A media system comprising: a plurality of digital media servers (250, 270) coupled to a digital media player over a wide area network; and a wide area network media service, accessible via the wide area network, the wide area network media service being configured to issue a discovery command that requests an announcement from any media device accessible by the wide area network; wherein: each of said plurality of digital media servers (250, 270) is configured to provide at least one media item to said digital media player through the wide area network and provide an announcement, in response to the discovery command, that announces its presence on the wide area network; said wide area network media service comprises storage for storing group information, wherein said group information identifies at least one media item that users in a group are permitted to access, wherein the group information links said digital media player to a user in said group; said wide area network media service is configured to determine that the digital media player has permission to access said at least one media item from said plurality of digital media servers (250, 270); said wide area network media service is configured to, based on said determination, broker connections between the digital media player and respective ones of the plurality of digital media servers (250, 270); and said digital media player is configured to generate a list of the media items that said digital media player is permitted to access from said plurality of digital media servers (250, 270) to enable user selection of one or more of the media items from said list. a plurality of digital media servers (250, 270) coupled to a digital media player over a wide area network; and a wide area network media service, accessible via the wide area network, the wide area network media service being configured to issue a discovery command that requests an announcement from any media device accessible by the wide area network; wherein: each of said plurality of digital media servers (250, 270) is configured to provide at least one media item to said digital media player through the wide area network and provide an announcement, in response to the discovery command, that announces its presence on the wide area network; said wide area network media service comprises storage for storing group information, wherein said group information identifies at least one media item that users in a group are permitted to access, wherein the group information links said digital media player to a user in said group; said wide area network media service is configured to determine that the digital media player has permission to access said at least one media item from said plurality of digital media servers (250, 270); said wide area network media service is configured to, based on said determination, broker connections between the digital media player and respective ones of the plurality of digital media servers (250, 270); and said digital media player is configured to generate a list of the media items that said digital media player is permitted to access from said plurality of digital media servers (250, 270) to enable user selection of one or more of the media items from said list. each of said plurality of digital media servers (250, 270) is configured to provide at least one media item to said digital media player through the wide area network and provide an announcement, in response to the discovery command, that announces its presence on the wide area network; said wide area network media service comprises storage for storing group information, wherein said group information identifies at least one media item that users in a group are permitted to access, wherein the group information links said digital media player to a user in said group; said wide area network media service is configured to determine that the digital media player has permission to access said at least one media item from said plurality of digital media servers (250, 270); said wide area network media service is configured to, based on said determination, broker connections between the digital media player and respective ones of the plurality of digital media servers (250, 270); and said digital media player is configured to generate a list of the media items that said digital media player is permitted to access from said plurality of digital media servers (250, 270) to enable user selection of one or more of the media items from said list.