Content use control device, reording device, reproduction device, recording medium, and content use control method

• US 20070124251A1
• Filed: 10/14/2004
• Published: 05/31/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Ichikawa, Akio, Ohno, Ryoji, Shimizu, Yukitaka
• Granted Patent: US 8,108,314 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/59
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]

Abstract

A collective content consisting of a plurality of partial contents holding license information including a use condition can be appropriately used according to the use condition contained in the license information in each of the partial contents. A content use control device includes an input/output I/F, license generation unit, output control unit, content reproduction unit, and use control unit. The partial content holding the license information including the use condition is inputted via the input/output I/F. License information is assigned to each of the partial contents inputted and constituting a collective content. Single license information collecting the assigned license information and its collective content are outputted to a recording medium. The content use control device reproduces a partial content contained in the collective content recorded on the recording medium and controls the use of the reproduced partial content according to its use condition.

Claims

1. A content use control device for performing use control of a content provided from a providing source of various contents to a user, comprising:

an input-output interface for connecting to providing source capable of providing a partial content that holds license information containing a unique use condition; and

license generation unit for assigning respective license information to a plurality of partial contents that are inputted via the input-output interface and that make up a collective content and generating single license information by collecting the assigned respective license information.

2. The content use control device of claim 1, wherein the license generation unit assigns respective license information to a plurality of first collective contents that are made up of a plurality of partial contents and that make up a second collective content and generates single license information by collecting the assigned respective license information.

3. The content use control device of claim 1 wherein the license generation unit imparts a unique content id to each of partial contents contained in the collective content and imparts a unique license id to license information corresponding to each of the partial contents contained in the collective content.

4. The content use control device of claim 3, wherein the content id and the license id are associated with each other.

5. The content use control device of claim 1, wherein the input-output interface enables connection to one or more of providing sources including a recording medium having the partial contents recorded thereon, a network having a server device capable of providing the partial contents, and a digital broadcasting network capable of distributing the partial contents.

6. The content use control device of claim 1, comprising:

external or internal recording unit and

output control unit for outputting both or either of license information generated by the license generation unit and the collective content associated therewith to a recording medium via the recording unit or the input-output interface.

7. The content use control device of claim 6, wherein the output control unit outputs license information generated by the license generation unit and the collective content associated therewith to different recording regions of the recording medium via the recording unit or the input-output interface.

8. The content use control device of claim 6, comprising:

content reproduction unit for decoding and reproducing partial contents contained in the collective content recorded on the recording medium or the recording unit; and

use control unit for controlling use of the reproduced partial contents in accordance with a use condition contained in the license information associated therewith.

9. The content use control device of claim 1, wherein the collective content consists of video data and/or audio data, and wherein the partial contents making up the collective content are segments of the video data and/or the audio data on the time axis.

10. The content use control device of claim 1, wherein the collective content is obtained by multiplexing partial contents each composed of one or more of the video data, audio data, and data broadcasting data.

11. The content use control device of claim 9 or 10, wherein the partial content is an mpeg-2 es (elementary stream).

12. The content use control device of claim 9 or 10, wherein the partial content is a stream of one or more of bs broadcasting, cs broadcasting, and terrestrial digital broadcasting.

13. The content use control device of claim 12, wherein the partial contents are es group which belong to a single component group.

14. The content use control device of claim 1, wherein the use conditions contained in the license information consist of one or more of copy restriction information for restricting copy of the partial content, age viewing-and-listening restriction information for restricting the viewing-and-listening of the partial content by the age, use count restriction information for restricting the use count of the partial content, and time limit for use information for restricting the time limit for use of the partial content.

15. The content use control device of claim 1, wherein the collective content is obtained by combining the partial contents each composed of image data and/or document data.

16. The content use control device of claim 1 or 15, wherein the use conditions contained in the license information consist of one or more of copy restriction information for restricting copy of the partial content, print restriction information for restricting print of the partial content, time limit for use information for restricting the time limit for use of the partial content, resolution restriction information for restricting the resolution conversion of the partial content, and the number-of-colors restriction information for restricting the number of colors of the partial content.

17. A recording device for generating a recording medium that enables use control of a content provided from a providing source of various contents to a user, comprising:

an input-output interface for connecting to providing source capable of providing a partial content that holds license information containing a unique use condition;

license generation unit for assigning respective license information to a plurality of partial contents that are inputted via the input-output interface and that make up a collective content and generating single license information by collecting the assigned respective assigned license information; and

output control unit for outputting both or either of license information generated by the license generation unit and the collective content associated therewith to a recording medium via the input-output interface.

18. A recording medium having both or either of the license information and the collective content associated therewith recorded thereon by the recording device of claim 17.

19. A reproduction device comprising:

content reproduction unit for decoding and reproducing partial contents contained in the collective content recorded on the recording medium of claim 18;

and

use control unit for controlling use of the reproduced partial contents in accordance with use conditions contained in the license information associated therewith.

20. A content use control method for controlling use of a content using a content use control device configured to perform use control of the content provided from a providing source of various contents to a user, the method comprising:

an input step of inputting via an input-output interface a partial content that holds license information containing a unique use condition; and

a license generation step of assigning respective license information to a plurality of the input partial contents that make up a collective content and generating single license information by collecting the assigned respective license information.

