Blockchain-based digital rights management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11258587-B2
Application number	US-201715458807-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 14, 2017
Priority date	Oct 20, 2016
Publication date	Feb 22, 2022
Grant date	Feb 22, 2022

Abstract

Generating a rights blockchain storing rights of a user, including: receiving an enrollment request and a public key from the user; verifying that the user has a private key corresponding to the public key; generating a user identifier using the public key; and generating and delivering the rights blockchain having a genesis block including the user identifier to the user.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for generating a rights blockchain storing rights of a user, the method comprising:
receiving, at a registration authority, an enrollment request and a public key from the user;
verifying, at the registration authority, that the user has a private key corresponding to the public key;
generating, at the registration authority, a user identifier using the public key;
generating and delivering, at the registration authority, the rights blockchain having a genesis block including the user identifier to the user; and
updating, at the registration authority, the rights blockchain including a new block having a content identifier of a protected content, associated usage rights, a hash of the new block, and a hash of a block subsequent to the new block,
wherein the protected content includes the content identifier, a scrambled essence, and a control word, which is a random number generated by a content provider,
wherein the scrambled essence is descrambled using the control word.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising
requesting a different public key when the public key is already registered.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising
receiving information from the content provider that the user has acquired the protected content having the content identifier.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the associated usage rights include
a list of licensed languages and subtitle languages.

5. An apparatus for generating a rights blockchain storing rights of a user, the apparatus comprising:
means for receiving an enrollment request and a public key from the user,
means for verifying that the user has a private key corresponding to the public key,
means for generating a user identifier using the public key,
means for generating and delivering the rights blockchain having a genesis block including the user identifier to the user, and
means for updating the rights blockchain including a new block having a content identifier of a protected content, associated usage rights, a hash of the new block, and a hash of a block subsequent to the new block,
wherein the protected content includes the content identifier, a scrambled essence, and a control word, which is a random number generated by a content provider, wherein the scrambled essence is descrambled using the control word.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 , further comprising
wherein the content provider informs a registration authority that the user has acquired a content.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 , further comprising
means for receiving and updating the rights blockchain with a new block having a content identifier of the content and associated usage rights.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the content provider is also configured to scramble the content corresponding to the content identifier in the updated rights blockchain and to generate a scrambled version of the content.

9. A method for performing digital rights management of a content using a rights blockchain storing rights of a user, the method comprising:
receiving, at a DRM agent, a protected content including a content identifier, a scrambled essence, and an encrypted control word, which is a random number generated by a content provider,
wherein the scrambled essence is an essence of the content scrambled using the encrypted control word to protect it from unauthorized uses;
receiving, at the DRM agent, the rights blockchain and credentials of the user;
searching, at the DRM agent, the rights blockchain for a first block that contains the content identifier of the protected content;
decrypting, at the DRM agent, the encrypted control word when a signature and usage rights in the first block are determined to be valid; and
descrambling, at the DRM agent, the scrambled essence using the decrypted control word to produce the essence of the content.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
performing, at the DRM agent, an integrity check of the rights blockchain to determine that the rights blockchain has not been compromised or tampered with.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the rights blockchain includes a genesis block having a user identifier of the user, and the credentials of the user are cryptographically linked to the user identifier.

12. The method of claim 9 , further comprising
determining, at the DRM agent, whether the signature and the usage rights of the first block are valid.

13. A method for generating a rights blockchain storing rights of a user to consume an item of content, the method comprising:
receiving, at a registration authority, an enrollment request and a public key from the user and verifying that the user has a private key corresponding to the public key;
generating, at a registration authority, a genesis block including a user identifier of the user using the public key; and
generating and adding, at a registration authority, a new block having a content identifier of the item of content, associated usage rights, a hash of the new block, and a hash of a block subsequent to the new block,
wherein the item of content also includes a content identifier, a scrambled essence, and a control word, which is a random number generated by a content provider, and
wherein the scrambled essence is descrambled using the control word.

Assignees

• Sony Corp
• Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc

Inventors

• Diehl Eric

Classifications

• G06F21/105 Primary

  Arrangements for software license management or administration, e.g. for managing licenses at corporate level · CPC title

• H04L9/0838

  Key agreement, i.e. key establishment technique in which a shared key is derived by parties as a function of information contributed by, or associated with, each of these (network architectures or network communication protocols for key exchange in a packet data network H04L63/061) · 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

• H04L9/30

  Public key, i.e. encryption algorithm being computationally infeasible to invert or user's encryption keys not requiring secrecy · CPC title

• H04L9/0819 Primary

  Key transport or distribution, i.e. key establishment techniques where one party creates or otherwise obtains a secret value, and securely transfers it to the other(s) (network architectures or network communication protocols for key distribution in a packet data network H04L63/062) · CPC title