CN101558394B - Method, system and medium for protecting content - Google Patents

Abstract

The present embodiments provide methods, systems, and media for protecting content. Some embodiments provide a method for protecting content by accessing media content having sectors reserved for error data, searching for and identifying the reserved sectors, accessing the error data, replacing at least a portion of the reserved sectors in the media content with the error data, and recording the media content and the error data on a medium.

Description

Method, system and medium for protecting content

priority statement

This application is a continuation of U.S. Patent Application No. 11/849,898 filed September 4, 2007, the cited document claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/824,748 filed September 6, 2006, which is Full text citations are incorporated herein.

field of invention

The present invention relates generally to digital content, and more particularly to protecting digital content.

background

In recent decades, the use of digital data has grown dramatically and continues to grow. Digital data of all different types is transferred, communicated and/or stored over a variety of systems, networks and media.

Generally digital data is valuable data and the owner or disseminator of such valuable data is more willing to take protection for the data. There are many ways to apply protection to digital data, including encryption, scrambling, and other such protections. However, other or additional protections for the content are required.

An overview of the embodiments

The present invention advantageously addresses the above needs and others by providing methods, apparatus, systems and media for providing protection for digital content. Some embodiments provide methods for protecting content by accessing media content having sectors reserved for erroneous data, searching for and identifying the reserved sectors, accessing erroneous data, replacing at least a portion of the media content with erroneous data Sectors are reserved, and media content and error data are recorded on the media.

Likewise, some embodiments provide methods of protecting content. These methods access media content, identify multiple locations within the media where erroneous data will be combined, combine erroneous data containing a sequence of multiple adjacent cells at each identified location, and define a navigation command in the navigation that The playback device is instructed to skip each of a series of multiple contiguous cells incorporating erroneous data in the media content during playback and record the media content, erroneous data and navigation on the medium.

Some embodiments provide methods of protecting content. These methods access the media content, evaluate the media content, identify a plurality of locations in the media content where identifiers will be incorporated; at each identified location configured to designate each location as a location where erroneous data can be incorporated The media content of the predefined identifier in and communicate the modified media content.

Yet other embodiments provide methods for creating recordable media. These methods create the media by providing recordable media, selecting sectors on the media, writing predefined data to the selected sectors to create reserved sectors to accept erroneous data, making a reservation to accept erroneous data A map of the sectors, and write the map to the media.

Other embodiments provide recordable media. These media include: a first area of the medium configured to store media content; a plurality of sectors pre-recorded in the first area with predefined data configured to designate each of the plurality of sectors as a reserved sector; and a mapping identification location on the medium of the reserved sector.

A better understanding of the features and advantages of the present invention will be obtained by referring to the following detailed description of the invention and the accompanying drawings, which illustrate exemplary embodiments utilizing the principles of the invention.

Brief description of the drawings

Various aspects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent by following a more specific description of the present invention in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. In the accompanying drawings:

Figure 1 shows a simplified flowchart of a process for protecting content according to some embodiments;

Figure 2 shows a simplified flow diagram of a process for providing protection for content such as media content;

3 illustrates a simplified flowchart of an example process for incorporating erroneous data into content, according to some implementations;

Figure 4 shows a simplified block diagram of a system for writing content to media;

5 shows a simplified flowchart of a process for implementing control on the system of FIG. 4 while writing content to media, according to some embodiments;

Figure 6 shows a simplified flowchart of the process employed by a write drive or device in response to receiving a write command when writing content to a medium;

Figure 7 shows a simplified flowchart of a process for defining and/or incorporating one or more identifiers and/or reserved sectors into content;

Figure 8 shows a simplified block diagram of a medium such as an optical disc;

Figure 9 shows a simplified flowchart of a process used in manufacturing and/or distributing media; and

FIG. 10 shows a simplified flowchart of the process of writing content to a medium, such as the medium of FIG. 8 .

Corresponding reference numerals indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that components in the figures are shown in a simplified and clear manner and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the constituents in the drawings are exaggerated relative to other constituents to help improve understanding of the various embodiments of the present invention. Additionally, common but well-known elements that are useful or considered necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order not to obscure the understanding of the many embodiments of the invention.

Detailed description

Some embodiments provide protection of content recorded and/or recordable to media. This protection at least partially limits, inhibits and/or prevents unauthorized copying of the content.

Figure 1 shows a simplified flowchart of a process 120 for protecting content, according to some embodiments. At step 122, the process retrieves or receives content, such as multimedia content and/or other such digital content that can be played back and/or displayed. At step 124, the content is evaluated and one or more identifiers, locations and/or reserved sectors or portions of content are located within the content. The identifier can be basically any identifier that distinguishes a site, sector and/or content part. In step 126, erroneous data or content is retrieved, received and/or generated. At step 130 , the error data is embedded and/or incorporated into the closest content to and/or replaces the one or more identifiers located at step 124 .

Some embodiments repeat steps 124, 126, and 130 one or more times depending on a number of factors, such as number of identifiers, number and/or amount of erroneous data, size and/or amount of content received, number of times content has been delivered and/or other such factors or combinations of factors. In some embodiments, error data is incorporated into and/or embedded in an image file representing some or all of the content to be written to a medium, such as an optical disc. At step 132, the corrected content and/or image file with erroneous data is written or recorded to a computer-readable medium, such as a portable storage medium such as a digital versatile disc (DVD), compact disc (CD) and/or other portable storage media), flash memory, memory sticks or cards, random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), and/or other such memories or combinations of them.

Erroneous data incorporated into the content may provide some protection against unauthorized copying of the content and/or media. In some embodiments, erroneous data will cause incorrect copying of content and/or cause errors and/or fatal errors detected by the device performing the copying, which will cause the device performing the copying to stop the copying. For example, in some applications, erroneous data may include altering or providing one or more incorrect or bad error correction code (ECC) data and/or data blocks such that the modified content includes bad or wrong ECC data and/or data blocks. Bad ECC data will make content replication difficult and/or prevent content replication. Other such error data may additionally and/or alternatively be incorporated into the content to provide protection against copying of the content.

