System for controlling the distribution and use of composite digital works

What is claimed:

1. A method for controlling access to and distribution of a composite digital work between computer based systems, said composite digital work comprised of a plurality of parts, each part representing an individual digital work, said method comprising the steps of:

a) creating an instance of a composite digital work;

b) creating a description structure for said composite digital work, said description structure comprising a plurality of description blocks, each of said description blocks for storing access information for at least one of said plurality of parts of said composite digital work, said access information specifying how said corresponding part may be used or distributed;

c) storing said description structure and said composite digital work in a repository;

d) said repository receiving a request to access said composite digital work, said request having request access information indicating how a requested composite digital work will be used;

e) said repository comparing the access information for each description block of said description structure of said composite digital work to said request access information; and

f) said repository granting said request to access said composite digital work if it is determined that said request access information is in the scope of the access information for each description block of said description structure of said composite digital work.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein said step of creating an instance of a composite digital work is further comprised of the steps of:

a1) creating a first part of said composite digital work;

a2) creating a first description block for said first part of said composite digital work;

a3) obtaining an existing second part for said composite digital work, said second digital work having a second description block;

a4) combining said first part and said second part to form said composite digital work; and

a5) creating a third description block for said composite digital work.

3. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein said step of creating a description structure for said composite digital work is further comprised of the step of linking said first description block, said second description block and said third description blocks to correspond to the organization of said composite digital work.

4. The method as recited in claim 3 wherein said step of storing said description structure and said composite digital work in a repository is further comprised of the steps of storing said description structure in a first storage means and said composite digital work in a second storage means.

5. The method as recited in claim 4 wherein each of said first description block, said second description block and said third description block is comprised of a pointer to a corresponding part of said composite digital work stored in said second storage means and a control information part for storing usage rights for said corresponding part of said digital work and said step of creating a first description block for said first part of said composite digital work is further comprised of the step of specifying a first set of usage rights and storing in said control information part of said first description block.

6. The method as recited in claim 5 wherein said step of creating a third description block for said composite digital work is further comprised of the step of specifying a second set of usage rights and storing in said control information part of said third description block.

7. The method as recited in claim 6 wherein said step of said repository comparing the access information for each description block of said description structure of said composite digital work to said request access information is further comprised of the steps of:

e1) said repository identifying a usage right from said request access information;

e2) for each description block said repository performing the steps of:

determining if said identified usage right is in its associated control information part;

if said usage right is not in said control information part indicating that said request access information is not in the scope of the access information for said description block.

8. The method as recited in claim 6 wherein said step of said repository comparing the access information for each description block of said description structure of said composite digital work to said request access information is further comprised of the steps of:

e1) said repository identifying a usage right from said request access information;

e2) for each description block said repository performing the steps of:

determining if said identified usage right is in its associated control information part;

if said usage right is not in said control information part said repository indicating that said request access information is not in the scope of the access information for said description block;

if said usage right is in said control information, said repository determining if access parameters for said right are satisfied based on said request access information;

if said access parameters are not satisfied, said repository indicating that said request access information is not in the scope of the access information for said description block.

9. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein said step of creating a description structure for said composite digital work is further comprised of the step of adding a shell description block for specifying usage rights and fees of a distributor of said composite digital work.

10. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein said step of obtaining an existing second part for said composite digital work is further comprised of the step of extracting said second part from an existing digital work.

11. The method as recited in claim 5 wherein said step of creating a third description block for said composite digital work is further comprised of the step of specifying a second set of usage rights and storing in said control information part of said third description block, said second set of usage rights including a usage right indicating that no subsequent shell description blocks for specifying usage rights and fees of a distributor may be added to said description structure.

12. A repository for storing and controlling access to composite digital works comprising:

an interface means for receiving requests to access digital works stored therein;

a first storage unit for storing digital data representing digital works;

a second storage unit for storing description structures for digital works stored in said first storage unit, said description structure comprising a plurality of description blocks, each of said description blocks comprising: a pointer to a parent description block, one or more pointers to children description blocks, a pointer to a corresponding part of a digital work stored in said first storage unit and a usage rights part for storing one or more usage rights, each of said usage rights specifying an instance of how said part may be used;

a transactions processor for processing requests to access a digital work, said transactions processor comprising a means for identifying a usage right from a request to access said digital work, and a means for determining if a description block contains an identified usage right.

