Copyright Protection Scheme for Digital Television Content

We have developed a copyright protection system aimed at empowering the content provider to dictate the terms for free-to-air digital TV recording. The system proposes embedding copyright instructions into MPEG2 content to be telecasted so that the complying set top boxes would not be able to bypass the terms such as expiry period of recording or prohibition of recording of any specific program. After the expiration of the program recording rights, as determined by the telecaster, any recorded program is deleted. The system also uses encryption to prevent content copying to external storage devices.