FIG. 2 shows a simplified flowchart of a process 220 of providing protection for content, such as media content, according to some embodiments. In step 222, the content is retrieved and/or received. At step 224, the content is parsed and/or searched to locate one or more identifiers and/or reserved locations or sectors. At step 226, it is determined whether a reserved sector and/or identifier is located within a portion or piece of content. When an identifier or reserved sector is identified, optional step 230 is entered where process 220 determines whether erroneous data is incorporated in the content. In some embodiments, optional step 230 is performed to alter the occurrence and/or location of erroneous data in the modified content, which in some implementations appears as randomizing the location of erroneous data in the content. For example, by introducing step 230, process 220 may randomly select some identifiers and/or reserved sectors to incorporate erroneous data into content and/or image files. Variations in the location of erroneous data in the content stream and/or image file add additional difficulties to copying protected content by locating and/or predicting which part of the media the erroneous data is located.

When it is determined at step 230 that erroneous data is to be combined, process 220 continues to step 232 where erroneous data is generated, retrieved, and/or received. At step 234, error data is incorporated and/or embedded in the content. At step 236, the error data is logged to memory or media. At step 238, a location on the content stream and/or medium is identified. In some applications, the location of erroneous data is recorded or maintained in a buffer or other temporary storage. In step 240, the process determines whether to evaluate and/or write more content. When more content is to be written, the process returns to step 224 to continue parsing the content. Alternatively, the process continues to step 250 .

Referring back to step 226, when no reserved sectors and/or identifiers are detected, the process continues to step 242 where a sector or portion of the content is recorded to memory and/or media. After step 242, the process continues to step 240 to determine if there is more content waiting to be evaluated and/or written. As with step 230, when it is determined that erroneous data will not be incorporated into the content, process 220 proceeds to step 244 where the sector is deleted from the content stream or recorded to the media. In some applications, the process continues to step 238 to mark or record one or more locations incorporated into the content, image, and/or written to a reserved sector of the media. After step 238, the process continues to step 240 to determine if there is more content waiting to be evaluated and/or written.

In step 250 , the process creates and/or modifies a file, file structure, mapping and/or navigation by utilizing the location identified in step 238 . Navigation assists, in part, the playback device in navigating through content written to the media. In step 252, process 220 incorporates the navigation into the image file and/or records the navigation on memory or media. This enables the playback device to partially access the navigation and/or mapping on the medium to coordinate the playback of the content on the medium when playing back content from the medium containing the incorporated erroneous data. In some cases, navigation is utilized by the playback device to avoid accessing and/or skipping erroneous data. In some embodiments, to avoid accessing erroneous data during playback, a cell chaining command is inserted into the program chain (PGC) pre-command array to skip a cell with a bad block when it is near the beginning of the PGC. Additionally or alternatively, when a bad block is near the end of the PGC, a cell command can be added to the cell preceding the bad block cell to skip it. Also, in some cases, to avoid erroneous data when performing a forward scan or a reverse scan, a UOP is placed in the NAV packet, thereby prohibiting scans near the erroneous data. In some other applications, additional random invalid MPEG data may be added around the erroneous data blocks so that decoding or re-encoding may fail on the invalid MPEG data. In other cases, DSV data patterns may be used in navigation, such as those described in US Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0193313, which is hereby incorporated by reference.

In some embodiments, process 220 is implemented when content is accessed and/or received and when content is actively written to media. Incorporating erroneous data into the content as it is recorded to the media facilitates, in some embodiments, in part to alter and/or randomize the incorporation or arrangement of erroneous data in the content and the media. Accordingly, different media may contain different erroneous data and/or erroneous data may be located in different locations within the content and/or media. Navigation may also appear differently for each medium, for example based on random placement of erroneous data in the content stream and/or medium.

The distribution of erroneous data increases the protection of data in part because templates identifying where erroneous data might be incorporated are generally not available to those who attempt to bypass the protection and copy content without proper authorization. Thus, everyone who attempts to copy protected content must attempt to carefully evaluate the medium and the content on the medium to accurately locate erroneous data before attempting to do so.

In some embodiments, the erroneous data may comprise a series of multiple erroneous data units incorporated in a program chain (PGC) of the video subtitle set. A string of cells or multiple strings of cells may be combined in a single PGC, while multiple PGCs and/or multiple video subtitle sets may each include one or more strings of erroneous data cells. Additionally, the error data may contain transition stages before and/or after the actual error content (eg bad ECC data). This transition may provide buffering or buffering before and/or after erroneous data. For example, erroneous data may include one or more units of buffered data preceding one or more erroneous units of erroneous data, and in some cases one or more units may be followed by one or more units of buffered data. More dummy cells or buffer cells. Buffered data generally includes content that can be accessed and/or played back by a playback device without causing errors in playback. For example, a buffer unit may include one or more black frames of video content. Both buffer cells and error cells serve as references for content navigation (eg, each assigned cell ID and video object ID), while navigation also instructs the playback device to skip these cells and/or the sectors containing the cells. These buffer locations are different from the individual erroneous data described in Published U.S. Patent Application No. 2005/0185926 to Basile et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. In addition, navigation provides instructions to skip erroneous data rather than not accessing individual erroneous data. unit.

By incorporating buffer cells before and/or after error cells, unanticipated errors in playback can be limited and/or prevented. Some playback devices forward scan eg video content during playback, caching content that is expected to be played back. As a result, some playback devices may actually cache error-containing data from erroneous cells before receiving a command from playback navigation to skip over the erroneous data. By incorporating one or more buffer cells in front of the erroneous cell (relative to the playback of the cell), the player caches the contents of the buffer cell so that the player receives a skip command in a timely manner to skip the erroneous data (which will instruct playback filter skips one or more buffer locations and error locations). Since the playback device has cached empty data that does not cause errors in the playback device (eg, black screen video content, one or more static VOBUs within a cell, etc.), the playback device can skip erroneous data without experiencing errors. However, as described above and further below, unauthorized copying will not skip buffer units or error units and will result in errors when copying content.

