Flash Media Rights Management Server (FMRMS) provides media publishers the ability to distribute content, specifically FLVs, and recuperate production costs through direct (user-paid) or indirect (advertising-paid) compensation by their consumers. The publishers distribute media as encrypted FLVs that can be downloaded and played in either Adobe Media Player, or in AIR applications that provide support for the digital rights management (DRM) API. Published FLVs are encrypted using a policy created by the publishers, which is referred to as identity-based licensing.

With identity-based licensing, the content publisher can protect content with user credentials. For example, a consumer wants to download a television program, but does not want to watch the accompanying advertisements. To avoid watching the advertisements, the consumer pays the content publisher a premium. The user downloads the content from the publisher's website to the installed Adobe Media Player or AIR application, which caches the user credentials. After the program is downloaded, the user just has to open it to view it anytime, even when offline. The content, however, is protected by user credentials and cannot be shared with other users.

When a user tries to play the content, FMRMS contacts the content publisher's system through their service provider interface (SPI) to query whether the user is allowed access to the content and, if so, for how long. As such, user credentials are mandatory. However, identify-based licensing also supports anonymous access. The policy determines whether anonymous access is allowed and how it is applied.

This section explains how to enable your AIR application to play content protected with digital rights management encryption. It is not necessary to understand how to encrypt content using DRM, but it is assumed that you have access to DRM-encrypted content

For an overview of FMRMS, including creating policies, see the documentation included with FMRMS.

For information on Adobe Media Player, see Adobe Media Player Help available within Adobe Media Player.

Contents

• Understanding the encrypted FLV workflow
• Changes to the NetStream class
• Using the DRMStatusEvent class
• Using the DRMAuthenticateEvent class
• Using the DRMErrorEvent class

Language Reference

• DRMAuthenticateEvent
• DRMErrorEvent
• DRMStatusEvent
• NetStream

More Information

• Adobe AIR Developer Center for Flex (search for 'digital rights management')