The DLNA standard is used for sharing music, photos and video over an existing home network. For example, by using DLNA you could stream video from your phone to a compatible TV-set using a Wi-Fi network.
DLNA refers to both an organization and the technology they created.
Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) was founded by a group of PC and consumer electronics companies in June 2003 (with Intel in the lead role) to develop and promote a set of interoperability guidelines for sharing digital media among multimedia devices under the auspices of a certification standard. DLNA certified devices include smartphones, tablets, PCs, TV sets and storage servers.
The group published its first set of guidelines in June 2004. The guidelines incorporate several existing public standards, including Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) for media management and device discovery and control, and widely used digital media formats and wired and wireless networking standards.
DLNA works with cable, satellite, and telecom service providers to provide link protection on each end of the data transfer. The extra layer of digital rights management (DRM) security allows broadcast operators to enable consumers to share their content on multimedia devices without the risk of piracy. In March 2014, DLNA publicly released the VidiPath Guidelines, originally called "DLNA CVP-2 Guidelines." VidiPath enables consumers to view subscription TV content on a wide variety of devices including televisions, tablets, phones, Blu-ray players, set top boxes (STBs), personal computers (PCs) and game consoles without any additional intermediate devices from the service provider.
As of September 2014, over 25,000 different device models had obtained "DLNA Certified" status, indicated by a logo on their packaging and confirming their interoperability with other devices. It was estimated that by 2017 over 6 billion DLNA-certified devices, from digital cameras to game consoles and TVs, would be installed in users' homes.
As of June 2015 the organization claimed membership of "more than 200 companies". On January 5, 2017, DLNA announced on its web site that "the organization has fulfilled its mission and will dissolve as a non-profit trade association." Its certification program will be conducted by SpireSpark International of Portland, Oregon.