Patent ID: 7856404

Claim:
A method for a computing device to burn a playlist of tracks to a portable medium, each track corresponding to a piece of digital content, at least one of the pieces of content being rights-management (RM) protected and accordingly being burned to the portable medium only in accordance with a corresponding digital license, the method comprising: the computing device constructing the playlist to include an identification of each track therein; for each track corresponding to a piece of RM-protected content: the computing device retrieving a license corresponding thereto, the license including a maximum track burn value and a maximum playlist burn value, the maximum track burn value in the license setting forth a maximum number of times the license may be employed to burn the corresponding piece of content as a track to a portable medium, the maximum playlist burn value setting forth a maximum number of times the license may be employed to burn the corresponding piece of content as a track within a particular playlist; the computing device retrieving state information from a state store of the computing device, the state information including a track burns available count regarding how many track burns are left based on the license, a maximum playlist burn count regarding how many track burns per playlist are available based on all available licenses for the track, and a track-playlist burned count regarding how many times the track has been burned with regard to the playlist; the computing device ensuring that the tracks of the playlist are burned collectively by performing a no-burn action before burning any tracks of the play list when the track-playlist burn count is greater than or equal to the maximum playlist burn count; the computing device ensuring that the tracks of the playlist are burned collectively by performing a no-burn action before burning any tracks of the play list when the track burns available count is zero; the computing device continuing to process the remaining tracks of the playlist; the computing device determining, after all tracks of the playlist corresponding to a piece of RM-protected content have been processed, whether the no-burn action has been performed; and when the no-burn action has not been performed: the computing device burning each track of the playlist to the portable medium; and for each track of the playlist corresponding to a piece of RM-protected content: the computing device decrementing the track burns available count in the state store for the license corresponding to the track; and the computing device incrementing the track-playlist burned count in the state store with regard to the track and the playlist, whereby such value is accurate and available should the track be again burned as part of the playlist.