Entitlements

There are five main entitlements use cases. These are explained in the following sections.

Using entitlements to display the right content controls

A client application needs to know which content the signed-in account has entitlements for, so it can display content appropriately. For example:

• Display a play button for content for which the account has entitlements.

• Display a buy button for content for which the account does not have entitlements.

To get the entitlements, the app calls Rights Manager (RMG) – see Get all entitlements for an account.

Using entitlement state messaging to update stored entitlement information

Right Manager (RMG) sends a message (via Device Messaging Manager (DMM) to subscribed client devices when there is a change to an entitlement for the account that the device belongs to.

The client application should use the contents of these messages to update its locally-stored entitlement data.

As long as the stored entitlement data is up-to-date, it is preferable to use this method to update this data instead of making repeated calls to RMG to refresh the entitlement data, as it reduces load on RMG and means less work for the client.

See Using entitlement state messaging to update stored entitlement information.

Using entitlements to enable/disable capabilities

OpenTV Video Platform supports capability products. These are things like the ability to record using NPVR or to use Netflix as a bundled service.

Some types of capability can be applied to VOD or live content in a granular way. For example, if the capability is start-over functionality, it can be enabled or disabled on a per-channel basis.

So for a capability that may or may not be enabled for content, the client app must check:

1. Whether the capability is enabled for the content that the user wants to watch.

2. Whether the capability is enabled at the account level (that is, whether the user has purchased the product that includes the capability).

See Use entitlements to enable/disable capabilities.

Licence acquisition

A client application must check entitlements before it can acquire the licence that is needed for content playout. The process is as follows:

1. The user initiates playback of content.

2. The client application calls Rights Manager (RMG) to request entitlements for the content. If successful, the call returns a content authorisation token.

3. The client calls the SSP Content License Management service (CLM), passing the content authorisation token. The CLM returns the licence.

4. The app uses the licence to decrypt the content for playout.

Guest entitlements

Guest entitlements allow a user who has entitlements for a channel and entitlements for the guest entitlements capability feature to invite a limited number of guests who do not have entitlements for the channel to watch it for a limited time.

See Enabling guest entitlements.