Patent ID: 7818260

Claim:
A system for managing subscriber access to content, the system comprising: a digital rights feature programmed to manage digital rights to purchased media content, the digital rights feature programmed to generate a single, unique key for each purchase, the key being required to playback the purchased media content; a digital rights server programmed to receive a message for each purchase, prior to first playback of each purchase, that identifies: (i) the purchased content; (ii) the unique key required to playback the purchased content; and (iii) identification of a purchaser; and wherein the digital rights server is programmed to, upon receipt of a request to transmit the key associated with the purchased media content, identify the purchaser making the request and to transmit the unique key to the identified purchaser to permit playback, the digital rights server programmed to transmit different, unique keys for the same media content in the event the same media content is desired for playback by different purchasers; wherein the digital rights server is programmed to identify a primary playback device for each purchaser from the message, the primary playback device storing a full length copy of the media content on an included memory; wherein the digital rights server is programmed to transmit instructions to the primary playback device and to instruct delivery of the purchased media content from the memory of the primary playback device to a secondary playback device upon receipt of a request from the purchaser to playback the purchased media content on the secondary playback device; wherein the digital rights server is programmed to transmit the unique key to the secondary playback device for the purchased media content to be transferred from the primary playback device to the second playback device in order to permit playback at the second playback device; wherein the unique key is included on discs used to store multiple copies of the same media content, each disc being individually purchased and used by the primary playback device to copy the purchased media to the memory; and wherein the primary playback device is programmed to permanently transmit the unique key included on the disc to the digital rights server, the permanent transmission being characterized by an inability of the primary playback device to subsequently transmit the unique key to the digital rights server.