As described above and explained further below, erroneous data may be located in possibly a number of locations within the content. Additionally, the locations within the content incorporating erroneous data may be varied (eg, randomly arranged) to further protect the content, at least in part. Also, when erroneous data is implemented by units, the number of erroneous units defining the erroneous data and/or the number of buffer units can be changed in the same manner. Also, the number of buffer units may vary randomly and the number of error units may vary randomly in some cases. Additionally or alternatively, the location of the error cells relative to the buffer cells may be changed. In general, erroneous data begins and ends with buffered data where the erroneous data is located and/or distributed over the buffered data. For example, one or more buffer units are located at the beginning of a series of erroneous data, and one or more buffer units are located at the end of the series of erroneous data. In some applications, there is a limit on the number of error cells and/or buffer cells. For example, based on some standards and/or playback devices, the number of error cells and/or buffer cells is limited to 255 cells per PGC. In addition, randomization of bad data may include fetching and/or creating a random number of buffered static VOBUs in buffer units, creating a random number of starting logical block numbers (sector numbers) starting at bad ECC blocks, starting at one or Creating a random number of bad ECC blocks in more error cells, randomly positioning one or more error cells in error data relative to buffer cells, and other such variations and/or combinations of variations. The amount of buffered data and/or buffer units employed may depend on a number of factors, including the amount of erroneous data or total erroneous units, the intended playback device accessing the content, and/or other such factors. For example, in some applications, buffered data may include four times the amount of erroneous data, and in some cases may include one (1) megabyte on either side of and/or at the beginning and end of erroneous data data to provide protection for playback devices to limit access to erroneous data, search and/or scan during playback.

FIG. 3 shows a simplified flowchart of an example process 320 of incorporating erroneous data into content, according to some applications. For example, process 320 may be performed as at least part of steps 232 and/or 234 of process 220 in FIG. 2 . In step 322, a video subtitle set is identified and a PGC is identified in the video subtitle set. In step 324, the number of total cells incorporated into the identified PGC is identified. The number of units may be a predefined number, dictated by an external source, randomly determined, selected based on current conditions and/or content, expected playback device(s), media on which the content is written, or other such criteria of. In step 326, the number of erroneous cells incorporating erroneous data is determined. Likewise, the number of error cells may be predefined, dictated by an external source, randomly determined, based on current conditions and/or content, expected playback device or devices, media on which the content is written, or other such standard selection. In step 330, the location of one or more erroneous cells defining erroneous data within the total number of cells is determined. In many embodiments, step 330 is limited based on the fact that at least one buffer unit is incorporated into the erroneous data preceding the erroneous unit and often at least one buffer unit is followed by an erroneous unit.

In some embodiments, navigation of playback incorporates skip commands that cause the playback device to skip erroneous data and/or sectors containing erroneous data, which in some cases includes skipping of buffer cells and erroneous cells. However, as previously mentioned, some playback devices cache content that precedes the content currently being played back. These playback devices may cache a portion of one or more buffer locations prior to receiving a skip command, but may discard the cached buffer location contents upon receipt of a skip command.

In some cases, navigation includes low-level navigation commands that define playback order. Additionally or alternatively, navigation may include cell commands or PGC commands that instruct the playback device to skip buffer cells and erroneous cells and/or provide links between cells. These skip commands establish at least a portion of the navigation pattern. In normal playback, a skip command may contain a cell-cell link command in the PGC command area and/or a cell-cell link command in the cell command area. Navigation may additionally or alternatively be incorporated into the search information and/or parameters, such as video search information for searching, fast forwarding, rewinding, and the like. For example, when fast-forwarding and/or rewinding, scan mode flags in navigation packets near bad data (e.g., near bad cells) are disabled to prevent playback devices from attempting to read and/or cache bad data, such as bad ECC blocks .

In many cases, the distribution of erroneous data in the content and/or media can further provide and/or define a pattern. The pattern can additionally be used to identify the medium and/or verify the authenticity of the medium. For example, patterns of erroneous data may be determined and used as watermarks, signatures, fingerprints, or other identifiers to distinguish media and/or content from other media and/or content, as will be further described below.

FIG. 4 shows a simplified block diagram of a system 420 that writes content to a medium 422 . The system includes a controller 424 , a writing device or drive 426 , a memory or storage 428 that stores digital content, and a communication network 430 . In some instances, controller 424, write drive 426, memory 428, and communication network 430 may be combined to enable writing content to media 422—such as a writable optical disk (e.g., writable DVD), flash memory, and/or other such media— — in a single write device 432. Memory 428 may be internal memory, external memory, a flash drive, or other such memories. Communication network 430 may be a system bus coupling system components or other such communication networks. Some embodiments further include one or more interfaces 434 that allow the system 420 to communicate with one or more external devices and/or a distributed network 436 (e.g., local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), satellite network, intranet network, Internet, etc.) to communicate with remote server 440, memory 442, and/or other devices.

System 420 may be implemented by hardware, software, and/or a combination of hardware and software utilizing program modules. In some cases, all or portions of system 420 may be implemented by computers, computer systems, servers, and/or computer-executable instructions that may run on one or more computers of substantially any configuration, including— But not limited to - uniprocessor or multiprocessor computer systems, minicomputers, mainframe computers and personal computers, handheld computing devices, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronic devices, etc., each of which is operatively coupled to one or more associated devices. Additionally and alternatively, the system may be implemented in a distributed computing environment with remote processing devices linked through one or more communication networks, such as communication network 430 and/or distributed communication network 436. some of the functions. In a distributed computing environment, program modules, executables, data, content, etc. may be located in both local and remote storage devices.

The memories 428, 442 can be substantially any computer-readable medium and/or collection of media and can include one or more of volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media, and/or other memory. In yet another example, a computer readable medium may include, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other storage technology, internal hard disk, CD-ROM, DVD or other optical disk storage, magnetic tape cartridge, magnetic tape, Disk storage or other magnetic storage, and/or any other medium or combination of media that can be used to store content, executable programs, and/or other desired information. The communication network and/or medium 430, 436 may, in some implementations, include, but is not limited to, computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and/or be present in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism other data, and basically includes any information transmission medium. For example, communication media may include wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media, and/or combinations thereof.

