Reactive and Proactive Licenses

Reactive licenses are typically used in online streaming and progressive download scenarios. These licenses are provided on demand as needed for immediate media playback.

Proactive licenses are obtained in advance of the media playback and are used in download-to-own, rental, and subscription business scenarios.

Both license types can have persistence, but a non-persistence license is only supported in reactive mode. Non-persistence reactive licenses are used only once and expire automatically when the media has finished playing. Proactive licenses may be non-expiring, as in the case of download-to-own, or have a limited lifetime or some other limit that will cause the license to expire, as in the rental and subscription scenarios.

For more information, see PlayReady License Acquisition.