13. The repository as recited in claim 12 wherein said transaction processor is further comprised of usage rights conflict resolution means for resolving usage rights conflicts between different description blocks.

14. The repository as recited in claim 13 wherein said conflict resolution means will grant access to a part of said composite digital work associated with a description block having said identified usage right and denying access to a part of said composite digital work associated with a description block not having said identified usage right.

15. The repository as recited in claim 13 wherein said conflict resolution means will deny access to said composite digital work if any description block does not contain said identified usage right.

16. A system for controlling access to and usage of composite digital works between computer based systems, said composite digital work comprised of a plurality of digital works, said system comprising:

means for attaching usage rights to digital works, said usage rights indicating how a recipient of a digital work may use and subsequently distribute said digital work;

means for creating a description structure for said composite digital work, said description structure comprising a description block for each digital work of said composite digital work, said description block comprising said usage rights for said digital work and addressing information for said digital work;

a plurality of repositories for managing exchange of composite digital works based on usage rights attached to said digital works comprising a composite digital work, each of said plurality of repositories associated with a computer based system and comprising a storage means for storing digital works, a processor having a first server mode of operation for processing access requests to said digital works and a second requester mode of operation for initiating requests to access digital works, a timekeeping means and a connection means;

a rendering system for rendering of digital works, said rendering system comprising a rendering repository for secure receipt of composite digital works and a rendering device having means for converting digital signals to signals suitable for rendering of said digital works comprising said composite digital work.

17. The system as recited in claim 15 wherein said storage means of a repository is further comprised of:

a first storage component for storing a description structure for each digital work; and

a second storage component for storing said digital work.

18. The system as recited in claim 17 wherein said first storage component is a solid state memory and said second storage component is a magnetic memory.

19. The system as recited in claim 17 wherein said first storage component is a solid state memory and said second storage component is a solid state memory.

20. The system as recited in claim 17 wherein said first storage component is a solid state memory and said second storage component is an optical memory.

21. The system as recited in claim 16 wherein one of said plurality of digital works is a text work and said rendering device is a printing device.

22. The system as recited in claim 16 wherein one of said plurality of digital works is a video work and said rendering device is a video playback device.

23. The system as recited in claim 16 wherein one of said plurality of digital works is an audio work and said rendering device is an audio playback device.

24. The system as recited in claim 16 wherein said composite digital work is a multimedia work and each of said plurality of digital works is of a different media and said rendering system is further comprised of a rendering device for each of said different media.

Description Submit all comments and votes

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the field of distribution and usage rights enforcement for digitally encoded works.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A fundamental issue facing the publishing and information industries as they consider electronic publishing is how to prevent the unauthorized and unaccounted distribution or usage of electronically published materials. Electronically published materials are typically distributed in a digital form and recreated on a computer based system having the capability to recreate the materials. Audio and video recordings, software, books and multimedia works are all being electronically published. Companies in these industries receive royalties for each accounted for delivery of the materials, e.g. the sale of an audio CD at a retail outlet. Any unaccounted distribution of a work results in an unpaid royalty (e.g. copying the audio recording CD to another digital medium.)

The ease in which electronically published works can be "perfectly" reproduced and distributed is a major concern. The transmission of digital works over networks is commonplace. One such widely used network is the Internet. The Internet is a widespread network facility by which computer users in many universities, corporations and government entities communicate and trade ideas and information. Computer bulletin boards found on the Internet and commercial networks such as CompuServ and Prodigy allow for the posting and retrieving of digital information. Information services such as Dialog and LEXIS/NEXIS provide databases of current information on a wide variety of topics. Another factor which will exacerbate the situation is the development and expansion of the National Information Infrastructure (the NII). It is anticipated that, as the NII grows, the transmission of digital works over networks will increase many times over. It would be desirable to utilize the NII for distribution of digital works without the fear of widespread unauthorized copying.

