Hopscotch ticketing

A method for controlling access to encrypted content, comprising the steps of:

• establishing a first secure communications relationship between a first system and a second system, and a second secure communications relationship between the first system and a third system;
• establishing a third secure communications relationship between the second system and the third system and a fourth secure communications relationship between the second system and a fourth system;
• receiving, via the first secure communications relationship, an identification of the encrypted content;
• generating, responsive to the received identification, a response including a decryption key for the content, the response encrypted with a plurality of levels of encryption;
• and
• providing, via the first and third secure communications relationships, the response to the third system;
• wherein:
• the third system is adapted to remove a level of encryption from the response to produce a partially-decrypted response and provide the partially-decrypted response to the fourth system via the fourth secure communications relationship;
• and
• the fourth system is adapted to decrypt the partially-decrypted response and access the decryption key for the encrypted content.

A method for controlling access to encrypted content, comprising the steps of:

• receiving an identification of the encrypted content;
• generating, responsive to the identification of the encrypted content, a response including a decryption key for the content, the response encrypted with a plurality of levels of encryption;
• and
• providing the response to a distributor system;
• wherein:
• the distributor system is adapted to remove a level of encryption from the response to produce a partially-decrypted response and provide the partially-decrypted response to an end-user system;
• and
• the end-user system is adapted decrypt the partially-decrypted response and access the decryption key for the encrypted content.

A system for controlling access to encrypted content, the system comprising:

• a distributor having the encrypted content;
• a service center adapted to communicate with an end-user and the distributor, the service center having secret data shared with the end-user;
• and
• a content owner adapted to communicate with the service center and the distributor, the content owner having secret data shared with the distributor;
• wherein:
• the distributor is adapted to provide the content to an end-user responsive to receiving an end-user ID identifying the end-user and a content ID identifying the content, provide the end-user ID, content ID, and a distributor ID identifying the distributor to the service center, remove a second level of encryption from a key for the content identified by the content ID, and provide the key for the content identified by the content ID to the end-user;
• the service center is adapted to generate a key for the end-user responsive to the end-user ID and the data shared with the end-user, and to provide the end-user ID, content ID, distributor ID, and key for the end-user to the content owner;
• and
• the content owner is adapted to generate the key for the content responsive to the content ID, encrypt the key for the content with the key for the end-user to produce a first level of encryption, generate a key for the distributor responsive to the distributor ID and the data shared with the distributor, encrypt the key for the content with the key for the distributor to produce the second level of encryption;
• and provide the key for the content to the distributor.

A computer program product comprising:

• a computer-readable medium having computer program code embodied therein for controlling access to encrypted content, the computer program code comprising:
• a module for receiving an identification of the encrypted content;
• a module for generating, responsive to the identification of the encrypted content, a response including a decryption key for the content, the response encrypted with a plurality of levels of encryption;
• and
• a module for providing the response to a distributor system;
• wherein:
• the distributor system is adapted to remove a level of encryption from the response to produce a partially-decrypted response and provide the partially-decrypted response to an end-user system;
• and
• the end-user system is adapted to decrypt the partially-decrypted response and access the decryption key for the encrypted content.

A system for controlling access to encrypted content, comprising:

• means for distributing encrypted content to a distributor, the content identified by a content identification (ID) and the distributor identified by a distributor ID;
• means for receiving the content ID, the distributor ID, and an end-user ID identifying an end-user seeking access to the content from the distributor identified by the distributor ID;
• means for identifying a key for the content identified by the content ID;
• means for encrypting the key for the content, wherein the key for the content can be decrypted by only the end-user identified by the end-user ID;
• and
• means for providing the encrypted key for the content to the end-user identified by the end-user ID.

A method for securing content for distribution in a hopscotch ticketing system, comprising the steps of:

• generating a content key for the content;
• generating reference data for the content;
• generating an encryption key for the content responsive to the content key and the reference data;
• and
• encrypting at least some of the content with the encryption key for the content.