System and method for home network content protection and copy management

摘要

A private home entertainment system including plural playback devices can receive discrete content that can be played by any appropriate publicly available devices. The home system can convert the discrete content to content that is bound to the private network using, e.g., cryptographic keys. The bound content can be freely copied and played among the devices in the private network but cannot be played outside the private network. Should the user elect to convert bound content back to discrete content to permit playing the content outside the network, all bound copies in the network are destroyed or otherwise rendered unusable.