21. The content use control method of claim 20, wherein the license generation step includes assigning respective license information to a plurality of first collective contents that are made up of a plurality of partial contents and that make up a second collective content and generating single license information by collecting the assigned respective license information.

22. The content use control method of claim 20, wherein the license generation step includes imparting a unique content id to each of partial contents contained in the collective content and imparting a unique license id to license information corresponding to each of the partial contents contained in the collective content.

23. The content use control method of claim 22, wherein the content id and the license id are associated with each other.

24. The content use control method of claim 20, wherein the input-output interface enables connection to one or more of providing sources including a recording medium having the partial contents recorded thereon, a network having a server device capable of providing the partial contents, and a digital broadcasting network capable of distributing the partial contents.

25. The content use control method of claim 20, comprising:

an output control step of outputting both or either of license information generated at the license generation step and the collective content associated therewith to a recording medium via recording unit externally disposed on or housed in the content use control device or via the input-output interface.

26. The content use control method of claim 25, wherein the output control step includes outputting license information generated at the license generation step and the collective content associated therewith to different recording regions of the recording medium via the recording unit or the input-output interface.

27. The content use control method of claim 25, comprising:

a content reproduction step of decoding and reproducing partial contents contained in the collective content recorded on the recording medium or the recording unit; and

a use control step of controlling use of the reproduced partial content in accordance with a use condition contained in the license information associated therewith.

28. The content use control method of claim 20, wherein the collective content consists of video data and/or audio data, and wherein the partial contents making up the collective content are segments of the video data and/or the audio data on the time axis.

29. The content use control method of claim 20, wherein the collective content is obtained by multiplexing partial contents each composed of one or more of the video data, audio data, and data broadcasting data.

30. The content use control method of claim 28 or 29, wherein the partial content is an mpeg-2 es (elementary stream).

31. The content use control method of claim 28 or 29, wherein the partial content is a stream of one or more of bs broadcasting, cs broadcasting, and terrestrial digital broadcasting.

32. The content use control method of claim 31, wherein the partial contents are es group which belong to a single component group.

33. The content use control method of claim 20, wherein the use conditions contained in the license information consist of one or more of copy restriction information for restricting copy of the partial content, age viewing-and-listening restriction information for restricting the viewing-and-listening of the partial content by the age, use count restriction information for restricting the use count of the partial content, and time limit for use information for restricting the time limit for use of the partial content.

34. The content use control method of claim 20, wherein the collective content is obtained by combining the partial contents each composed of image data and/or document data.

35. The content use control method of claim 20 or 34, wherein the use conditions contained in the license information consist of one or more of copy restriction information for restricting copy of the partial content, print restriction information for restricting print of the partial content, time limit for use information for restricting the time limit for use of the partial content, resolution restriction information for restricting the resolution conversion of the partial content, and the number-of-colors restriction information for restricting the number of colors of the partial content.

36. A recording device comprising:

a storage medium capable of recording a plurality of contents and a plurality of licenses each containing a use condition of the content;

a storage region holding write-protect information for controlling writing to the storage medium;

a reading/writing unit performing reading from and writing to the storage medium;

an input-output interface providing a connection to an external device; and

a control unit controlling the reading/writing unit in accordance with control information inputted via the input-output interface, wherein the control unit refers to the write-protect information held in the storage region when accepting a request to write the content and/or the license via the input-output interface to control writing of the content and/or the license in accordance with the write-protect information.

37. The recording device of claim 36, wherein the write-protect information includes write-protect setting/canceling information of the content and write-protect setting/canceling information of each type of the license.

38. The recording device of claim 37, wherein the write-protect information is provided correspondingly to one or more license types of a reproduction license restricting the reproduction count, a duplication license restricting the duplication count, and a transfer license restricting the transfer count.

39. The recording device of claim 38, wherein the write-protect information allows specification of one or more of a write-protect state when the permitted reproduction count is one, a write-protect state when the permitted reproduction count is other than one, a write-protect state when the permitted duplication count is one, a write-protect state when the permitted duplication count is other than one, and a write-protect state regarding transfer.

40. The recording device of claim 36, wherein the write-protect information consists of mode information, and wherein the control unit performs the write-protect control depending on the mode information.

41. The recording device of claim 40, wherein the write-protect operation for each mode information is defined by write-protect setting/canceling information of the content and write-protect setting/canceling information of each type of the license.

42. The recording device of claim 36, wherein the recording device comprises rewriting unit for rewriting the write-protect information recorded in the storage region, and referring unit for referring to the write-protect information recorded in the storage region.

43. A control device for controlling a plurality of the recording devices of any one of the claims 36 to 42, wherein write-protect information is not set for a specific recording device.

44. A recording method of a recording device comprising a storage medium capable of recording a plurality of contents and a plurality of licenses each containing a use condition of the content;

a storage region holding write-protect information for controlling writing to the storage medium;

a reading/writing unit performing reading from and writing to the storage medium;

an input-output interface providing a connection to an external device; and

a control unit controlling the reading/writing unit in accordance with control information inputted via the input-output interface, wherein the control unit refers to the write-protect information held in the storage region when accepting a request to write the content and/or the license via the input-output interface to control writing of the content and/or the license in accordance with the write-protect information.