Is it legal to use the Azure Media Player without purchasing Microsoft Azure?

Question

Hi there,

I am looking to embed portions of long-form video that is hosted on a government website into an online service I am building. The gov website uses the Azure Media ecosystem, and it appears there's no other way to load the video other than to use the Azure Media Player.

I have found code samples online (the Azure Media Player guide even includes them) for adding the media player to my site and was successfully able to play the video after linking to it.

My only question is: is it legal to add embeds using the Azure Media Player without purchasing a Microsoft Azure license?

Again: I don't need the Azure ecosystem as I am not storing, encoding, streaming, or doing anything with video on my server. All I need is the player to make it possible to view a video from another site. It's basically the equivalent of generating a YouTube video embed. I just need that embed.

Answer 1

I believe this will still cost; it's under Streaming.

"Please note that Azure Media Player only supports media streams from Azure Media Services."

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/media-services/#faq

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/azure-media-player/azure-media-player-license

The license has "Installation and Use. You may use the software with your programs that deliver, receive, playback or otherwise handle video or audio content in the delivery chain with Microsoft Azure Media Services."

There is no indication of it needing to be used on specific or other endpoints.