Patent Application
20080178296
The present invention relates in general to a method for restricting access to computer-readable information contained in an information carrier, especially information stored on an optical disc. Further, the present invention relates to an information carrier with restricting access.
In the following, the phrase “information carrier” will be used as a general phrase indicating an entity which is capable of carrying information and be accessed by a reading device. In a specific case, the information carrier will be an optical disc, and the reading device will be an optical disc drive; the invention will hereinafter be explained in further detail for this case. It is noted, however, that the use of the invention is not restricted to optical discs. For instance, the information carrier may also involve a network, such as the Internet, comprising a memory with information, and the reading device may involve a personal computer linked to this network, either by a wired link or a wireless link.
As is known to persons skilled in the art, an optical storage disc comprises at least one track, either in the form of a continuous spiral or in the form of multiple concentric circles, of storage space where information may be stored in the form of a data pattern. Optical discs may be of the read-only type, where information is recorded during manufacturing, in which case a user can only read the information. The optical storage disc may also be a writable type, in which case a user can also store information. For reading information from the disc, an optical disc drive comprises, on the one hand, rotating means for receiving and rotating an optical disc, and on the other hand optical scanning means for generating an optical beam, typically a laser beam, and for scanning the storage track with said laser beam. Since the technology of optical discs in general, the way in which information can be stored on an optical disc, and the way in which information can be read from an optical disc, is commonly known, it is not necessary here to describe this technology in more detail.
The information on the disc may be of different types, resulting, if properly processed by a proper reading device, for instance in video or audio or photographs. The information on the disc may also contain executable instructions of a computer program (software). The information on the disc may also contain a database, for instance a list of bank numbers or the like. In the following, the word “content” will be used to relate to all possible types of information.
In principle, the content of an information carrier is accessible to each and every reader, as long as the reader is of a type corresponding to the type of information carrier. However, it may be that it is undesirable for a certain part of the content to be freely accessible. For instance, it may be that (part of) the content is secret. Or, it may be that (part of) the content has commercial value. By way of illustrative example, a film (movie) is mentioned. A commercial company may earn money by selling discs with one or more films stored thereon. Usually, if such disc has been sold, its contents can be viewed freely, as many times as the owner wishes. The disc may be given (or sold) to family and friends, who may also watch the film. The company receives its revenue only once: the selling price of the disc. Since this revenue is independent of the number of times that the film is watched, while the company wishes to take into account that the film is watched many times by other people, the selling price of the disc is relatively high, which makes it interesting to try to make illegal copies. In one aspect of the present invention it would be advantageous if the selling price was relatively low, whereas a small fee would be paid each time the film was played.
Thus, there is a general desire to restrict access to the content of a medium, where the access would only be allowed if the requesting user has fulfilled a predetermined condition; this condition may be the making of a certain payment, but the condition may also be the entering of a key word or the like.
In a typical prior art approach, information is shielded by coding schemes. The information is stored in a coded or encrypted manner, and can only be “used” by a user who has a key for decoding. The coded content is freely accessible to a reader, but without a key for decoding the reader has no access to the actual information.
A disadvantage of this prior art approach is that the reading apparatus must continuously perform the decoding operation on the information read from the disc, which requires high-quality processing speed and therefore a relatively expensive processor. A further disadvantage of this prior art approach is that, while avoiding unauthorized access to shielded information, it does not avoid multiple access by an authorized user. A further disadvantage of this prior art approach is that the rules implementing the decoding algorithm are fixed in the reading apparatus. A further disadvantage of this prior art approach is that, once an encryption key becomes public, all contents encrypted with this key become publicly available.
It is an objective of the present invention to overcome or at least reduce all or at least some of the above problems.
According to an important aspect of the present invention, an information carrying medium carries at least one application. It is noted that the BD-J standard (or BD-J specification), which is still under development, allows Java applications to be stored on disc, but the invention is not restricted to Java applications: the principles of the present invention can be practiced irrespective of the language of the applications.
A reader which is designed to support the application in accordance with the present invention, will recognize the presence of the application, will read the application and store it in its memory. The application may be self-starting, but it may also be that the application only starts running after receiving a user-command.
