Patent ID: 8243925

Claim:
A method of brokering the enabling of communication of encrypted media programs from a plurality of independent broadcasters to a plurality of receivers, each encrypted media program decryptable by a first receiver module securely communicating with a second receiver module according to a first pairing key K p1 or a second pairing key K p2 associated with one of the plurality of receivers, comprising the steps of: transmitting a first broadcast service enabling request for a first broadcast service from one of the plurality of broadcasters to a broker independent from the one of the plurality of broadcasters, the request comprising an identification of the one of the plurality of receivers; receiving a first encrypted version of the first pairing key E S 1 [K p1 ] in the one of the plurality of broadcasters from the broker, the first encrypted version of the pairing key E S 1 [K p1 ] decryptable by first information S 1 securely stored in the first receiver module of the one of the plurality of receivers; generating a second encrypted version of the first pairing key E S 1 [K p1 ] in the one of the plurality of broadcasters, the second encrypted version of the first pairing key E S 2 [K p1 ] decryptable by second information S 2 securely stored in the second receiver module; transmitting the first encrypted version of the first pairing key E S 1 [K p1 ] and the second encrypted version of the first pairing key E S 2 [K p1 ] to the one of the plurality of receivers; transmitting a second broadcast service enabling request for a second broadcast service different from the first broadcast service from the one of the plurality of broadcasters to the broker, the second service enabling request comprising the identification of the one of the plurality of receivers; receiving a first encrypted version of a second pairing key E S 1 [K p1 ] from the broker, the first encrypted version of the second pairing key E S 1 [K p1 ] decryptable by the first information S 1 securely stored in the first receiver module of the one of the plurality of receivers; generating a second encrypted version of the second pairing key E S 2 [K p2 ], the second encrypted version of the pairing key E S 2 [K p2 ] decryptable by the second information S 2 securely stored in the second receiver module; and transmitting the first encrypted version of the second pairing key E S 1 [K p2 ] and the second encrypted version of the second pairing key E S 2 [K p2 ] to the one of the plurality of receivers; wherein the first broadcast service is selected from a group consisting of: a general broadcast service from the one of the plurality of broadcasters, including access to a number of media channels as a baseline fee service; a particular media program from the one of the plurality of broadcasters; and a particular set of media programs from the one of the plurality of broadcasters; and wherein the first broadcast service is enabled by the first pairing key K p1 and the second broadcast service is enabled by the second pairing key K p2 .