SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT MODULE AND SOFTWARE REPRODUCTION MANAGEMENT DEVICE/SYSTEM

摘要

PURPOSE: To improve the security check efficiency and to attain the effective charging management without complicating the structure of a software storing medium by decoding the inputted ciphered software and then outputting this decoded software. CONSTITUTION: A decoding part 103 includes a mode indentification part 18 which consists of a DES and is controlled by a permission control part 108 to select the optimum one of various decoding modes in response to the software characteristic. The part 108 refers to a charging table 8 and permits the part 103 to perform a decoding processing job only when the charging balance is confirmed. Then the part 108 carries out the imposing a charge at a rate per unit of quantity to the table 8 in response to the reproduction of software and also informs an output part 109 of a fact that the charging balance is zero. Thus both parts 108 and 103 are included in a module that is loaded into a software reproduction device so that the software charging is attained with high security.