1<HTML> 2<BODY> 3<p>Provides classes for managing DRM content and determining the capabilities of DRM plugins 4(agents). Common uses of the DRM API include:</p> 5<ul> 6 <li>Determining which DRM plug-ins (agents) are installed on a device.</li> 7 <li>Retrieving information about specific plug-ins, such as the MIME types and file suffixes 8 they support.</li> 9 <li>Registering a user or a device with an online DRM service.</li> 10 <li>Retrieving license constraints for rights-protected content.</li> 11 <li>Checking whether a user has the proper rights to play or use rights-protected 12 content.</li> 13 <li>Associating rights-protected content with its license so you can use the 14 {@link android.media.MediaPlayer} API to play the content.</li> 15</ul> 16 17<h2>DRM Overview</h2> 18 19<p>The Android platform provides an extensible DRM framework that lets applications manage 20rights-protected content according to the license constraints that are associated with the 21content. The DRM framework supports many DRM schemes; which DRM schemes a device supports 22is up to the device manufacturer.</p> 23 24<p>The Android DRM framework is implemented in two architectural layers (see figure below):</p> 25<ul> 26 <li>A DRM framework API, which is exposed to applications through the Android 27application framework and runs through the Dalvik VM for standard applications.</li> 28 <li>A native code DRM manager, which implements the DRM framework and exposes an 29interface for DRM plug-ins (agents) to handle rights management and decryption for various 30DRM schemes.</li> 31</ul> 32 33<img src="/images/drm_arch.png" alt="DRM architecture diagram" border="0"/> 34 35<p>For application developers, the DRM framework offers an abstract, unified API that 36simplifies the management of rights-protected content. The API hides the complexity of DRM 37operations and allows a consistent operation mode for both rights-protected and unprotected content 38across a variety of DRM schemes. For device manufacturers, content owners, and Internet digital 39media providers the DRM framework’s plugin architecture provides a means of adding support for a 40specific DRM scheme to the Android system.</p> 41 42<h2>Using the DRM API</h2> 43 44<p>In a typical DRM session, an Android application uses the DRM framework API to 45instantiate a {@link android.drm.DrmManagerClient}. The application calls various methods 46on the DRM client to query rights and perform other DRM-related tasks. Each 47{@link android.drm.DrmManagerClient} instance has its own unique ID, so the DRM manager is able to 48differentiate callers.</p> 49 50<p>Although each DRM plug-in may require a different sequence 51of API calls, the general call sequence for an application is as follows:</p> 52 53<ul> 54 <li>Register the device with an online DRM service. 55 <p>You can do this by first using the {@link android.drm.DrmManagerClient#acquireDrmInfo 56acquireDrmInfo()} method to acquire the registration information, and then using the {@link 57android.drm.DrmManagerClient#processDrmInfo processDrmInfo()} method to process the 58registration information.</p> 59 </li> 60 <li>Acquire the license that's associated with the rights-protected content. 61 <p>You can do this by first using the {@link android.drm.DrmManagerClient#acquireDrmInfo 62acquireDrmInfo()} method to acquire the license information, and then using the {@link 63android.drm.DrmManagerClient#processDrmInfo processDrmInfo()} method to process the 64license information. You can also use the {@link 65android.drm.DrmManagerClient#acquireRights acquireRights()} method.</p> 66 </li> 67 <li>Extract constraint information from the license. 68 <p>You can use the {@link android.drm.DrmManagerClient#getConstraints getConstraints()} 69 method to do this.</p> 70 </li> 71 <li>Associate the rights-protected content with its license. 72 <p>You can use the {@link android.drm.DrmManagerClient#saveRights saveRights()} method 73 to do this.</p> 74 </li> 75</ul> 76 77<p>After you make an association between the rights-protected content and its license, 78the DRM manager automatically handles rights management for that content. Specifically, the 79DRM manager will handle all further licensing checks when you attempt to play the content using 80the {@link android.media.MediaPlayer} API.</p> 81 82<p>To learn how to use the DRM API with a specific DRM plug-in, see the documentation provided 83by the plug-in developer.</p> 84</BODY> 85</HTML> 86