Controller 424 provides control over system 420 and directs write drive 426 to write content from memory 428 , 442 to media 422 . The controller can be implemented by essentially any processor, dual microprocessor and/or other multi-processor architecture, microprocessor, computer, server and/or other such control devices. In some cases, controller and/or system 420 includes a user interface 444 (eg, keyboard, mouse or other pointing device, audio input/output, display, and other user interfaces) that allows user control and/or interaction. Communication network 430 can be one or more communication links and/or can be further interconnected and/or include a memory bus (with or without a memory controller), a peripheral bus, and a network using any of a variety of commercially available bus architectures. The bus structure type of the local bus. Interface 434 may be a wired and/or wireless interface and may be implemented through substantially any communication interface including, but not limited to, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface, an IEEE 1394 interface, a parallel port, a serial port , game port, infrared (IR) port, and/or other such ports.

Remote device 440 may be one or more remote servers, workstations, routers, personal computers, portable computers, microprocessor-based entertainment devices, peer-to-peer devices, and/or other public network nodes. Communications over the distributed network 436 may be wired and/or wireless (eg, radio frequency (RF), wireless fidelity (WiFi), Bluetooth, and/or other wireless technologies).

In operation, controller 424 directs write driver 426 to write content, such as multimedia content, from local storage 428 and/or remote storage 442 to media 422 . As the content is written, the controller monitors the content and instructs the writing device to alter the content and/or incorporate erroneous data into the media content before writing to the media 422 . The writing drive or device can be essentially any device capable of writing content to the medium 422, such as - but not limited to - a recordable DVD unit, a recordable CD unit, and/or other such writing devices. In some embodiments, content to be written to medium 422 is uploaded to system 420 from network 436 . Additionally, content can be received having one or more identifiers and/or reserved sectors to incorporate erroneous data. Additionally or alternatively, content to be written to medium 422 may be received from local storage 428 . Local storage may be internal memory, an external memory drive, and/or other such memory stores. For example, memory 428 may include optical storage for housing portable storage media, and content may be copied from a first portable storage medium to portable storage medium 422 . In some cases, when copying the content, the controller 424 retrieves the rights to make the copy of the content, eg, by accessing the server 440 .

5 shows a simplified flowchart of a process 520 for implementing control on the system 420 of FIG. 4 while writing content to the medium 422, according to some embodiments. In step 522, the controller parses or directs the selected parsing device to parse the media content. Additionally or alternatively, in some embodiments the content is unprotected prior to parsing. For example, the controller may access remote server 440 to retrieve encryption keys or other rights to allow access and copying of the content, and use the keys and/or other rights to access and parse the content. In step 524, a portion or a sector of content is selected. At step 526, it is determined whether the content of the sector contains an identifier or is defined as a reserved sector of content. When evaluating a portion or sector of content, it is determined whether one or more bits or a series of bits are equal to a predefined pattern. As mentioned above, the identifier can be essentially any distinguishing identifier. In some embodiments, a predefined series of bits or a globally unique identifier (GUID) may be included in a sector to identify the sector as a reserved sector. For example, the controller may determine whether a sector contains a predefined GUID.

When the controller identifies the sector as a reserved sector, it proceeds to step 532, where it is determined whether the sector was selected to include erroneous data. The selection may be based on an identified GUID or pattern, may be a random selection, may be based on one or more predefined patterns, or other such selections. By changing the selection of sectors, for example the location of bad data makes it more difficult to describe where bad data is and provides additional protection of the content. In those cases where a sector is selected to include erroneous data, the process proceeds to step 534 where the controller instructs the write driver 426 to incorporate the erroneous data into the content stream. Alternatively, go to step 536 and simply write or delete from the content stream as is. In some embodiments, steps 534 and 536 are implemented by the controller 424 issuing altered write commands or different commands to the write driver or device 426 to perform various write operations based on the determination of step 532 . After steps 534 and 536, the process continues to step 542. At step 542, it is determined whether more content is to be parsed and/or evaluated. When no more content or sectors exist, the process terminates. Alternatively, the process returns to step 522 to continue parsing and evaluating the content stream.

Referring back to step 526, process 520 proceeds to step 540 when it is determined that one or more bits or series of bits are not equal to the predefined pattern. In step 540, the sectors are written from the content stream unchanged. In some embodiments, step 540 is similar to step 536 and the controller issues a write command (eg, WRITE10 command). The altered or corrected write command can be used in step 534, and the write driver or device can distinguish it from other write commands and accurately implement the writing of erroneous data. Alternatively or additionally, some embodiments issue write commands with data patterns that cause some writing devices to generate erroneous data. In some cases, the data pattern is a pattern that would not normally be received by the writing device and causes the writing device to error and write erroneous data. The use of such data patterns in write commands may, for example, be exploited by some legacy writing devices that may not recognize certain commands indicative of writing erroneous data and/or may not be able to utilize modified write commands in conjunction with modified firmware. After step 540, the process continues to step 542 to determine whether more data is to be evaluated.

As previously described, the identifier may include a predefined pattern or string of identifiable bits or bytes, a globally unique identifier (GUID), or other such identifier capable of identifying a sector as a reserved sector. In some embodiments, the GUID or series of bits is repeated one or more times to fill up the sector identifying the sector as a reserved sector in which erroneous data will be incorporated and/or embedded. For example, a GUID can be a predefined value such as "4D 36 E9 65 E3 25 11 CE BF C1 08 00 2B E1 03 18" written in hexadecimal format, which is recognized as a flag indicating that erroneous data will be combined symbol. In yet another example, some embodiments may indicate a reserved sector by setting the sector's 2048 bytes of data to a predefined 128-bit GUID or other pattern that is repeated until the sector is full. Where the content stream includes an image file having a sector of 2054 bytes, the 6-byte Copyright and Region Management Information (CPRMAI) header may be ignored in determining whether the sector is a reserved sector.

