Patent ID: 7450930

Claim:
A method for determining whether a second receiving device is authorized for access to copyright-protected digital content from a first receiving device to which the content has been distributed, the method comprising: receiving electronic copyright protected content at a first receiving device authorized for electronically redistributing the protected content within a subscriber domain of receiving devices defined relative to the first receiving device, subject to content usage rules that specify a defined maximum separation distance relative to the first receiving device for additional devices in the subscriber domain; receiving a request from a second receiving device, requesting that access to the protected content received by the first receiving device be provided to the second receiving device; determining respective geographic locations of the first receiving device and of the second receiving device in response to the request, by communicating with a first GPS device proximal to the first receiving device and with a second GPS device proximal to the second receiving device; computing a separation distance between the first receiving device and the second receiving device, using the geographic locations of the first receiving device and of the second receiving device determined by communicating with the first and second GPS devices; providing the second receiving device with access to the protected content if the computed separation distance does not exceed the defined maximum separation distance specified by the content usage rules; and preventing the second receiving device from accessing the protected content, if the computed separation distance exceeds the defined maximum separation distance.