pass the decrypted sub-stream to the decompression unit.