Incorporating erroneous data into what is being written to and/or being written to media 422 is accomplished in some embodiments by controller 424 issuing a write command that notifies write driver or device 426 to incorporate erroneous data. According to some embodiments, the write command may be a modified write (10) and/or write (12) small computer system interface (SCSI) command. Table 1 below defines an example of a write(10) command descriptor block (CDB) structure that can instruct write driver 426 to initiate writing of content to media.

Table 1 - Write Feature Description

In general, a storage device is composed of a number of logical blocks, which are generally indexed by an item Logical Block Address (LBA) and other parameters. A typical LBA equals 512 bytes of storage, and for write(10) and write(12), typically contains a 32-bit LBA address. In many systems, for example, each device on a SCSI bus is assigned at least one Logical Unit Number (LUN). Simple devices can have one LUN, and more complex devices can have multiple LUNs. Note that the "1" bit in the "1" byte is reserved, and write(10) and/or write(12) commands are generally sent with a "0" value.

Tables 2 and 3 show the Modified Write (10) and Modified Write (12) CDBs, respectively. A modified write command is an example of a combination and/or write used to initialize erroneous data in some embodiments.

Table 2 - Revised Write Characterization Description

Table 3 - Revised Write Characterization Description

Note that the "1" bit in the "1" byte of Corrected Write (10) and Corrected Write (12) is defined as a bad ECC (BE) indication bit. When the BE parameter is set to a first value (eg, to a "0" value), the modified write (10) or modified write (12) effectively instructs the write driver 426 to perform a standard write (10) or Write (12). Alternatively, when the BE parameter is set to, for example, "1", the modified write(10) and/or write(12) commands instruct the write driver to insert and/or record erroneous data, such as improper or bad ECC data, at the specified LBA . The transfer length may identify the amount and number of data blocks of erroneous data that were created and/or incorporated in the content. In some cases, the data input of the write(10) and/or write(12) commands is ignored.

In some embodiments, the write driver or device 426 and/or the write driver's firmware are also modified to detect the BE bit and determine when erroneous data is incorporated into the content. For example, the application programming interface (API) of the write driver or device 426 may be modified in some embodiments to detect modified write(10) and/or write(12) commands and perform exactly the required write function. Additionally, in some applications, the controller 424 may interrogate or determine whether the write driver and/or device can accurately detect the corrected write(10) and/or write(12) commands and/or whether the erroneous data Combined into content streams written to media. In some cases, write driver 426 responds to a GET CONFIGURATION (obtain configure) command.

Table 4 is an example of an error data writable feature descriptor sent by a writing device in response to an inquiry or a GET CONFIGURATION command.

Table 4 - Write Feature Description

The presence of the error data writable feature indicates that the drive is capable of recording and/or incorporating error data to the medium, eg, according to an error data specification. A feature code can be defined to identify the descriptor as an error data feature descriptor, for example, the feature code can be set to FF54h written in hexadecimal format. The "write" parameter may be used to identify the ability of the write driver to write erroneous data.

For example, when the write parameter is set to a first value (for example, set to "0"), the ability to write error data is not available to the write driver. Alternatively, when the write parameter is set to a second value (for example, set to "1"), the drive requires the ability to write erroneous data. Other parameters may additionally or alternatively be included in the descriptor. For example, a version field may be included (eg set to 0h written in hexadecimal format). A persistent bit may be set (eg, set to zero) to indicate that the feature may change its current state. The current bit, when set to "0" for example, indicates that the feature is currently inactive, and data dependent on the feature may be invalid, and when set to "1", for example, may indicate that the feature is currently active, while Data dependent on this feature is valid. For example, when the current field is set to "0", no disc is installed or the currently installed disc does not support the inclusion or insertion of wrong data, and when the current field is set to "1", the disc is installed and can Incorrect data was used on this media. Some examples include an additional length field, which can be set to, for example, 04h in hexadecimal.

FIG. 6 shows a simplified flowchart of a process 620 employed by a write drive or device 426 in writing content to media 422 in response to receiving a write command. In step 622, a write command is received. Typically, write commands are issued by the controller 424 . In step 624, it is determined whether the write command contains instructions incorporating erroneous data. In some embodiments, step 624 includes determining whether the write command is included in a modified write(10) command, a modified write(12) command, or other command set to a predefined value (eg, BE set to "1") ) of bad ECC bits. When the write command does not contain an instruction to incorporate erroneous data, step 626 is entered where the data identified based on the write command is written to the media.

When the write command includes instructions incorporating erroneous data, step 630 is entered where erroneous data is retrieved and/or generated. In step 632, the error data is recorded to the medium. In some embodiments, steps 630 and 632 may be combined as a single step, where erroneous data is generated during recording to the media, as will be described further below. At step 634, the location of the erroneous data in the media and/or content is identified, recorded or cached. In some applications, the location of the erroneous data may be utilized in generating the playback navigation used by the playback device.

Capabilities of the writing device and/or the intended playback device may define how and where erroneous data is incorporated into the content and/or image file. For example, in some cases and/or for some write devices 426, erroneous data is generated as a series of contiguous blocks of data, such as three (3) or more contiguous units or bad ECC data, which is equivalent to, for example, 0x30 for media sectors (eg according to the DVD format). This allows some writing devices to effectively stop writing content, start writing erroneous data, and stop writing erroneous data and restart writing content (e.g. stop writing content in the first cell, start writing content in the second Write the wrong data on the first cell, and stop writing the wrong data to and start writing the content again on the third cell). The stopping and starting of writing of content can be implemented, for example, in some writing devices capable of working in packet writing mode. Some embodiments implement a multi-stage write process, where the content is written during a first write and written during a second Bad data. In addition, in some applications, such as aligning wrong data on ECC boundaries. However, alignment on consecutive error blocks and/or boundaries may not be required in some situations and/or in some writing devices. Additionally or alternatively, some writing devices also issue a sync cache command before writing erroneous data and/or after writing erroneous data to achieve a more accurate transition between what was written and what was written with erroneous data .

