Flash Media Server Article

Exploring content protection options with Flash Media Rights Management Server

With the introduction of Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server, we're expanding the options that are available to content owners to protect their video assets.

To be sure, content owners and developers can continue to deliver high-quality video without any protections or limitations to access of any kind (such as with Creative Commons licensing) through Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Media Player, and Adobe AIR. You can deliver video either embedded into your SWF, as a separate video file progressively downloaded from a web server, or through Flash Media Server. Considering that Flash Player has achieved over 98% penetration on the desktop, this is the easiest way to get your free videos to the largest audience.

Moreover, content owners enjoy additional options with Flash Media Server to help protect where and when their videos are viewed, such as domain access control, authorization adapters, SWF verification, and RTMPE.

Flash Media Rights Management Server introduces a new set of options for developers and content owners to protect their content. Developers can build a custom Adobe AIR application and leverage the APIs in the AIR runtime, or distribute their content through Adobe Media Player in conjunction with Flash Media Rights Management Server. Taking advantage of these APIs, developers can build RIAs that include video as a core asset and then apply digital rights management (DRM) to that video.

Following are some key considerations when applying content protection to your video.

Choosing the viewing experience

You can determine whether your audience has an in-browser experience or gets to download your videos to the desktop, potentially for offline playback:

• Flash Media Server content protection can be applied with Flash Player in the browser, but the user must be online
• Flash Media Rights Management Server (FMRMS) content protection works only with Adobe AIR applications such as Adobe Media Player, but the user can be offline

Protecting content

You can choose what sorts of rights you want to protect:

• Features of Flash Media Server can help ensure that your content plays back only in your domain
• FMS and FMRMS can help ensure that your content plays back only within your embedded SWF file or distributed, custom AIR application
• Plug-ins to FMS help ensure that only authorized users can access your FMS stream
• Digital rights management capabilities of FMRMS can ensure that only authorized users can access your FLV or F4V files

Where to go from here

For more information about Flash Media Rights Management Server, check out the product page. Also check out the latest security-related articles in the Flash Media Server Developer Center. You can also read up on using digital rights management in the Adobe AIR LiveDocs. Our overall goal is to provide an ever increasing means of options to give content owners and users the best experience of video on the web.

About the author