The present invention provides systems and methods for secure transaction
management and electronic rights protection. Electronic appliances such
as computers equipped in accordance with the present invention help to
ensure that information is accessed and used only in authorized ways, and
maintain the integrity, availability, and/or confidentiality of the
information. Such electronic appliances provide a distributed virtual
distribution environment (VDE) that may enforce a secure chain of
handling and control, for example, to control and/or meter or otherwise
monitor use of electronically stored or disseminated information. Such a
virtual distribution environment may be used to protect rights of various
participants in electronic commerce and other electronic or
electronic-facilitated transactions. Distributed and other operating
systems, environments and architectures, such as, for example, those
using tamper-resistant hardware-based processors, may establish security
at each node. These techniques may be used to support an all-electronic
information distribution, for example, utilizing the "electronic
highway".