Digital rights management
Digital Rights Management is the term given to digitally protecting a piece of media which must be unlocked before access to play the media is granted.
Digital rights management allows you to protect your audio and video content
based upon a set of business rules that you dictate. Once encrypted your
files can not be played without an appropriate license, so you may provide
links to your streaming files, or alternatively distribute them via email
or CD, safe in the knowledge that the files may not be viewed by unauthenticated
users. When a user attempts to play a digitally protected file, their player
will look to see if it has an appropriate license for the content, if not
it will direct a user to a license server which interfaces with your business
rules and provide the user with the appropriate license based upon their
actions.
For example:
- A user clicks on a link to watch a music video.
- They do not have a license to play the video, so are prompted for a password.
- They enter a password which is then authenticated.
- The license server issues the user with the appropriate license to view the video.
The licenses granted can have all sorts of characteristics such as:
- Allow the user to view a piece of media once only.
- Allow the user to view a piece of media as many times as they like this month.
- Allow the user to view any media today.
Uses:
- Pay-per-view
- Subscription Services
- Secure viewing