Playback navigation may instruct the playback device to bypass or skip erroneous data during playback. In this way, the content on the medium can be played back without errors. However, many copying processes do not analyze the content and/or utilize navigation when attempting to copy content on the medium. Consequently, these copying processes that attempt to copy content and erroneous data (e.g., bad ECC data) produce errors that prevent copying, cause content to degrade once written in response to erroneous data, and/or cause other effects that attempt to prohibit or impede copying.

The incorporation and recording of erroneous data and content is further implemented to limit and/or avoid errors, glitches, and/or user-detectable changes during playback. In some embodiments, the erroneous data is incorporated into the content at a location that is easily skipped by the playback device based on navigation and/or where the erroneous data can be aligned relative to the content and/or the expected formatting of the content and/or media. For example, erroneous data may be incorporated before or after a portion of the content, as explained further below. However, in other situations and/or for other playback devices, error data may be incorporated into the image file and/or content stream in substantially any desired location.

Still referring to FIG. 6, step 630 of generating and/or receiving erroneous data can be implemented in a number of ways. For example, erroneous data may be generated by the controller 424 or other device and forwarded or retrieved by the write driver to be combined according to the write command. In some applications, the write driver may scramble or otherwise alter the ECC data and incorporate the scrambled ECC data into the content as erroneous data. Scrambling can basically be any scrambling that makes the ECC data no longer valid. Erroneous data can be generated by changing the modulation of the content when the content is written to the medium. Additionally or alternatively, when using a laser to write content, the power and/or intensity of the laser can be varied, stops and starts made during the write operation, to create pauses in the write operation, to form link blocks, to create margin areas and/or other of these methods.

7 shows a simplified flowchart of a process 720 for defining and/or incorporating one or more identifiers and/or reserved sector definitions into content. Identifiers and/or reserved sectors are inserted into the content to define at least some of the locations in the content where erroneous data may be incorporated. In step 722, the content is accessed and/or retrieved. In some cases, the content is in the original format as received from the recording medium, such as uncompressed video and audio, or other formats utilized by the content developer and/or provider.

At step 724, the content can be evaluated and a portion of the content selected. In some embodiments, this evaluation and selection identifies transitions in content, such as scene changes, beginnings and/or endings of content or portions of content, micro-pauses, and other such locations in the content. For example, evaluation of content may include identifying the end or beginning of content, a scene or intra-frame (I-frame) change, a credits or end of preview content, the beginning or end of a featured content (such as a movie), credits The start and/or content of these other transitions. Additionally, error-containing data may be incorporated into areas or locations in the media that are not normally read. For example, erroneous data can be incorporated on a disc or other related media that does not have other data, such as when the content does not fill the medium, erroneous data can be incorporated into an area that has not yet recorded content, which is the Areas that are generally not read. Alternatively, additional or dummy subtitles may be incorporated into the content, wherein these additional subtitles are not accessed, linked or referenced. As such, these subtitles are generally not read during playback, or typically can be accessed during content duplication.

In step 726, a determination is made as to whether an identifier or a reserved sector was incorporated into the content preceding the portion of content selected in step 724. For example, the determination performed in step 76 varies and/or randomizes, in part, the placement of erroneous data in the content, whereby multiple versions of the content have reserved sectors and/or identifiers inserted at different locations along the content. In some embodiments, the determination in step 726 as to when to incorporate a reserved sector or identifier may be based on random selection, based on a predefined pattern, and/or based on other factors such as the expected type of playback device used to play the content. and other such factors.

Step 720 continues to step 738 when no identifiers or reserved sectors are incorporated prior to the portion. Or, when an identifier or a reserved sector is to be combined, enter step 730 and generate an identifier. In some cases, the identifier is a GUID and/or other recognizable bit or byte pattern. For example, the identifier may be a GUID that is repeated several times to fill up one or more sectors preceding the selected content portion. Additionally, for example, one or more blank or black frames or screens are associated with the content and/or identifier.

In step 732, the content is amended to incorporate identifiers and/or to incorporate and/or embed reserved sectors into the content. Combining may include simply inserting identifiers and/or reserved sectors in front of selected content portions, creating linked blocks, creating edges, creating regions, and/or other such combinations. As noted above, the incorporation and/or embedding of the identifier and/or reserved sectors may include embedding the identifier and/or reserved sectors into an image representing part or all of the content to be written to a medium such as an optical disc in the file.

At step 734, the portion of content and identifier is recorded and/or buffered. For example, the portion of content and identifier is buffered as part of an image file which, once complete, can be communicated to the recording device and/or distributed to remote users for ripping. After step 734, the process continues to step 744. In step 744, the process determines whether there is more content waiting to be added and/or combined. When there is no more content, the process returns to step 724. Some embodiments also provide a map of the location within the media content that incorporates the identifier. Alternatively, the process terminates and the amended content (eg, media content) can be recorded to media, communicated to other devices for transcription, and/or distributed to one or more remote users (eg, via a distributed network). For example, an image file is completed that includes revised media content including identifiers and/or reserved sectors. This media image can then be ripped and/or distributed.

Returning to step 726, when no identifiers or reserved sectors have been incorporated prior to the portion, process 720 proceeds to step 738, where the portion is recorded and/or buffered. At step 740 , it is determined whether an identifier or reserved sector is to be incorporated into the content following the content portion selected at step 724 . When the portion will later incorporate an identifier or reserved sector, process 720 continues to step 742 where the media content is modified such that the identifier and/or reserved sector is generated and incorporated into the content following the selected content portion. After step 742, the process continues to step 744 to determine if there is more content to be added and/or combined. Returning to step 740, when it is determined not to combine identifiers or reserved sectors, the process continues to step 744 to determine if more content is to be added and/or combined.

