WO2008026793A1

WO2008026793A1 - System for providing digital contents by using digital fingerprinting

Info

Publication number: WO2008026793A1
Application number: PCT/KR2006/003958
Authority: WO
Inventors: Young Ho Suh; Jin Soo Seo; Sang Kwang Lee; Seungjae Lee
Original assignee: Electronics And Telecommunications Research Institute
Priority date: 2006-08-30
Filing date: 2006-10-02
Publication date: 2008-03-06
Also published as: JP4987978B2; KR100752511B1; CN101507174A; JP2009545023A

Abstract

A system for providing digital contents by using digital fingerprinting includes a contents generation server (140) for generating the digital contents; a clearing house (130) for issuing license of the contents to the client (100) and generating fingerprint information from informatin related to contents purchase information; a fingerprint management server (120) for generating fingerprint code based on the fingerprint information; and a contents distribution server (110) for delivering the contents to the client after inserting the fingerprint code into the contents in watermark form. By generating fingerprint code from information such as copyright holder of the contents, contents provider, etc. and insering the fingerprint code into the contents in watermark form, an illegal distributor can be traced with the fingerprint watermark, although digital contents provided to the client may be illegally copied and re-distributed. Digital content is not encrypted in order for purchaser to replay it on other media devices.

Description

SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING DIGITAL CONTENTS BY USING

DIGITAL FINGERPRINTING

Technical Field

[1] The present invention relates to a system for providing digital contents; and, more particularly, to a system for providing digital contents which uses digital fingerprinting so as to trace illegal distribution of the digital contents and to freely replay purchased contents in any media devices.

[2]

Background Art

[3] As digital signal processing and compressing techniques along with communication-networking techniques or the like have been developed, electronic commerce has been pervasive, and producing and merchandising of digital multimedia contents such as music, images, moving pictures and the like have also been receiving growing interest. In addition, to maximize profits under new distribution environment, rapid digitalization of traditional-content industries such as publication, education, and movie industries are on progress. From purchaser's point of view, it is possible to replay the contents not only on conventional computers but also on various other portable devices including MP3P, PMP, PDA and mobile phone. This development has enabled a purchaser to enjoy purchased contents in any time and any place.

[4] Digital Rights Management (DRM) technique has been hinted from the above- mentioned background. DRM is a technique which provides a package support in manufacturing, distributing and managing of digital contents, such as securely protecting the rights and profits of contents provider, preventing illegal copy, billing, and preparing payments. Moreover, DRM further includes all of the followings: digital copyright management technique enabling only permitted users to have access to digital contents while paying right fees thereof; software for licensing and exercising copyrights; and techniques for security and payments.

[5] DRM technique is based on DOI (Digital Object Identifier) serving as contents identifier, INDECS (Interoperability of Data in E-commerce Systems) for writing necessary data for electronic commerce and watermarking technique for preventing illegal copy or falsification. DOI is an identification number assigned to digital contents, and watermarking is a technique for concealing secret information in digital data and verifying digital copyright holder when a conflict of copyright issue arises. By equipping security certification system on all contents, DRM allows access to the contents only if prescribed fee is paid. [6] Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram to describe digital contents providing system in accordance with the prior art.

[7] As shown in Fig. 1, digital contents providing system adopting DRM in accordance with the prior art includes a client 10 such as a computer, portable devices or the like; a contents distribution server 20 connected to the client 10 through the wired/wireless internet to provide encrypted digital contents; a clearing house 30 for issuing license of the digital contents to-be-provided to the client 10; and a contents generation server 40 which generates and manages the digital contents to-be-provided to the client 10 just prior to delivering the contents to the contents distribution server 20.

[8] In case the client 10 connects with the contents distribution server 20 to request purchase of specific digital contents, the contents distribution server 20 delivers purchase information provided from the client 10 to the clearing house 30. The clearing house 30 then delivers the purchase information to the contents generation server 40 and issues license to the client 10. Upon issuing the license, the contents distribution server 20 receives and encrypts the contents generated by the content generation server 40 and then provides the contents to the client 10 with the issued license.

[9] As aforementioned, however, in conventional digital contents providing system, copyright of the digital contents can be protected and managed via the DRM method just before the contents reaches the client.

[10] In other words, the conventional method based on encryption has no coun- termeasure against re-distribution of the decrypted contents, supplied from a rightful purchaser with illegal intention, to other media. In reality, digital multimedia contents such as music files or moving pictures are mostly distributed in a decrypted condition after being captured during replaying of the contents. Thus, this type of conventional encryption methods is sure to have limitations in protecting copyright of digital multimedia contents.

