android.drm

Provides classes for managing DRM content and determining the capabilities of DRM plugins (agents). Common uses of the DRM API include:

• Determining which DRM plug-ins (agents) are installed on a device.
• Retrieving information about specific plug-ins, such as the MIME types and file suffixes they support.
• Registering a user or a device with an online DRM service.
• Retrieving license constraints for rights-protected content.
• Checking whether a user has the proper rights to play or use rights-protected content.
• Associating rights-protected content with its license so you can use the MediaPlayer API to play the content.

DRM Overview

The Android platform provides an extensible DRM framework that lets applications manage rights-protected content according to the license constraints that are associated with the content. The DRM framework supports many DRM schemes; which DRM schemes a device supports is up to the device manufacturer.

The Android DRM framework is implemented in two architectural layers (see figure below):

• A DRM framework API, which is exposed to applications through the Android application framework and runs through the Dalvik VM for standard applications.
• A native code DRM manager, which implements the DRM framework and exposes an interface for DRM plug-ins (agents) to handle rights management and decryption for various DRM schemes.

For application developers, the DRM framework offers an abstract, unified API that simplifies the management of rights-protected content. The API hides the complexity of DRM operations and allows a consistent operation mode for both rights-protected and unprotected content across a variety of DRM schemes. For device manufacturers, content owners, and Internet digital media providers the DRM framework’s plugin architecture provides a means of adding support for a specific DRM scheme to the Android system.

Using the DRM API

In a typical DRM session, an Android application uses the DRM framework API to instantiate a DrmManagerClient. The application calls various methods on the DRM client to query rights and perform other DRM-related tasks. Each DrmManagerClient instance has its own unique ID, so the DRM manager is able to differentiate callers.

Although each DRM plug-in may require a different sequence of API calls, the general call sequence for an application is as follows:

• Register the device with an online DRM service.

  You can do this by first using the acquireDrmInfo() method to acquire the registration information, and then using the processDrmInfo() method to process the registration information.

• Acquire the license that's associated with the rights-protected content.

  You can do this by first using the acquireDrmInfo() method to acquire the license information, and then using the processDrmInfo() method to process the license information. You can also use the acquireRights() method.

• Extract constraint information from the license.

  You can use the getConstraints() method to do this.

• Associate the rights-protected content with its license.

  You can use the saveRights() method to do this.

After you make an association between the rights-protected content and its license, the DRM manager automatically handles rights management for that content. Specifically, the DRM manager will handle all further licensing checks when you attempt to play the content using the MediaPlayer API.

To learn how to use the DRM API with a specific DRM plug-in, see the documentation provided by the plug-in developer.