Patent ID: 8732086

Claim:
A method for managing rights for digital music, comprising: registering groups of digital audio devices from among a plurality of digital audio devices with one another, each digital audio device able to store digital songs, to play the digital songs stored therein, and to copy the digital songs stored therein to another digital audio device; labeling the digital songs stored within the digital audio devices, from a plurality of labels including an ownership label and a non-ownership label, wherein a non-ownership label of a digital song comprises conditions under which playing of the digital song is not allowed, comprising: (d.1) determining that a first designated digital song bearing an ownership label in a first source digital audio device may be copied to a first target digital audio device that is registered with the first source digital audio device; prescribing the label of the first designated digital song for the first target digital audio device to be an ownership label, in response to said (d.1); (d.2) determining that a second designated digital sung bearing a non-ownership label in a second source digital audio device may be copied to a second target digital audio device that is registered with the second source digital audio device; (d.3) determining that a third designated digital song bearing an ownership label in a third source digital audio device may be copied to a third target digital audio device that is not registered with the third source digital audio device; (d.4) determining that a fourth designated digital song bearing a non-ownership label in a fourth source digital audio device may be copied to a fourth target digital audio device that is not registered with the fourth source digital audio device; and prescribing the label of the second, third and fourth designated digital song for the respective second, third and fourth target digital audio device to be a non-ownership label, in response to said (d.2), (d.3) and (d.4), respectively; receiving a request to play a designated song in a digital audio device; identifying the label of the designated song in the digital audio device as being a non-ownership label; and denying the request to play the designated song in response to said identifying, in accordance with the conditions of the non-ownership label.