Adobe Systems on Wednesday introduced a software server that broadcasters and media companies can use to protect digital video played through Adobe Flash technology either online or offline.

The Flash Media Rights Management Server is meant to enforce copyright protection on content, Adobe said. The server integrates into Adobe's Flash media player and video applications that run on Adobe's runtime environment called AIR. The latter software is a cross-operating system platform for running Internet applications.

The new server enables publishers to protect media content whether it's distributed through a live Web cast or as ad-supported, free, or paid-for on-demand programming, The software encrypts Flash audio and video files that are downloaded and played locally, and sets policies for their access.

Service providers can specify a range of parameters for user access and media expiration, while dynamic rights management technology in the server makes it possible to change usage rights even after files have been distributed, Adobe said. In addition, protection capabilities in Adobe's media player help ensure that content is not reused or remixed without publisher consent.

Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server is available for Windows Server 2003 and Red Hat Linux at $40,000 per CPU.

Adobe last month released its first version of AIR, which stands for "Adobe integrated runtime," and the third iteration of the Flex development framework, which is used to operate Flash and AIR applications. The technologies are used to build rich Internet apps, which are loosely defined as software with engaging user interfaces for interacting with Web site applications. The UIs are comparable to custom interfaces found on desktop software.