Step 720 enables the content owner, provider, and/or distributor to define one or more locations within the content where erroneous content may be incorporated. Based on the reserved sectors and/or identifiers, erroneous data can be incorporated into the content while writing and/or transferring the content. This enables amended content with identifiers and/or reserved sectors to be distributed to authorized and/or authenticated destinations. Furthermore, in some of the applications described above, it is not necessary to incorporate error content into the content at every identifier and/or reserved sector. One or more identifiers and/or reserved sectors may be selected (eg, randomly selected) and erroneous data may be incorporated relative to the selected one or more reserved sectors and/or identifiers.

In some embodiments, the selection of a portion of the content in step 724 is limited to those portions of the content that have significant transitions, scene breaks, and/or other special transitions. In some cases, for digital video content (eg, a movie), the transition may be before the beginning of the movie content, after the end of the movie content, before the end credits or preview content, after the end credits content, and/or other such transitions. However, other applications may incorporate reserved sectors and/or identifiers in movie content, such as at scene transitions, before intra-frames (I-frames), or other such locations in the content. In some embodiments, the insertion and/or location of erroneous data may be indicated, at least in part, by the intended playback device. Also, the selection of identifiers and/or reserved sectors may depend on the intended playback devices, some of which may have limited capabilities and thus erroneous data limited to incorporation at the point where these erroneous data do not interfere with content playback .

Authors, distributors, and/or producers of content such as video credits or video movie subtitles may include reserved sectors and/or incorporate erroneous data or blocks into video content where the reserved sectors or erroneous data cannot pass through the content menu system access in . Also, playback devices generally do not access these sections because they are not indexed in the menu. Additionally or alternatively, another piece or portion of content (such as a video portion) may be inserted into the image file or content stream, such as in the middle of the medium, which may be partially or completely filled with erroneous data or bad data blocks , where the segment or portion is generally not accessed directly from a menu or by a playback device.

As noted above, in some embodiments, a content provider may incorporate one or more blank or black frames into the content stream as an identifier, near the identifier and/or as part of a reserved sector of the content . When erroneous data is combined, identifiers, reserved sectors, and/or black screens may be utilized once erroneous data is combined. In some embodiments, some or all of the reserved sectors or the data in the reserved sectors are replaced with erroneous data, such as erroneous ECC data.

In some embodiments, some or all of the erroneous data may be incorporated in a predefined portion of the media. The media may be manufactured and/or configured with one or more media portions that may be preselected to accommodate erroneous data, may contain erroneous data, and/or may be physically altered. Figure 8 shows a simplified diagram of a medium 820, such as an optical disk, such as a DVD, CD, or other such medium. The medium 820 includes a data portion 822 in which content can be written, and a control area 824 . In FIG. 8, a media 820 is illustrated with a control zone 824 located on the inner diameter of the media. However, the control zone may be located in substantially any area, distributed and/or zoned on the medium. In some embodiments, the control area is an area that is not normally accessible by the recording device. Existing media have similar control areas that are generally inaccessible for writes. The control area may include one or more menus, parameters, encryption keys, authorization information, serial numbers, and/or other such data.

The data portion 822 also includes one or more predefined areas 826 . These areas may be identifiers that indicate portions into which erroneous data is incorporated, identify that erroneous data may be incorporated near and/or are incorporated into predefined areas 826 that may already contain erroneous data, and may be physically to cause errors or other such conditions and/or combinations thereof. In some embodiments, one or more predefined areas 826 may define a pattern that allows the media to be identified and/or used to authenticate the media to allow content to be copied into data portion 822, for example. For example, a pattern may be defined to allow a signature of the medium to be identified and/or authenticated.

Figure 9 shows a simplified flowchart of a process 920 used in the manufacture and/or distribution of media such as optical discs 820 and/or other media. In step 922, one or more portions or regions of the media are selected to include identifiers, error data, be physically altered and/or include other aspects. In some implementations, this selection is a random selection that randomly distributes the selected regions over at least the data portion 822 of the medium. At step 924, a map of the media is generated. The map identifies at least the location of the selected region. In step 926, the media is embossed or otherwise formed into selected areas. Likewise, the selected areas may include identifiers imprinted into the selected areas, may include erroneous data imprinted into the selected areas, may be physically altered during embossing (e.g. making such data unable to be written to these areas), and/or or other such processes can be used to indicate or define selected regions. In some cases, the mapping is further imprinted onto the media and may be imprinted into data area 822 and/or control area 824 .

The media produced by process 920 incorporates erroneous data and/or identifier regions in erroneous data-incorporable media. In some embodiments, a manufacturer may imprint a copy of the media and then repeat process 920 to produce another media with a different pattern of selected areas. Alternatively, manufacturing can generate multiple copies of media with the same pattern, and then repeat process 920 for other media. For example, a manufacturer may generate a first plurality of media (eg, a first batch of 500 DVDs), each having a selected area 826 of a first pattern. The manufacturer can then generate a second pattern and imprint a second plurality of media (eg, a second batch of 500 DVDs), and then proceed to generate third, fourth, and essentially any number of patterns with varying selection areas. A variety of patterns can be employed to create the media. Once distributed, the media is distributed to different businesses, which effectively distribute the media with the same pattern.

Figure 10 shows a simplified flowchart of a process 1020 of writing content to a medium, such as medium 820, according to some embodiments. At step 1022, it is determined whether the media is in the drive and/or is accessible. An error is generated in step 1024 when the medium is not accessible. Alternatively, proceed to step 1026, where the process determines whether the media includes one or more predefined errors or bad areas. In some embodiments, the media is evaluated to determine if the map has an indication that the media contains a predefined region. Additionally or alternatively, some or all of the media may be evaluated to determine whether the media includes a predefined area. When the medium does not include a predefined area, content writing is performed according to one or more other procedures, such as procedure 220 .

