By George Grubb, Guest Expert George Grubb is CEO and founder of PlayStream, a streaming media service company. As online content companies encounter increasing pressure to charge for content, streaming with digital rights management support is becoming a more and more useful option. The term digital rights management, or DRM, may conjure fears of expensive consulting fees, but new services are available that enable content companies to quickly and easily deploy digital rights into their streaming media. The term refers to securely packaging and distributing content for sale via the Internet. The content may be any form of digital media, including audio, video, graphics, text and streaming media.
Packaging refers to the use of a software application to securely encrypt digital media.
The key contains information that controls if and when the media player will play the content. When someone attempts to view the file using a streaming media player, the player detects the locked status of the file and requests a key to unlock the content for playback. Ideally, the same company hosting your streaming media will offer packaging services for your content. It can be as simple as uploading your files and choosing among options such as whether to lock files and at what price each file should be set. The host sets up key management and online transaction capability with a DRM service so you don't have to worry about it.