Digital Rights Management Dongle

• US 20080235140A1
• Filed: 03/22/2007
• Published: 09/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/22/2007
• 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: Read, Christopher Jensen
• Granted Patent: US 8,296,240 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 dongle for digital rights management protection, in accordance with one embodiment of the present technology, includes a digital right management engine and an encryption/decryption engine. The digital rights management engine is adapted to port digital rights management rules of a source of content to digital rights management rules enforced by the digital rights management engine. The encryption/decryption engine is adapted to re-encrypting the source of content into a managed copy of the content, wherein the managed copy of the content is locked to the dongle.

Claims

1. A method of digital rights management comprising:

receiving source encrypted content at a computing device;

transferring the source encrypted content from the computing device to a dongle;

translating a set of digital rights management rules associated with the source encrypted content to a set of digital rights management rules associated with the dongle;

re-encrypting the source encrypted content into a managed copy of the content locked to the dongle;

transferring the managed copy of the content from the dongle to the computing device; and

storing the managed copy of the content on one or more computing device-readable media of the computing device.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the source encrypted content is locked to a source of the content.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the source encrypted content is transferred from the computing device to the dongle across a secure communication channel negotiated between the dongle and an input device that the source content was received on by the computing device.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein re-encrypting the source encrypted content into the managed copy of the content locked to the dongle comprises:

decrypting the source encrypted content into a clear copy of the content not accessible from outside of the dongle; and

encrypting the clear copy of the content into a dongle encrypted content.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the managed copy of the content is transferred from the dongle to the computing device across a secure communication channel negotiated between the dongle and a controller of the computing device-readable media that the managed copy is stored on.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

transferring the managed copy from the computing device to the dongle;

re-encrypting the managed copy of the content into a rendering copy of the content

locked to a video card of the computing device;

transferring the rendering copy of the content from the dongle to the video card; and

rendering the content on a monitor of the computing device from the rendering copy.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the managed copy of the content is transferred from the computing device readable media of the computing device across a secure communication channel negotiated between the dongle and a controller of the computing device-readable media.

8. The method according to claim 6, wherein the rendering copy of the content is transferred from the dongle to the video card across a secure communication channel negotiated between the dongle and the video card.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the computing device comprises a computer.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the computing device comprises a game console.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the computing device comprises a digital video recorder.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the computing device comprises a home entertainment system.

13. A method of digital rights management comprising:

receiving source encrypted content at a computing device;

transferring the source encrypted content from the computing device to a dongle;

translating a set of digital rights management rules associated with the source encrypted content to a set of digital rights management rules associated with the dongle;

re-encrypting the source encrypted content into a rendering copy of the content locked to a video card of the computing device;

transferring the rendering copy of the content from the dongle to the video card; and

rendering the content on a monitor of the computing device from the rendering copy.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the source encrypted content is transferred from the computing device to the dongle across a secure communication channel negotiated between the dongle and an input device that the source content was received on by the computing device.

15. The method according to claim 13, wherein re-encrypting the source encrypted content into the rendering copy of the content locked to the video card comprises:

decrypting the source encrypted content into a clear copy of the content not accessible from outside of the dongle; and

encrypting the clear copy of the content using an encryption key of the video card.

16. The method according to claim 13, wherein the rendering copy of the content is transferred from the dongle to the video card across a secure communication channel negotiated between the dongle and the video card.

17. A dongle comprising:

a digital rights management engine for porting digital rights management rules of a source of content to digital rights management rules enforced by the digital rights management engine so that a managed copy of the content is locked to an encryption/decryption engine; and

the encryption/decryption engine for re-encrypting the source of content into the managed copy of the content.

18. The dongle of claim 17, further comprising an interface controller for receiving the source of content from a computing device and sending the managed copy of the content to the computing device or another computing device.

19. The dongle of claim 18, further comprising the interface controller and the digital rights management engine for establishing a secure communication channel between the dongle and the one or more computing devices, wherein establishing the secure communication channel includes sending an authentication certificate of the dongle.

20. The dongle of claim 19, further comprising a computing device readable media not accessible outside the dongle for storing the content during re-encrypting the source of content into the managed copy of the content and for storing the authentication certificate of the dongle.