A standards-based OTT DRM ecosystem with CMAF, CENC and CPIX

With streaming formats such as Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) and HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), content providers can reach many devices (mobile, desktop, TV, etc.) over-the-top (OTT). The upcoming MPEG Common Media Application Format (CMAF) standard will enable interoperability between both streaming formats by leveraging the same media format (ISOBMFF). In order to distribute premium content, Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems are needed to protect the media streams. A DRM system enables content owners to control content policies. However, using only one DRM system to protect the video distribution is not the optimal solution to reach the maximum amount of devices, since a platform or device is normally tied to only the vendor's DRM. As a result, a multi-DRM approach is required in order to protect content with more than one DRM system - the MPEG Common Encryption (CENC) standard enables this. Many components are involved in a multi-DRM backend, e.g. DRM license server, encryptor or packager. The challenge is to ensure secure communication between these components, so that they can exchange sensitive metadata such as DRM-specific information and encryption keys. This can be accomplished following a new specification named Content Protection Information Exchange Format (CPIX) by the DASH-IF. An overview of current and future media streaming formats and standards will be given. Further, we explain how to transition to an efficient and interoperable OTT DRM strategy.