The most straightforward way to curb unaccounted distribution is to prevent unauthorized copying and transmission. For existing materials that are distributed in digital form, various safeguards are used. In the case of software, copy protection schemes which limit the number of copies that can be made or which corrupt the output when copying is detected have been employed. Another scheme causes software to become disabled after a predetermined period of time has lapsed. A technique used for workstation based software is to require that a special hardware device must be present on the workstation in order for the software to run, e.g., see U.S. Pat. No. 4,932,054 entitled "Method and Apparatus for Protecting Computer Software Utilizing Coded Filter Network in Conjunction with an Active Coded Hardware Device." Such devices are provided with the software and are commonly referred to as dongles.

Yet another scheme is to distribute software, but which requires a "key" to enable it's use. This is employed in distribution schemes where "demos" of the software are provided on a medium along with the entire product. The demos can be freely used, but in order to use the actual product, the key must be purchased. These scheme do not hinder copying of the software once the key is initially purchased.

A system for ensuring that licenses are in place for using licensed products is described in PCT Publication WO 93/01550 to Griswold entitled "License Management System and Method." The licensed product may be any electronically published work but is most effective for use with works that are used for extended periods of time such as software programs. Griswold requires that the licensed product contain software to invoke a license check monitor at predetermined time intervals. The license check monitor generates request datagrams which identify the licensee. The request datagrams are sent to a license control system over an appropriate communication facility. The license control system then checks the datagram to determine if the datagram is from a valid licensee. The license control system then sends a reply datagram to the license check monitor indicating denial or approval of usage. The license control system will deny usage in the event that request datagrams go unanswered after a predetermined period of time (which may indicate an unauthorized attempt to use the licensed product). In this system, usage is managed at a central location by the response datagrams. So for example if license fees have not been paid, access to the licensed product is terminated.

It is argued by Griswold that the described system is advantageous because it can be implemented entirely in software. However, the system described by Griswold has limitations. An important limitation is that during the use of the licensed product, the user must always be coupled to an appropriate communication facility in order to send and receive datagrams. This creates a dependency on the communication facility. So if the communication facility is not available, the licensed product cannot be used. Moreover, some party must absorb the cost of communicating with the license server.

A system for controlling the distribution of digitally encoded books is embodied in a system available from VPR Systems, LTD. of St. Louis, Mo. The VPR system is self-contained and is comprised of: (1) point of sale kiosks for storing and downloading of books, (2) personal storage mediums (cartridges) to which the books are downloaded, and (3) readers for viewing the book. In a purchase transaction, a purchaser will purchase a voucher card representing the desired book. The voucher will contain sufficient information to identify the book purchased and perhaps some demographic information relating to the sales transaction. To download the book, the voucher and the cartridge are inserted into the kiosk.

The VPR system may also be used as a library. In such an embodiment, the kiosk manages the number of "copies" that may be checked out at one time. Further, the copy of the book is erased from the users cartridge after a certain check-out time has expired. However, individuals cannot loan books because the cartridges may only be used with the owners reader.

The foregoing distribution and protection schemes operate in part by preventing subsequent distribution of the work. While this certainly prevents unauthorized distributions, it does so by sacrificing the potential for subsequent revenue bearing uses. For example, it may be desirable to allow the lending of a purchased work to permit exposure of the work to potential buyers. Another example would be to permit the creation of a derivative work for a fee. Yet another example would be to permit copying the work for a fee (essentially purchasing it). Thus, it would be desirable to provide flexibility in how the owner of a digital work may allow it to be distributed.

While flexibility in distribution is a concern, the owners of a work want to make sure they are paid for such distributions. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,977,594 to Shear, entitled "Database Usage Metering and Protection System and Method," a system for metering and billing for usage of information distributed on a CD-ROM is described. The system requires the addition of a billing module to the computer system. The billing module may operate in a number of different ways. First, it may periodically communicate billing data to a central billing facility, whereupon the user may be billed. Second, billing may occur by disconnecting the billing module and the user sending it to a central billing facility where the data is read and a user bill generated.

