Information processing system for licensing content

摘要

A client (1-1,1-2) receives an encrypted content from a content server (3). The header of the content includes license-identifying information for identifying a license required in utilization of the content. The client requests a license server (4) to transmit a license identified by the license-identifying information. When receiving the request for a license, the license server (4) carries out a charging process before transmitting the license to the client(1-1). The client stores the license received from the license server. The stored license serves as a condition for encrypting and playing back the content. As a result, a content can be distributed with a high degree of freedom and only an authorized user is capable of utilizing the content.