A digital rights management system for the distribution, protection and use of electronic content. The system includes a client architecture which receives content, where the content is preferably protected by encryption and may include a license and individualization features. Content is protected at several levels, including: no protection; source-sealed; individually-sealed (or "inscribed"); source-signed; and fully-individualized (or "owner exclusive"). The client also includes and/or receives components which permit the access and protection of the encrypted content, as well as components that allow content to be provided to the client in a form that is individualized for the client. In some cases, access to the content will be governed by a rights construct defined in the license bound to the content. The client components include an object which accesses encrypted content, an object that parses the license and enforces the rights in the license, an object which obtains protection software and data that is individualized for the client and/or the persona operating the client, and a script of instructions that provides individualization information to a distributor of content so that the content may be individualized for the client and/or its operating persona. Content is generally protected by encrypting it with a key and then sealing the key into the content in a way that binds it to the meta-data associated with the content. In some instances, the key may also be encrypted in such a way as to be accessible only by the use of individualized protection software installed on the client, thereby binding use of the content to a particular client or set of clients.

A technique for content redistribution. Digital content is packaged, and the package is associated with a first license that permits usage of the content on a first device. The first license also specifies the conditions upon which the content may be redistributed and licensed for use on a second device. When a content package is sent to the second device, the second device engages in a re-licensing transaction to obtain a second license that permits use of the content on the second device. Creation of the second license takes place according to conditions specified in the first license. For example, these conditions may specify a price for the second license, and/or a requirement that a portion of the purchase price be paid back to the owner of the first license, and/or a requirement that the first license be revoked upon creation of the second license.

A method and system for providing an electronic shopping service integrated into a software application, and for controlling the set of web sites that are reachable from within the shopping service. Each web site is represented by data which is signed by a private key, and the data together with this signature is delivered to a plurality of computing devices that provide the shopping service. Each of the computing devices has access to the public key that corresponds to the private key, and uses the public key to verify the signature. The computing device displays links to those web sites whose representative data validates against the signature.

A server architecture for a digital rights management system that distributes and protects rights in content. The server architecture includes a retail site which sells content items to consumers, a fulfillment site which provides to consumers the content items sold by the retail site, and an activation site which enables consumer reading devices to use content items having an enhanced level of copy protection. An activation site provides an activation certificate and a secure repository executable to consumer content-rendering devices which enables those content rendering devices to render content having an enhanced level of copy-resistance. The activation site "activates" client-reading devices in a way that binds them to a persona, and limits the number of devices that may be activated for a particular persona, or the rate at which such devices may be activated for a particular persona.

A scalable computing system for managing annotations is capable of handling requests for annotations to millions of documents a day. The computing system consists of multiple tiers of servers. A tier I server indicates whether there are annotations associated with a content source. A tier II server indexes the annotations. A tier III server stores the body of the annotation.