Patent ID: 8312252

Claim:
A content receiving apparatus, comprising: a receiver operable to receive content distributed in accordance with at least one of a plurality of different rights management and protection methods and to receive rights processing metadata associated with the received content; an identification unit operable to identify, based on identification information contained within the rights processing metadata, a particular one of the plurality of different rights management and protection methods that is associated with the identification information; and a rights processing unit having a plurality of different rights management and protection modules respectively associated with corresponding ones of the plurality of different rights management and protection methods, said identification unit being operable to determine whether any one of the plurality of different rights management and protection modules is associated with the identified one of the plurality of different rights management and protection methods, and in response to determining that one of the plurality of different rights management and protection modules is associated with the identified one of the plurality of different rights management and protection methods, to activate that rights management and protection module, and in response to determining that none of the plurality of different rights management and protection modules is associated with the identified one of the plurality of different rights management and protection methods, to connect to a rights management and protection source external to said content receiving apparatus, to download the rights management and protection module associated with the identified one of the plurality of different rights management and protection methods from the rights management and protection source, to load the downloaded rights management and protection module into said rights processing unit, and to activate the loaded rights management and protection module, the activated rights management and protection module being used to perform rights processing of the received content according to the identified one of the plurality of different rights management and protection methods.