Method for processing a data flow according to the content thereof

1. A method of copyright-related processing of a data flow comprising:

providing a database of known data flows and of internet service providers from which it is known which service or data may be obtained from them;

comparing the data flow with the database of known data flows;

determining whether the data flow is recognized as a known data flow;

processing said data flow as specified in the database when the data flow is recognized as a known data flow; and,

when the data flow is not recognized as a known data flow, successively analyzing the data flow until a content type of the data flow is sufficiently recognized in order to decide how to process the data flow;

thereby first analyzing administration data comprising at least one of sender address, recipient address and a port number of a packet of the data flow and if not successful, subsequently analyzing user data of a packet of the data flow wherein the data flow is analyzed by cross-correlation of the data flow with known data flows, and wherein:

the administration data and the user data of a packet of the data flow are analyzed in real time;

the data flow is entered in the database of known data flows, and

the way in which the data flow is to be processed is entered in the database depending on the result of the correlation; and

wherein, if the type of the content of the data flow is a copyright-protected work, selecting one of not forwarding the data flow, forwarding the data flow in corrupted form, and forwarding the data flow at a charge.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data flow contains TCP/IP packets.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the copyright-protected work includes at least one of music, video sequences, software, electronic books, listening books and images.