Conditional access system for controlling the access to a data content

1. A method for conditional access, comprising:

receiving and storing a meta-entitlement of an end-user, said meta-entitlement including an event number range;

extracting, from the meta-entitlement, an actual entitlement identification including the event selected by the-end-user;

determining whether the entitlement identification in the entitlement control message matches the actual entitlement; and

if a match is determined, supplying a control word from the entitlement control message for use in descrambling received scrambled content.

2. A receiver for use with a conditional access system, the receiver comprising a descrambler, an entitlement control message decoder and means for storing entitlements, wherein means for receiving and storing a meta-entitlement of an end-user, said meta-entitlement including an event number range, and further means for extracting from the meta-entitlement an actual entitlement identification including the event selected by the-end-user, after which a control word from the entitlement control message is supplied to the descrambler if the entitlement identification in the entitlement control message matches the actual entitlement.

3. The receiver of claim 2 , wherein the extracting means performs the extracting if allowed and decided by a user.

4. The receiver of claim 2 , wherein the meta-entitlement does not entitle decryption of entitlement control messages (ECMs), but is used to derive the actual entitlement.

5. The receiver of claim 2 , wherein the range is delimited by a beginning event number and an ending event number that define the events from which the user can select.

6. A conditional access system for controlling the access of receivers of end-users to data transmitted from a data content source comprising:

an uplink system, said uplink system including a scrambler for scrambling the content supplied from the content source, an entitlement control message generator for generating entitlement control messages containing a control word and an entitlement identification, and a transmitter for transmitting the scrambled content and the entitlement control messages; and

a receiver including a descrambler, an entitlement control message decoder and means for storing entitlements wherein if a match exists between the entitlement identification in the entitlement control message and the entitlement of an end-user receiver, the entitlement control message decoder supplies a control word to the descrambler for descrambling a part of the received scrambled content for which the receiver is entitled, wherein the receiver stores a meta-entitlement of the end-user, said meta-entitlement including an event number range, and extracts from the meta-entitlement an actual entitlement identification including the event selected by the end-user, after which a control word from the entitlement control message is supplied to the descrambler if the entitlement identification in the entitlement control message matches the actual entitlement.

7. The conditional access system according to claim 6 , in which the uplink system comprises a generator and a transmitter for generating and transmitting an entitlement management message, wherein the meta-entitlement is transmitted in an entitlement management message to the entitled receiver.

8. The conditional access system according to claim 6 , wherein the actual entitlement is extracted from both the meta-entitlement and the entitlement control message.

9. The conditional access system according to claim 1 , wherein the meta-entitlement includes a date range.

10. The conditional access system according to claim 6 , wherein the meta-entitlement includes a number of allowed selections.

11. The conditional access system according to claim 6 , wherein at the receiver side a selection counter is provided, which is set to the number of allowed selections in the meta-entitlement in the entitlement management message upon reception of said message and is decremented by each event selection by the end-user.