[11] In order to overcome the above drawbacks, Korean Patent No. 10-0411376 proposes a method for protecting information relating to replay by way of inserting purchaser's information in watermark form at client side. Also, Korean Patent Laid- open Application No. 10-2004-0046676 proposes a method for inserting contents ID and usage control metadata in watermark form at server side in broadcasting environment where access control can be performed.

[12] However, because all of the two methods are designed to insert limited information into contents in watermark form at server side and use encryption technique, it is inevitably restrictive to use them as media independent open DRM system. Further, a watermark inserter in client side has a side effect that it can be exposed to malicious attacks such as hacking and the like. Disclosure of Invention Technical Problem

[14] It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a system for providing digital contents using digital fingerprinting, wherein information on digital contents such as copyright holder of the contents, contents provider, etc. is inserted into the contents in fingerprint watermark form so that, though digital contents provided to client are illegally copied and re-distributed, illegal distributor can be traced by the watermark, and wherein the contents are not encrypted so that purchasers can replay the contents while freely changing media devices for replaying the contents.

[15]

Technical Solution

[16] To achieve the object of the present invention, there is provided a system for providing digital contents to a client, the system including:

[17] a contents generation server for generating the digital contents;

[18] a clearing house for issuing license of the contents to the client and generating fingerprint information from contents-related information related to the contents according to contents purchase information;

[19] a fingerprint management server for generating fingerprint code based on the fingerprint information; and

[20] a contents distribution server for delivering the contents to the client after inserting the fingerprint code into the contents in watermark form.

[21]

Advantageous Effects

[22] In accordance with the present invention which aims to replace the conventional encryption-based closed DRM system, fingerprint information is inserted directly into the contents in watermark form without encrypting the contents. This enables a purchaser to replay the contents while freely changing media including all media devices capable of replaying contents such as computer, MP3P, PMP, PDA, mobile phone, etc., thereby maximizing convenience of contents migration between different kinds of media.

[23] In addition, if the contents in which fingerprint information is inserted in watermark form is illegally re-distributed through some other merchandising servers or public networks such as P2P, web-hard, cafe, bulletin board type web-hard, or the like, a watermark detector can detect such illegal activities; therefore both rights of copyright holder and convenience of purchaser can be achieved. Moreover, in case of the fingerprint information being inserted into the contents in watermark form, the in- formation can be extracted while transforming the contents to analog data, thereby protecting rights of copyright holder of digital contents through the following ways: by searching the contents being illegally distributed through the Internet or wireless networks; controlling the illegal distribution; and exterminating the illegal act. Consequently, revitalization of digital contents industry can be expedited. [24]

Brief Description of the Drawings

[25] The above and other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of preferred embodiments given in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

[26] Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram to describe digital contents providing system in accordance with the prior art;

[27] Fig. 2 illustrates a schematic diagram to describe digital contents providing system using digital fingerprinting in accordance with the present invention;

[28] Fig. 3 presents a detailed block diagram of fingerprint management server shown in

Fig. 2; and

[29] Fig. 4 provides a detailed block diagram of contents distribution server shown in

Fig. 2.

[30]

Best Mode for Carrying Out the Invention

[31] Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[32] Fig. 2 illustrates a schematic diagram to describe digital contents providing system using digital fingerprinting in accordance with the present invention.

[33] As shown in Fig. 2, the system for providing digital contents includes a client 100 which may include computers, portable devices, or the like and is provided with fingerprint watermarked contents; a contents distribution server 110 connected with the client 100 through wired/wireless internet for providing the fingerprint watermarked contents; a fingerprint management server 120 for generating fingerprint code after receiving fingerprint information, e.g., all or some of the information on copyright holder relating to contents distribution, contents provider(CP), service provider(P2P/SP), purchaser, content ID, fee, and usage policy from clearing house 130; a clearing house 130 for providing digital contents license to the client 100 after receiving purchase information of contents purchaser from contents distribution server 110; and a contents generation server 140 for delivering the contents to the contents distribution server 110 after generating and managing the contents to-be-provided to the client 100. [34] In operation, when the contents distribution server 110 receives purchase request of specific digital contents from the client 100, the digital contents providing system in accordance with the present invention transmits the inputted purchase information to the clearing house 130. Further, the clearing house 130 transmits the purchase information transmitted by the contents distribution server 110 to the contents generation server 140 while issuing a license to the client 100 requesting the purchase at the same time.

[35] The clearing house 130 transmits to the fingerprint management server 120 the fingerprint information generated through means of using the purchase information transmitted by the contents distribution server 110 and contents information transmitted by the contents generation server 140.