When the media includes a predefined area, process 1020 continues to step 1030 to access a map of the media. In step 1032, one or more predefined regions are identified by mapping and/or evaluating the medium. At step 1034, the content written to the media is accessed and/or received. At step 1036, the writing device begins writing content, eg, as directed by the controller. In some embodiments, step 1036 includes parsing the content to determine whether the content includes one or more identifiers and/or reserved sectors in which erroneous data is to be incorporated, such as performed in process 220 of FIG. 2 . At step 1040, it is determined whether the predefined area encounters content being written to the media. Also, the predefined area is generally known based on the mapping and can be predicted before reaching the predefined area as the content is written to the media. During writing when a predefined area has not been encountered, the process continues at step 1042 with writing content to the media. In step 1044, it is determined whether to write more content. When no more content is written, the process terminates. Alternatively, the process returns to step 1040 when more content is to be written to the media.

Returning to step 1040, when encountering a predefined area of the medium, go to step 1046, wherein content writing stops and skips the predefined area. Alternatively, erroneous data may be written to some or all of the predefined areas. At step 1050, the process continues with writing the content after the predefined area. The process then returns to step 1044 to determine if there is more content to be written to the media.

Some embodiments provide, for example, content protection against unauthorized copying. In addition, some implementations allow the creation of media such as optical discs that are difficult or impossible to reproduce by most methods of reproduction, such as - but not limited to - file-by-file, sector-by-sector, or bit-by-bit, and other content copying methods . Protection provided in some embodiments includes creating bad parts and/or incorporating wrong data onto the content and/or media. As a result, errors are encountered when attempting to replicate, which in many cases causes errors and/or replication to fail.

In some implementations, a content provider provides content with one or more identifiers or predefined sectors to a media distributor and/or manufacturer. The use of these identifiers can be utilized with essentially any image file and/or format. For example, CD discs, DVD discs, and/or other such discs may be used. For example, identifiers can be used for Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD discs and/or other formats, since these formats generally have the same image file as a DVD image file and are generally just larger files with more sectors. Based on these identifiers, the writing device can use essentially any technique to create erroneous data and/or bad data blocks on the content and/or medium during the writing process. Furthermore, the combination of erroneous data can be used on other recordable media, not just optical discs, such as memory sticks, flash memory and basically any related memory.

Although the present invention disclosed herein has been described through specific embodiments and applications thereof, those skilled in the art can make various modifications and changes without departing from the scope set forth in the claims.

Claims (13)

1. A method for securing content comprising: accessing media content with sectors reserved for erroneous data; Search and identify reserved sectors; Access to wrong data; replacing at least a portion of the reserved sectors in the media content with erroneous data; recording the media content and the error data to a medium; generating a navigation command instructing the playback device to skip the erroneous data; and recording said navigation command on a medium via media content, Wherein said generating a navigation command includes generating a unit-unit linking command and combining it into said navigation command, wherein generating a navigation command includes disabling a scan mode flag corresponding to erroneous data in a navigation packet. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein said accessing erroneous data comprises generating a plurality of chained units, wherein each of said chained units comprises a random number of buffer units such that said chained units The first unit and the last unit in each serve as buffer units, and at least one error unit is randomly located in this number of buffer units; The searching and identifying includes searching and identifying a plurality of reserved sectors, and selecting a number of reserved sectors in the plurality of sectors; and The replacing at least a portion of the reserved sectors includes replacing each of the selected reserved sectors with one of a plurality of consecutive units. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein said accessing erroneous data comprises generating an erroneous unit and a plurality of buffer units, and said replacing at least a part of reserved sectors comprises using said erroneous unit or said plurality of buffer units buffer units to replace the at least a part of the reserved sectors. 4. The method according to claim 3, wherein said generating a plurality of buffer units comprises generating a random number of buffer units, randomly combining said error data into said random number of buffer units, and at least One buffer unit precedes the error unit and at least one buffer unit follows the error unit. 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the searching and identifying comprises searching and identifying a plurality of reserved sectors, and selecting a number of reserved sectors in the plurality of sectors; and Wherein said replacing at least a part of the reserved sectors includes replacing each selected reserved sector with erroneous data. 6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the selecting a plurality of reserved sectors comprises randomly selecting a number of reserved sectors in the plurality of sectors. 7. The method of claim 5, further comprising: Identify the location of the selected sector; An authentication of the medium is generated based on the selected reserved sectors. 8. A method of protecting content comprising: access to media content; Identify multiple locations in the media content where erroneous data will be combined; combining said erroneous data comprising a succession of multiple adjacent cells to each of the identified locations; defining a navigation command in navigation that instructs the playback device to skip each of the series of multiple adjacent cells that are incorporated into the erroneous data of the media content during playback; and Recording the media content, the error data and navigation to a medium; wherein the combined error data includes: Identify multiple buffer units; identify multiple error cells; determining where to locate the erroneous unit in the identified plurality of buffer units; and combining a number of buffer units equal to the number of identified buffer units and a number of error units equal to the number of identified error units in the media content, wherein the error units are distributed over the number of buffer units middle. 9. The method of claim 8, wherein defining a navigation command comprises defining and incorporating a cell-to-cell link command and disabling a scan mode flag in a navigation packet relative to the erroneous data. 10. The method of claim 8, further comprising: An authentication of the media content is generated based on the identified location of the erroneous data in the media content. 11. The method of claim 8, wherein the identifying a plurality of locations in the media content comprises evaluating the media, identifying areas on the media reserved to receive erroneous data, and identifying the The portion of the portion of the media to be recorded near the identified area of the media. 12. The method of claim 8, further comprising: Identify multiple locations on the media where erroneous data is recorded; and An authentication of the medium is generated based on the identified location on the medium where the erroneous data was recorded. 13. A method of providing protection for media content, the method comprising: access media content; evaluate said media content; identifying a plurality of locations within the media content where identifiers are to be incorporated; amending the media content comprising a predefined identifier incorporated in the media content at each identified location configured to indicate each location as a location where erroneous data may be incorporated; and communicate the amended media content, wherein evaluating the media content includes determining where in the content a content transition occurs; and said identifying a plurality of locations in the media content includes selecting two or more located content transitions, Wherein, incorporating the predefined identifier in the media content comprises randomly selecting the identified multiple locations from the multiple determined locations where the content transition occurs.

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