Once running, the application will control the access to the information on the medium. Thus, the application, acting as a guard dog as it were, may give access to certain information if it finds that a predetermined condition has been fulfilled, such as for instance a certain fee has been paid. In a reader which does not support the application to take control, or in a case where the user does not start the application, or in a case where the user does not fulfil the predetermined condition, the user will find that some part or all information on the disc is not available to him.
Thus, it is possible that each film has its own guard dog application, and that different films have different guard dog applications. In fact, each film distributor may develop its own applications for guarding the contents of its own discs.
These and other aspects, features and advantages of the present invention will be further explained by the following description of a preferred embodiment with reference to the drawings, in which the same reference numerals indicate the same or similar parts, and in which:
In a particular example, the optical disc may be a BluRay Disc, especially a disc according to the BD-J format/standard.
In an illustrative example, the disc contains a film (movie). The disc may also contain a documentary. Whatever the nature of the contents of the disc, it typically involves a combination of images (video) and sound (audio).
The reproduction system 1 comprises a reader 3, in this example an optical disc drive, for reading information from the disc 2 and for generating a video output signal SV for an image display device 4A, for instance a monitor or a television screen or the like, of a display apparatus 4. The drive 3 will also generate an audio output signal SA for one or more loudspeakers 4B of the display device 4.
The disc drive 3 comprises a data processing device 6, typically implemented, at least partially, in software. This data processing device 6 receives and processes the incoming data read from disc to generate the display signal SA, SV.
In
The disc 2 may contain more than one film 20.
According to an important feature of the present invention, the disc 2 contains at least one film with restricted access. The fact that a film is not freely accessible is indicated in
According to an important feature of the present invention, a film 20A, 20B with restricted access, as stored on disc, comprises data 22 representing the actual pictures and audio, plus data 21 representing application software. Typically, each film will have its own application software, but it is also possible for the disc 2 to contain only one application common to all films 20. It is noted that the BD-J standard, which is still under development, allows Java applications to be stored on disc, but the invention is not restricted to Java applications: the principles of the present invention can be practiced irrespective of the language of the applications. With the application software 21 running, it becomes an integral part of the data processing device 6 of the disc drive 3. In the case of the BD-J example, it is noted that any disc drive which is BD-J compliant will run the application 21 as part of its data processing device 6. A disc drive which is not BD-J compliant will generate its display signal S on the basis of the data 22 in the usual way, without benefiting from the advantages offered by the application software 21 of the present invention.
It is noted that a film which is freely accessible does not need to have an associated application, as illustrated for movie 20C. On the other hand, it is also possible that an unrestricted movie 20C also has an application associated therewith.
The disc drive 3 is designed to determine whether or not the selected film 20 has application software 21 associated therewith. It is noted that, as films, whether restricted (20A, 20B) or unrestricted (20C), always have application software associated therewith, the disc drive 3 does not need to investigate whether the selected film 20 has application software 21 associated therewith.
In case a film (20C) selected by the user does not have application software associated therewith, the disc drive may read and play the film as usual. In the following it will be assumed that the user has selected a film with restricted access.
Thus, in response to receiving the user selection, the disc drive 3 is designed to first read the application software 21 associated with the selected film 20, and store it in its memory 5, as illustrated in
The application software 21 determines the access to the associated film; therefore, in the following, the application software 21 will be indicated as “access application”. It is an important feature of the present invention that the access application is associated with the film on disc. This allows a disc manufacturer, or a movie editor, to freely determine how access to the film is defined and protected. It is not necessary to incorporate such access application into the standard software resident in the disc drive, nor are manufacturers or editors confined by “old” access application definitions. After having designed a “new” access application associated with a certain film, such film can be played even with existing players without the need for modifying those players, simply because the “new” access application will automatically be provided in association with the film, and an existing player will automatically read and hence “obey” the “new” access application.
In a possible embodiment, the film 20B contains a free film portion 24 and a restricted film portion 23. For instance, the free film portion 24 may involve a commercial showing what the actual film (i.e. restricted film portion 23) is about, so as to stimulate the user's interest. As another example, the free film portion 24 may involve a first part of the actual film, while the remainder part of the film is restricted.