[36] The fingerprint management server 120 transmits the fingerprint code to the contents distribution server 110 after generating the code thereof, whereas the contents distribution server 110 transmits the contents to the client 100 after inserting the fingerprint code into the contents generated by the contents generation server 140 in watermark form.

[37] Therefore, in accordance with digital contents providing system of the present invention, since the contents distribution server 110 inserts the fingerprint code into the contents to-be-provided to the client 100 in watermark form, wrongdoers can be traced by detecting digital contents being distributed illegally through the Internet or wireless networks, which in turn, protects copyrights of digital contents. In addition, the contents generation server 140 receiving purchase information from the clearing house 130 can confirm whether the contents are purchased or not.

[38] Fig. 3 presents a detailed block diagram of the fingerprint management server shown in Fig. 2.

[39] As shown in Fig. 3, the fingerprint management server 120 includes a fingerprint code generator 122 for generating the fingerprint code with the fingerprint information transmitted from the clearing house 130; and fingerprint code database (hereinafter referred to as DB) 124 for storing the fingerprint code generated by the fingerprint code generator 122. Further, the fingerprint code generated by the fingerprint code generator 122 is also transmitted to the contents distribution server 110.

[40] The fingerprint code information stored in the fingerprint code DB 124 is used in applications for tracing illegally distributed contents, for example. In accordance with the present invention, the illegal contents refer to contents being distributed without having any right assigned for distribution based on related laws from copyright holder of the digital contents or copyright information provider who generates and manages the basis of copyright holder. In other words, illegal contents generally mean contents reproduced by simply copying the contents or by modifying the contents by means of a various kind of attacks.

[41] Fig. 4 provides a detailed block diagram of the contents distribution server shown in

Fig. 2.

[42] As shown in Fig. 4, the contents distribution server 110 includes fingerprint watermark inserter 112 for inserting the fingerprint code generated by the fingerprint management server 120 into contents information generated by the contents generation server 140 in watermark form after delivering purchase information to the clearing house 130; and encoder 114 for compressing the contents watermarked by the fingerprint watermark inserter 112, with MPEG standard or the like according to the corresponding communications environment, to transmit the contents to the client 100.

[43] The contents distribution server 110, rather than simply distributing encrypted contents with the server and decrypting the encrypted contents through an authentic user to employ the contents as in the prior art, inserts all or some of the information directly/indirectly relating to contents distribution into the contents in watermark form. It is, therefore, possible to reverse-trace with the information in the fingerprint management server 120 when illegal distribution of the contents is suspected.

[44] In accordance with the present invention, since the fingerprint code is required to be inserted into contents in watermark form and the contents thereof is needed to be encoded again for each time the contents distribution server 110 distributes the contents, computational load may be concentrated to server side. However, this drawback can be overcome by installing on the server a hardware chip capable of computing at high speed, wherein the chip is responsible for whole or partial control of watermark insertion and encoding. Or, the contents distribution server 110 may be configured to insert the watermark into an encoded bit stream domain of the contents directly, thereby overcoming the drawback of having the server encode the contents whenever merchandising the contents.

[45] While the invention has been shown and described with respect to the preferred embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the following claims.

Claims

[1] A system for providing digital contents to a client by using digital fingerprinting, the system comprising: a contents generation server for generating the digital contents; a clearing house for issuing license of the contents to the client and generating fingerprint information from contents-related information related to the contents according to contents purchase information; a fingerprint management server for generating fingerprint code based on the fingerprint information; and a contents distribution server for delivering the contents to the client after inserting the fingerprint code into the contents in watermark form. [2] The system of claim 1, wherein the fingerprint information includes copyright holder of the contents, contents provider, service provider, purchaser, contents

ID, fee or usage policy. [3] The system of claim 1, wherein the fingerprint management server includes: a fingerprint code generator for generating the fingerprint code with the fingerprint information transmitted from the clearing house; and a fingerprint code database for storing the fingerprint code generated by the fingerprint code generator to trace illegal distribution. [4] The system of claim 1, wherein the contents distribution server includes: a fingerprint watermark inserter for inserting the fingerprint code generated by the fingerprint management server into contents information generated by the contents generation server in watermark form; and an encoder for compressing the contents watermarked by the fingerprint watermark inserter to transmit the contents to the client. [5] The system of claim 1, wherein the content distribution server inserts the fingerprint code into the contents in watermark form by using hardware chip. [6] The system of claim 1, wherein the contents distribution server inserts the fingerprint code directly into an encoded bit stream domain of the contents in watermark form.