Patent ID: 7096201

Claim:
A copyright management apparatus for managing copyrights for copyrighted works in a system comprising a distribution facility and a receiving facility, comprising: a first memory associated with the distribution facility for storing copyright information related to the copyrighted works, said copyright information including the identities of the copyrighted works, the identities of the owners of the copyrights for the copyrighted works, data related to the costs for downloading the copyrighted works at said receiving facility and program identification information comprising the identity of a broadcasted television program related to the copyrighted works; distributing means associated with the distribution facility for broadcasting the copyrighted works through a given transmission path to the receiving facility, the copyrighted works being enciphered, comprising musical pieces and being distributed to the receiving facility as first digital data packets multiplexed with second digital data packets comprising the broadcasted television program, the receiving facility comprising a packet selector in communication with a second memory and a monitor, the packet selector receiving the first and second digital data packets and selecting the first digital data packets for transmission to the second memory for storage and selecting the second digital data packets for transmission to the monitor for displaying the television program; receiving means associated with the distribution facility for receiving from the receiving facility a purchasing record identifying selected copyrighted works distributed from the distribution facility and selected by the receiving facility for downloading at the receiving facility and storing in the second memory, said purchasing record being stored in a third memory at the time of said downloading and transmitted to said receiving means after said downloading, said third memory being associated with said receiving facility and also storing, in advance of said selecting of said selected copyrighted works by said receiving facility, authorization data for authorizing the downloading of said selected copyrighted works; and copyright management means associated with the distribution facility for performing copyright management based upon said purchasing record and the copyright information, said copyright management including calculating a copyright payment due each owner of the copyrights for the selected copyrighted works.