With the access application 21 running, the disc drive 3 receives the data relating to the free film portion 24 of movie 20B, which is processed by processing device 6 to generate an output signal SV, SA for the display apparatus 4, allowing the user to watch this film portion 24. Then, when the disc drive 3 reaches the end of the free film portion 24, reading and display of the film will be stopped, and a message will be displayed on the screen 4A, inviting the user to perform a payment transaction in order to be able to watch the remainder of the movie.
It is noted that, in case the entire movie 20A has restricted access, this invitation will be displayed immediately after receiving the user's choice, without first displaying a free movie portion.
It is further noted that, instead of performing a payment transaction, the user may be invited to perform some other kind of action, as predefined in the access software for meeting a condition defined in the access software. The nature of this action is not critical for implementing the present invention; by way of example, it is even possible that the user has to enter a certain code. Such action will hereinafter in general be referred to as de-blocking action.
The access application 21 is designed to check whether the de-blocking action has been performed correctly. For instance, the disc drive 3 may be associated with a payment device 31, for instance a card reader for reading a credit card or chip card or the like, capable of communicating a remote payment instruction through a network 33 such as for instance the Internet or a telephone network. It is also possible that the payment device 31 involves a PC for logging in on a website of a disc distributor, receiving a de-blocking code from this site if the user had previously arranged payment, for instance by wiring transfer. In any case, a signal SDBA issued by the payment device 31, indicating that the user has correctly performed the de-blocking action, is received by the access application 21. If the access application 21 finds that the de-blocking action has been performed correctly, the disc drive 3 will continue reading the restricted film portion 23 of the film 20B and displaying this film portion on the display apparatus 4.
An important advantage of the present invention is that it allows a distributor to design the access application so as to ensure that a payment is made each time a user wishes to watch the restricted film portion 23. If the user wishes to watch the film more than once, the distributor receives payment more than once. This advantage is also achieved if the user makes a copy of the disc: the copy will have the same contents as the original, including the access application, and display of the copy is only possible after making a payment.
On the other hand, it may happen that a user who is watching the restricted film portion 23 after having made a payment wishes to interrupt the display, take out the disc from the disc drive, and resume display at a later time. It would be preferred that the user need not pay again. Therefore, in a preferred embodiment, the access application is designed, in response to receiving a stop and eject command from the user, to store in the memory 5 interruption information relating to the identity of the disc, the film currently being watched, the current location within the film, and the status “unblocked”, i.e. indication that the user has paid for watching this film but has only watched up to a certain location. The access application is further designed, when a user enters a disc and selects a certain film, to consult this memory 5 for such interruption information and, if it finds interruption information relating to the film selected by the user, to display a message indicating that the user has ended a previous session without watching the film up to the end, and inviting the user to indicate that he wishes to continue watching the movie from the location where he left it. Then, in response to receiving a corresponding user command, the access application may start playing the movie from this location, or preferably starting some time before this location to allow the user to “recognize”, without asking for a further payment, i.e. without checking the de-blocking action.
In one possible embodiment, film data themselves are stored in a normal way, accessible to the disc drive, while the access application is designed to simply deny access to the restricted film portion 23 until it finds that the de-blocking action has been performed correctly. The denial may just involve playout (including fast forward and fast reverse), but the denial may also involve selection of and jumps to hidden contents. This simple approach functions properly as long as a properly designed disc drive is used, i.e. a disc drive complying with the requirement that disc access always be controlled by an access application read from a disc. It would, however, be possible to build a non-compliant disc drive which ignores any access application; such non-compliant disc drive would be able to access the disc contents, restricted or not, irrespective of any payment made by the user.
In a preferred embodiment, it is ensured that the disc drive is obliged to run the access application, or else the film cannot be watched. In such implementation, a restricted film portion would be protected against access by a non-compliant disc drive. An example of such preferred embodiment will be discussed with reference to
It is possible that all clips are stored on the disc 2 in the order in which they are played. Then, in the storage space, the first frame of a clip follows immediately behind the last frame of the previous clip, and the film can simply be read from the disc in a sequential order.
