Methods and apparatus for digital rights management

Abstract

Apparatus and methods are provided to allow content protected by different digital rights management schemes from a plurality of content providers to be downloaded, played and/or viewed on a single consumer device, without regard to the original DRM scheme used to protect the content. The present invention acts as a type of proxy agent or intermediary for the consumer that has requested the content. The original DRM scheme of particular content is converted to a native DRM scheme compatible with the consumer device that has requested the content before the requested content is delivered to the consumer device. A network operator (e.g., a content delivery system operator) can therefore interface with multiple content providers having disparate DRM schemes, while maintaining a consistent DRM scheme on the operator's network and the associated consumer devices.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.