Content longevity with user device domains

A digital rights method with central management of user device domains, comprising:

• establishing a trusted third-party domain manager;
• receiving, at the trusted third-party domain manager, a request to add a device to a user device domain operative to receive digital content items and associated licenses from a content provider;
• determining whether to grant the request;
• providing a domain private key to the device of the request is granted, the domain private key being usable at the device to decrypt a content key released to the user device domain for decrypting protected digital content;
• and
• performing said receiving, determining and transmitting steps for a plurality of other devices and a plurality of other user device domains associated with a plurality of other content providers, where the content provider and the plurality of other content providers are independent of one another.

A system for providing trusted third-party management of DRM domains for a plurality of content providers, comprising:

• a device registrar operative to receive, and determine whether to grant, requests to add devices to, and remove devices from, user device domains associated with multiple different user accounts of a plurality of different content providers that are independent of one another;
• a domain controller operative, for each of the user device domains, to cause release of a domain private key to properly registered devices of the user device domain;
• and
• a backup store which is operative, for each of the user device domains, to:
• store backup copies of digital content items and backup copies of licenses associated with the digital content items, the digital content items being previously licensed to the user device domain via provision of the licenses;
• and
• use the backup copies of the digital content items and the backup copies of the licenses associated with the digital content items to provide automatic synchronization of at least some content across multiple devices of the user device domain.