SYSTEMS AND METHODS TO DISTRIBUTE CONTENT OVER A NETWORK

• US 20080249946A1
• Filed: 04/04/2007
• Published: 10/09/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Candelore, Brant
• Granted Patent: US 7,644,044 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]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2463/101 applying security measures for digital rights management

Abstract

The present embodiments provide methods, apparatuses, and systems to distribute content over a network. Some embodiments provide methods to distribute content within a local media network. These methods receive a request for a first content to be transferred to a sink device, request from the source an access criteria for a first content that is protected according to a first digital rights management (DRM), forward the access criteria to the sink device, receive an evaluation of the access criteria from the sink device regarding at least whether the sink device can interpret the first DRM, determine according to the evaluation received from the sink device whether the sink device can utilize the first content that is protected according to the first DRM, and initiate a transfer of the first content from the source device to the sink device when the sink device can utilize the first content.

Claims

1. A method of distributing content within a local media network, the method comprising:

receiving a request for a first content to be transferred to (accessed through) a sink device;

requesting from the source an access criteria for a first content that is protected according to a first digital rights management (DRM);

forwarding the access criteria to the sink device;

receiving an evaluation of the access criteria from the sink device regarding at least whether the sink device can interpret the first DRM;

determining according to the evaluation received from the sink device whether the sink device can utilize the first content that is protected according to the first DRM; and

initiating a transfer of the first content from the source device to the sink device when the sink device can utilize the first content.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the sink device is incapable with the first DRM;

forwarding the access criteria to a transcription device to transcript the access criteria; and

forwarding transcripted access criteria to the sink device to evaluate the transcripted access criteria.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

receiving an evaluation of the transcripted access criteria from the sink device;

determining that the sink device can utilize a transcripted first content;

initiating a transcription of the first content; and

initiating the transfer of the transcripted first content to the sink device.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

receiving notification that the first content can be transcripted in response to receiving additional user interaction; and

initiating access to allow user interaction.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining whether the sink device can utilize the first content comprises identifying whether the sink device is defined as a device within an authorized network domain.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

requesting that the sink device be added to the authorized network domain.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining whether the sink device can utilize the first content comprises determining that further user interaction is needed, and initiating access to allow user interaction.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the initiating access comprises establishing a connection with a remote source to allow the user interaction to acquire rights to access the first content.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether the access criteria can be transcripted from the first DRM to the second DRM;

initiating a transcription of the access criteria when the access criteria can be transcripted producing transcripted access criteria;

forwarding the transcripted access criteria to the sink device;

receiving from the sink device a second evaluation of the transcripted access criteria;

determining whether the sink device can utilize the content in response to the second evaluation; and

directing the content to the sink device when it is determined that the sink device can utilize the content.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

determining according to the second evaluation whether the content has to be transcripted before the sink device can utilize the content;

directed in the content to be transcripted producing transcripted content; and

forwarding the transcripted content to the sink device when it is determined that the content has to be transcripted before the sink device can utilize the content.

9. A method of distributing content over a local network, the method comprising:

obtaining an access criteria associated with a content protected by a first digital rights management (DRM) system;

forwarding the access criteria to a sink device that utilizes a second DRM system;

receiving from the sink device a first evaluation of the access criteria;

determining based on the first evaluation whether the first DRM is compatible with the second DRM; and

directing the content to the sink device when it is determined that the first DRM is compatible with the second DRM.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

determining based on the first evaluation that the sink device is not part of an authorized domain;

receiving device criteria from the sink device;

determining whether the device criteria has to be transcripted before determining whether the sink device can be added to the authorized domain; and

forwarding the device criteria to be transcripted producing transcripted device criteria;

determining based on the transcripted device criteria whether the sink device can be added to the authorized domain.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the determining based on the transcripted device criteria whether the sink device can be added to the authorized domain comprises forwarding the transcripted device criteria to a domain manager.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

requesting user interaction prior to adding the sink device to the authorized domain.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

determining based on the first evaluation whether user interaction is need before the content can be forwarded to the sink device;

requesting user interaction; and

determining whether user interaction is sufficient to allow the content to be transferred to the sink device.

16. A system that provides for the distribution of content over the network, the system comprising:

a content source that stores content protected according to a first digital rights management (DRM);

a sink device that operates according to a second DRM; and

a stream manager communicationally coupled with the content source and the sink device, wherein the stream manager retrieves access criteria for the content from the content source and forwards the access criteria to the sink device, receives a first evaluation of the access criteria from the sink device, determines based on the first evaluation whether the sink device can utilize the content protected according to the first DRM and initiates a transfer of the content to the sink device when the sink device can utilize the content protected according to the first DRM.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

a DRM-to-DRM transcriptor communicationally coupled with the stream manager to receive the access criteria and to transcript the access criteria to the second DRM producing transcripted access criteria where the stream manager forwards the transcripted access criteria, receives a second evaluation of the transcripted access criteria from the sink device, determines based on the second evaluation whether the sink device can utilize the content and initiates a transfer of the content to the sink device when the sink device can utilize the content.

18. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

a domain manager communicationally coupled with the stream manager, wherein the domain manager adds the sink device to an authorized domain.