PlayReady is a media file
copy prevention technology from
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
that includes encryption, output prevention and
digital rights management (DRM). It was announced in February 2007.
Technological Differences
The main differences relative to previous DRM schemes from Microsoft are:
* Some popular features that were already present in other DRM schemes in the market have been added; these include the concept of domain (group of devices belonging to the same user which can share the same licenses), Embedded Licenses (licenses that are embedded in the content files, avoiding a separate step for license acquisition) and envelopes (the ability to DRM arbitrary, potentially non-media content). It is also the protection scheme for IIS Smooth Streaming, Microsoft's adaptive streaming technology.
* It is platform-independent: unlike other Microsoft DRM schemes like
Janus, PlayReady can be ported to any kind of portable device, even if it uses non-Microsoft technology (
OS, codecs, media player, etc.).
Competitors
PlayReady competes with other proprietary DRM schemes and even more with DRM-free software, most notably Apple's
FairPlay
FairPlay is a digital rights management (DRM) technology developed by Apple Inc. It is built into the MP4 multimedia file format as an encrypted AAC audio layer, and was used until April 2009 by the company to protect copyrighted works sold ...
introduced in iTunes and QuickTime. There are several other DRM schemes that are competing to become the dominant DRM technology (e.g.
Widevine
Widevine is a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology from Google used by the Chromium and Firefox web browsers (including some derivatives), Android MediaDRM, Android TV, and other consumer electronics devices. Widevine technolog ...
).
Versions
Microsoft released the first version of the PlayReady suite (Porting Kit for devices, PC SDK and runtime, Server SDK) in June 2008.
Silverlight 2.0, released in October 2008, supports content restricted with PlayReady. As of Silverlight 4.0, the implementation of Microsoft PlayReady in Silverlight supports offline content (via persisted license), subscription scenarios (via chained licenses) and online, streaming-only content (via simple non-persistent licenses). Output protection support was also added in Silverlight 4.0.
Interoperability
* PlayReady 2.9 and below is backwards compatible with
Windows Media DRM Windows Media DRM or WMDRM, is a Digital Rights Management service for the Windows Media platform. It is designed to provide delivery of audio or video content over an IP network to a PC or other playback device in such a way that the distributor ca ...
10 content, meaning that content encrypted with WM DRM 10 (for instance, content for PlaysForSure devices) will play on a PlayReady terminal.
* CopyEnablers and MoveEnablers are no longer supported by PlayReady 3.0 and above.
*
PlaysForSure
Microsoft PlaysForSure was a certification given by Microsoft to portable devices and content services that had been tested against several hundred compatibility and performance requirements. These requirements include codec support, Digital rig ...
compliant devices won't play PlayReady-encrypted content.
References
External links
Official PlayReady websiteMicrosoft ready to play with PlayReady-
The Register
''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information te ...
, 13 February 2008
MSDN explanations & code snippetsPlayReady DRM in Silverlight
Microsoft initiatives
Digital rights management systems
Digital rights management standards
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