271–280 of 632 posts
I'm trying to bring to light a bug that allows to skip Ads in YouTube (no add-ons, extensions, etc.), but just can't get any attention: https://twitter.com/maketechfair
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Would it have made the user experience of DRM any worse than it currently is, though? The DRM module would still ship with Chrome and Edge (and likely Safari too, given Apple became involved pretty quickly), you'd still need multiple different streaming formats (in the form of different DRM formats) as you do today, and maybe you'd need slightly different JS codepath per-browser too (but that's not a big difference t…
If the W3C making the right decision would make them irrelevant then what has actually happened is that they're already irrelevant, and becoming a rubber stamp on bad ideas only serves to prove that and erode their credibility. Moreover, such organizations are made up of their members, and it's up to the members to do the right thing as well. Nobody had to volunteer to be the first to add this gunk to their browser.…
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Consumers must take some of the blame surely? If there's nothing but coal powered electricity generation then vote to change it. If the company you buy electric from uses more coal than others, then change company. IMO ordinary members of the public take more responsibility in that because it's relatively straightforward to understand: buy your electric from renewable generation and get less negative environmental im…
No. The owners of coal mines, and the owners of coal power plants, are to blame. That specific industry has come at a terrible cost of human life and the environment, which wasn't even news last century. The people with the money and power to get a coal plant built, are to blame. I don't have choice in where I get my power. Lobbyists pay politicians to decide where my electricity is generated. If you started cooking…
Meth isn't really a comparable need. However, suppose dodgy crack (cut with crap), or paracetamol, was available for treating headaches: you can choose the paracetamol which makes you partially responsible for keeping the dodgy crack producers/dealers in business if you choose their product.
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I hope Kodi makes some decent progress. I installed it a few weeks back and it is a rough experience. The docs on how to do simple things seem to be nonexistant because they don't want to be sued and shutdown entirely.
I think Kodi has made amazing progress. I've not had issues getting it installed on different devices since the 15.x days. Currently run it on 4 different dedicated devices in my apartment as well as some mobile and media devices. > The docs on how to do simple things seem to be nonexistant because they don't want to be sued and shutdown entirely. What docs are you looking for? They have a very extensive wiki as well…
I’ve ran it on all kinds of hardware from laptops, Android phones and tablets, Raspberry Pis (version 1 through to 3), Intel NUCs, etc. And obviously not forgetting the Xbox. Until very recently it was my go to media center.
I even went as far as to write some plugins for it. But they were for version 8 or something. It was probably 10 years ago and hasn’t been maintained.
I’ve never used a media center - free or non-free - that was as easy to set up nor ran as flawlessly as XBMC / Kodi did
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Doesn't FreeBSD provide Linux kernel ABI compatibility?
Yes. It's getting somewhat out of date though (e.g. current versions of Steam can't connect to the network)
Let's add the US Congress and the EU to the long list of parties to blame for the DRM situation. "Reverse engineering" software for the purposes of "circumventing" copyright is illegal. "Circumventing" is much more broadly defined than it should be. It's not just illegal to redistribute copyrighted material. That's the point of copyright and has been the case for a long time. It's also illegal to watch/consume conten…
It is also legal to do a reverse engineering of software to allow it to run on your system, software, hardware (so I think a browser also applies).
(I'm not a lawyer, just reading some of the more technical law articles)
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I think you're greatly underestimating how much more cumbersome torrenting is even compared to a plugin, especially for "normal" users who are not necessarily tech-savvy.
This argument is repeated ad nauseam but it’s false, all it takes is a torrenting app installed, that’s the only threshold. But back to the point, if Netflix wouldn’t use DRM, it would change absolutely nothing since copyright infringement is still illegal and those DRM protections are completely useless.
If the latter, torrenting is plenty cumbersome enough that if the studios are pushing movie-viewing to "Pay us money or you have to torrent it," they're winning.
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Most YouTube videos (including the one you linked) don't use DRM, that's why 1080p works on Linux. Netflix only works with up to 720p on Linux.
I'm pretty sure YouTube doesn't support DRM at all . Premium originals (e.g. Mind Field) play in 4K for me on FreeBSD (for which no one has ever compiled Widevine or anything like that)
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Blame Google and Microsoft. They were the people who created the specification, and pushed for it, when Netflix came begging for a solution to their DRM conundrum. Even if the W3C hadn't approved it, that's two of the big four browser vendors who are committing to implementing it anyways, which is enough to guarantee a de facto standard anyways.
No, blame the movie studios, record labels etc. They're the one which require asinine DRM support for web browsers. Google/Microsoft/Apple/Adobe want to support media content, but to do so requires towing the line with the media companies otherwise they refuse to license the content (at least in HD+). Having worked with various DRM teams I know that they have to treat their code as if its the most secret code in the…
Rather, focus on concrete steps you yourself can take:
1. Make sure the hostile black box is not available / disabled in your browser. So when you end up at a page that wants to use DRM and it doesn't work, you simply attribute the problem to the website being broken (which it is), and move on. If you do need to keep using the DRM crutch for now, then only use it on a separate dedicated browser or device.
2. Base your media setup around a DRM-free pipeline (eg Kodi). Make torrenting content your default. If you want to pay indie creators for DRM free downloads, feel free. But don't fund any studios that generally push DRM.
3. Share downloaded content with friends (eg USB drives), encouraging them to not fund Netflix et al developing and promulgating more DRM. This is especially relevant for "exclusive" releases that are meant to push people into signing up for yet another subscription.