SEGMENT BASED DIGITAL CONTENT PROTECTION

• US 20090235361A1
• Filed: 03/14/2008
• Published: 09/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zhigu Holdings Limited
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Barrett, Peter, Sloo, David
• Granted Patent: US 8,935,796 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/26
• 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

Techniques are disclosed herein for applying different content protection schemes to different segments of digital content. A method for protecting digital content includes determining segments within digital content that is organized to allow presentation in a certain order. Each of the segments is assigned to a category of a group of categories. Each of the categories has a different content protection scheme associated therewith. One of the protection schemes is applied to each segment based on the category associated with the segment.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for protecting digital content, the method comprising:

determining a plurality of segments within digital content that is organized to allow presentation in a certain order;

assigning each of the segments to a category of a plurality of categories, each of the categories has a different content protection scheme of a plurality of protection schemes associated therewith; and

applying a protection scheme of the protection schemes to each segment based on the category assigned to each segment.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the assigning each of the segments to a category includes assigning segments to categories based on the type of content in the segment.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, further comprising automatically determining the type of content in each of the segments.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the digital content is pre-segmented and wherein the determining a plurality of segments is based on segment information associated with the digital content.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the assigning each of the segments to a category includes assigning segments to categories based on the content owner for the segment.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the determining a plurality of segments includes reading protection scheme information encoded in the digital content for identifying a protection scheme for at least one of the segments.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the assigning each of the segments to a category includes reading protection scheme information encoded in the digital content for identifying a protection scheme for at least one of the segments.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, further including:

receiving a selection of a first segment of the plurality of segments from a user that is authorized to play the entire digital content; and

providing access to the first segment to a user that is not authorized to play the entire digital content.

9. The method as recited in claim 8, wherein:

the providing access to the first segment includes providing an Internet link to the first segment.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

receiving the digital content from a plurality of content owners; and

distributing the digital content to a subscriber after applying the protection scheme.

11. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the applying a protection scheme of the protection schemes to each segment includes associating information with the digital content to indicate what access control rules are to be enforced for each of the protection schemes.

12. A device for processing digital content, the device comprising:

storage that stores digital content to be processed by the device, the digital content is organized to allow presentation in a certain order;

an enforcement mechanism that enforces a content protection scheme that restricts certain actions from be performed with respect to the digital content; and

a segment based protection scheme mechanism that divides the digital content into a group of protected segments for which the certain actions are prohibited and a group of unprotected segments for which the certain actions are permitted;

the enforcement mechanism allows attempts to perform a first action of the certain actions with respect to a portion of the digital content to be completed if the portion is entirely within one or more of the unprotected segments and prevents the attempt from being completed if the portion is within a protected segment.

13. A device as recited in claim 12, wherein:

the first action is copying the portion of the digital content.

14. A device as recited in claim 12, wherein:

the first action is exporting information that allows an entity that is not authorized to play the entire digital content to play the portion of the digital content.

15. A device as recited in claim 12, wherein:

the segment based protection scheme mechanism divides the digital content into segments of program content and segments of non-program content.

16. A device as recited in claim 12, wherein:

the segment based protection scheme mechanism divides the digital content based on information embedded in the digital content to define which portions of the digital content are to be protected and which portions are to be un-protected.

17. A computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions which, when executed on a processor, cause the processor to perform protection of digital content:

detecting information embedded in the digital content that indicates that content in certain segments of the digital content is to have a content protection scheme that allows certain actions that are otherwise restricted;

receiving a request from a user to perform a restricted action of the certain actions with respect to a portion of the digital content;

determining whether the portion is within one or more of the certain segments;

if the portion is within one or more of the certain segments, allowing the restricted action to be performed; and

if the portion is not within one or more of the certain segments, preventing the restricted action from being performed.

18. A computer readable medium as recited in claim 17, wherein:

the restricted action is exporting information that allows an entity that is not authorized to play the entire digital content to play the portion.

19. A computer readable medium as recited in claim 17, wherein the receiving a request from a user to perform a restricted action of the certain actions includes:

receiving a selection of a stored marker that identifies the portion.

20. A computer readable medium as recited in claim 19, further including instructions which, when executed on the processor, cause the processor to perform:

storing the marker in response to a user request when the user is playing the digital content.