However, in general the clips are not necessarily stored in a sequential order. In
Each storage portion 43-1, 43-2, 43-3, 43-4 contains one corresponding clip 41. Clips may be written in adjacent storage portions (see portions 43-2 and 43-3), but it is also possible for the storage space between adjacent clips to be empty (see between portions 43-3 and 43-4) or contains information relating to a different film. In any case, the track order of the storage portions 43-1, 43-2, 43-3, 43-4 does not necessarily correspond to the playing order of the clips 41-i.
In
Thus, in general, a film 20 comprising N clips 41-1 to 41-N is associated with a play list PL, also stored on the disc as illustrated in
When a disc drive starts reading a film, it first reads the play list PL and stores this list in its memory 5. Then, the disc drive starts reading the first clip 41-1 of the movie at first starting address A(1). Undisturbed playback is only possible if the playlist PL is correct. According to a possible implementation of the present invention, the playlist is manipulated in order to prevent a non-compliant disc drive from reading the film.
In a possible embodiment, illustrated in
In another possible embodiment, the playlist PL as stored on the disc, as far as the locations are concerned where clips 41-i for i=M+1 to N of the restricted film portion 23 are stored, contains erroneous addresses AE(i), causing further playback on the basis of this list to result in garbage. In this embodiment, the access application 21 may contain a replacement playlist RPL relating to the correct starting locations P(i) of the locations where clips of the restricted film portion 23 are stored; after having found that the user has performed the de-blocking act, the access application 21 uses this replacement playlist RPL for continuing playback. It is also possible that the access application contains a formula for calculating correct addresses on the basis of the addresses contained in the playlist PL as stored on the disc. In a simple embodiment, an erroneous address AE(i) may be calculated on the basis of a correct address AC(i) using a formula AE(i)=2·AC(i). Then, during playback under the control of the access application, clip 41-i is found by the access application at address AL(i)/2, wherein AL(i) indicates the address as mentioned for the i-th clip in the list PL as stored on disc.
In yet another possible embodiment, the playlist PL as stored on the disc, as far as the locations are concerned where clips 41-i for i=M+1 to N of the restricted movie portion 23 are stored, contains only one address AX, resulting in repeated playback of only one clip. In this embodiment, the access application 21 may contain a replacement playlist RPL relating to the correct addresses P(i) of the locations where clips of the restricted film portion 23 are stored; after having found that the user has performed the de-blocking act, the access application 21 uses this replacement playlist RPL for continuing playback.
Thus, in the above examples, the playlist PL of a film 20, as stored on disc 2, deviates from the correct playlist, and only the access application 21 has information capable of constructing a correct list. A non-compliant disc drive may be capable of playing on the basis on the playlist PL, but this does not result in playing the desired film since the playlist contains incorrect information.
The access application may be designed to operate on the basis of different operational principles. For example, the access application may be designed to allow playback of the first 5 minutes of a film, i.e. on the basis of a time code.
Further, the access application may be designed to monitor the portion of the film that is being played. If it finds that a restricted portion is being played, the access application may stop the playback. Such solution is useful if it is possible for a user to jump towards a restricted area. On the other hand, it is also possible for the access application to be designed to monitor navigation information, specifically user commands and, if it finds that the user issues an illegal command (for instance a fast forward or feed command, if such would result in entering a restricted portion of the film), to suppress this command.
It should be clear to a person skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to the exemplary embodiments discussed above, but that several variations and modifications are possible within the protective scope of the invention as defined in the appending claims. For instance, the film data may also be encrypted, with only the access application having the corresponding key for decryption.
Further, the playlist may be subdivided into play items.
In the above, the present invention has been explained with reference to block diagrams, which illustrate functional blocks of the device according to the present invention. It is to be understood that one or more of these functional blocks may be implemented in hardware, where the function of such functional block is performed by individual hardware components, but it is also possible that one or more of these functional blocks are implemented in software, so that the function of such functional block is performed by one or more program lines of a computer program or a programmable device such as a microprocessor, microcontroller, digital signal processor, etc.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 05102452.9 | Mar 2005 | EP | regional |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/IB06/50803 | 3/15/2006 | WO | 00 | 9/24/2007 |
