Digital rights management in virtual and augmented reality

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10430559-B2
Application number	US-201615297032-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 18, 2016
Priority date	Oct 18, 2016
Publication date	Oct 1, 2019
Grant date	Oct 1, 2019

Abstract

Digital rights management techniques are described that address traits of a behavior of a user population that is to interact with digital content as part of a virtual or augmented reality environment. A digital rights management (DRM) module is implemented to manage a digital rights management policy to dynamically address traits and changes to the traits of a behavior of users that consume the digital content as part of an augmented or virtual reality environment. In another example, the DRM module may be configured to control access to physical objects through use of digital content output by an output device as part of the augmented or virtual reality environment.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. In a digital medium environment, a method implemented by at least one computing device having a hardware processor, computer-readable storage media and instructions stored on the computer-readable storage media and executable by the hardware processor, the method comprising:
obtaining, by the at least one computing device, data describing user traits of users responsive to requests received from the users to access digital content as part of an augmented or virtual reality environment;
determining, by the at least one computing device, from the data using a digital rights management module whether the user traits meet specified traits of a behavior of a digital rights management policy enforced by the digital rights management module;
responsive to the determining that the specified traits are met by a first set of the user traits, rendering, by the at least one computing device, a first portion of the digital content along with content of the augmented or virtual reality environment; and
responsive to the determining that the specified traits are met by a second set of the user traits, rendering, by the at least one computing device, a second portion of the digital content along with the content of the augmented or virtual reality environment, the first set of the user traits and the second set of the user traits are mutually exclusive sets of the user traits.

2. A method as described in claim 1 , wherein the specified traits of the behavior are not unique to the users.

3. A method as described in claim 1 , wherein the digital rights management module is implemented by the at least one computing device as part of a digital rights management system that is accessible via a network to at least one other computing device that is configured to render the digital content as part of the augmented or virtual reality environment for viewing by the users.

4. A method as described in claim 3 , wherein the data describing the user traits is obtained from the at least one other computing device.

5. A method as described in claim 3 , wherein the data describing the user traits is obtained by the at least one other computing device from an analytics service provider via the network.

6. A method as described in claim 1 , wherein the specified traits of the behavior include at least one of: age, gender, geographic location, membership in a particular organization, business status, job title, or characteristics of a device used to access the content.

7. A method as described in claim 1 , wherein the first portion of the digital content is configured to control access to a physical object as part of the augmented or virtual reality environment.

8. A method as described in claim 1 , wherein the specified traits of the behavior are specific to a target population.

9. A method as described in claim 1 , wherein the specified traits of the behavior include environmental traits.

10. In a digital medium environment, a method implemented by at least one computing device having a hardware processor, computer-readable storage media and instructions stored on the computer-readable storage media and executable by the hardware processor to implement a digital rights management module to control access to a view of portions of digital content, the method comprising:
rendering, by the computing device, content included as part of an augmented or virtual reality environment;
displaying, by the at least one computing device, a representation of the digital content in which individual portions that are included as part of the digital content are not viewable, the representation of the digital content being displayed along with the content included as part of the augmented or virtual reality environment;
obtaining, by the at least one computing device, data describing user traits associated with users of the at least one computing device through use of a digital rights management module;
determining, by the at least one computing device, from the data using the digital rights management module that a first set of the user traits and a second set of the user traits meet specified traits of a behavior of a digital rights management policy enforced by the digital rights management module, the first set of the user traits and the second set of the user traits are mutually exclusive sets of the user traits; and
displaying, by the at least one computing device, a first portion and a second portion of the individual portions that are included as part of the digital content responsive to the digital rights management module determining that the first and second sets of the user traits meet the specified traits of the behavior of the digital rights management policy.

11. A method as described in claim 10 , wherein the specified traits of the behavior are not unique to the users.

12. A method as described in claim 10 , wherein the specified traits of the behavior include at least one of: age, gender, geographic location, membership in a particular organization, business status, job title, or characteristics of a device used to access the digital content.

13. A method as described in claim 10 , wherein the specified traits of the behavior are specific to a target population.

14. In a digital medium environment, a system comprising:
a hardware output device configured to provide an output as part of an augmented or virtual reality environment;
at least one hardware sensor configured to detect a physical environment in which the sensor is disposed; and
a digital rights management module implemented at least partially by hardware of a computing device to:
receive an input from the at least one sensor that describes the physical environment;
identify a physical object in the physical environment based on the received input;
determine from data describing user traits associated with users as to whether a first set of the user traits and a second set of the user traits meet specified traits of a behavior of a digital rights management policy, the first set of the user traits and the second set of the user traits are mutually exclusive sets of the user traits; and
control access via the output device to the physical object as part of the augmented or virtual reality environment based on the determination, the control of the access to the physical object comprising selecting to display a first and a second portion of digital content relative to the physical object as part of the augmented or virtual reality environment.

15. A system as described in claim 14 , wherein the specified traits of the behavior are not unique to the users.

16. A system as described in claim 14 , wherein the control of the access via the output device includes obscuring a view of the physical object as part of the augmented or virtual reality environment responsive to the determining of the digital rights management module that the first set of the user traits does not meet the specified traits of the behavior of the digital rights management policy.

17. A system as described in claim 14 , wherein the control of the access via the output device includes obscuring sound associated with the physical object as part of the augmented or virtual reality environment responsive to the determining of the digital rights management module that the first set of the user traits does not meet the specified traits of the behavior of the digital rights management policy.

18. A system as described in claim 14 , wherein the control of the access via the output device includes providing a view of the physical object as part of

Assignees

• Adobe Inc

Inventors

• Anantharaman Arun

Classifications

• G06F2221/0713

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F3/011 Primary

  Arrangements for interaction with the human body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality (blind teaching G09B21/00) · CPC title

• G06F21/10 Primary

  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 title

• G06F21/1015

  to users · CPC title