Digital rights management within an embedded storage device

1. Field of the Invention A method is provided for enabling locked data stored on a storage medium and accessing it through a data storage engine contained within or connected to a host device. A user selects all or part of the data stored on the storage medium to enable. The host device then connects to a server over a network and completes a transaction. The transaction can be any requirement specified by the supplier of the data selected by the user. Once the transaction is complete, the data storage engine connects to the same or a separate server through the host device and receives a piece of information, known as the content key, necessary to decrypt, read, or otherwise make sense of the data selected by the user. The content key may be, for example, part of a decryption key. The content key is combined with other information stored on the storage medium. The combined information is then used to access the data selected by the user.