U.S. Pat. No. 5,247,575, Sprague et al., entitled "Information Distribution System", describes an information distribution system which provides and charges only for user selected information. A plurality of encrypted information packages (IPs) are provided at the user site, via high and/or low density storage media and/or by broadcast transmission. Some of the IPs may be of no interest to the user. The IPs of interest are selected by the user and are decrypted and stored locally. The IPs may be printed, displayed or even copied to other storage medias. The charges for the selected IP's are accumulated within a user apparatus and periodically reported by telephone to a central accounting facility. The central accounting facility also issues keys to decrypt the IPs. The keys are changed periodically. If the central accounting facility has not issued a new key for a particular user station, the station is unable to retrieve information from the system when the key is changed.

A system available from Wave Systems Corp. of Princeton, N.Y., provides for metering of software usage on a personal computer. The system is installed onto a computer and collects information on what software is in use, encrypts it and then transmits the information to a transaction center. From the transaction center, a bill is generated and sent to the user. The transaction center also maintains customer accounts so that licensing fees may be forwarded directly to the software providers. Software operating under this system must be modified so that usage can be accounted.

Known techniques for billing do not provide for billing of copies made of the work. For example, if data is copied from the CD-ROM described in Shear, any subsequent use of the copy of the information cannot be metered or billed. In other words, the means for billing runs with the media rather than the underlying work. It would be desirable to have a distribution system where the means for billing is always transported with the work.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A system for controlling use and distribution of composite digital works is disclosed. A composite digital work is comprised of one or more individual digital works. An individual digital work is any written, aural, graphical or video based work that has been translated to or created in a digital form, and which can be recreated using suitable rendering means such as software programs. A folder containing one or more digital works may be treated as a composite digital work. The present invention allows the owner of an individual digital work to attach usage rights to their work which are honored when the individual digital work is incorporated into a composite digital work. The usage rights for the work define how the individual digital work may be used and distributed. The aggregation of the usage rights of the individual digital works of a composite digital work, as well as usage rights attached to the composite digital work as a whole define how the composite digital work may be used and distributed.

A digital work is comprised of a description part and a content part. The description part contains control information for the composite digital work. The content part stores the actual digital data comprising the composite digital work. The description part is logically organized in an acyclic structure (e.g. a tree structure.) For a composite digital work each node of the acyclic structure represents an individual digital work or some distribution interest in the digital work. A node in the acyclic structure is comprised of an identifier of the individual work, usage rights for the individual digital work and a pointer to the digital work. In this representation, the description part may naturally be stored separately on a separate medium from the content part.

Composite digital works are stored in repositories. A repository is comprised of a storage means for storing a digital work and its attached usage rights, an external interface for receiving and transmitting data, a processor and a clock. A repository has two primary operating modes, a server mode and a requester mode. When operating in a server mode, the repository is responding to requests to access digital works. When operating in requester mode, the repository is requesting access to a digital work. A repository will process each request to access a composite digital work by examining the usage rights for each individual digital work found in the description part. Access is granted if the composite digital work if access to each of the individual digital works can be granted. Alternatively, if access to all the individual digital works cannot be granted, partial access can be granted only to those individual digital works which grant access.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating a simple instantiation of the operation of the currently preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the various repository types and the repository transaction flow between them in the currently preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a repository coupled with a credit server in the currently preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 4a and 4b are examples of rendering systems as may be utilized in the currently preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates a contents file layout for a digital work as may be utilized in the currently preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates a contents file layout for an individual digital work of the digital work of FIG. 5 as may be utilized in the currently preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 illustrates the components of a description block of the currently preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 illustrates a description tree for the contents file layout of the digital work illustrated in FIG. 5.

FIG. 9 illustrates a portion of a description tree corresponding to the individual digital work illustrated in FIG. 6.

FIG. 10 illustrates a layout for the rights portion of a description block as may be utilized in the currently preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a description tree wherein certain d-blocks have PRINT usage rights and is used to illustrate "strict" and "lenient" rules for resolving usage rights conflicts.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram of the hardware components of a repository as are utilized in the currently preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of the functional (logical) components of a repository as are utilized in the currently preferred embodim