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I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

blog.samuelmaddock.com

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Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#441

Post by [deleted] »

fixermark wrote: post #278
bad_user wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can my torrenting app stream my video, or do I have to wait for a full assembly of the pieces from torrent hosts and enough downloaded to watch it? 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.

[deleted]

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#442

Post by marcus_holmes »

samstave wrote: post #419
djsumdog wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dangerous precedent. Think about adblock. You're just choosing to render the data websites give to you differently. What if you design a web browser that just ignores most blobs of CSS/Javascript and renders content in a very different way. Are you now breaking copyright? Because you're rendering the data differently than the W3C standard or blocking certain elements? I realize this is specifically about DRM c…

This is what pisses me off aboit ads and data consumption pay rates: if i am paying for “1GB” of data, then i should have full control over how that data gets consumed by the content i am accessing over that paid pipe. Period.

but you do have full control... if you don't want to see ads, don't visit sites that use ads to support their business model.

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#443

Post by smaddock »

NeekGerd wrote: post #2

Had the same issue with an Electron app of mine, published on the AppStore with 10k users or so. It's been more than a year that I'm in contact with Google/Widevine, waiting for my license. This is a nightmare. It's such an obvious gatekeeping mechanism.

Sorry to hear that. Hopefully something comes out of this which can improve the process for all of us. :(

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#444

Post by ggggtez »

Sucks, I agree, but this shouldn't be surprising. No one wants to open source their DRM. The title made me think they blocked you from creating a browser, which clearly isn't the case, unless you really feel that Widevine support is necessary for a browser these days (is it? I have no idea...)

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#445

Post by whatamidoingyo »

Stop using Google products. Should have used Firefox. Seriously. Stop allowing them to contain their control. As stated in the article, Google's browser has 70% market share. Firefox is the browser we need.

"Don't be evil" has been changed, remember? They now embrace evil, they love it.

Edit: downvote this all you want, I really don't care. You're going to be at fault for the destruction of the web in the future.

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#446

Post by marcus_holmes »

krzyk wrote: post #277
kwindla wrote: post #256

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…

The above is most probably for US based clients. E.g. in Poland it is perfectly legal to watch copyrighted material as long as you don't redistribute it. 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)

or Cambodia, which has some interesting laws on copyright that effectively mean foreign copyrights are not enforceable there.

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#447

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tptacek wrote: post #379
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've missed the joke. In the DRM case the honest people are the ones who should be allowed in, but the DRM only allows the pirates in.

No, I think you’ve missed my point. A technology that prevents generally honest people from slipping casually into dishonesty sounds valuable. Battling people who are determined to be dishonest sounds much less valuable.

Making a personal copy of a video you've paid for is in no way dishonest, and the user downloading it from a pirate site without paying is in no way impeded by DRM.

The only thing it could even arguably be doing is preventing users from uploading videos to pirate sites, but that is empirically a massive failure given that all of the videos are already on the pirate sites.

So all you're doing is battling the honest people who have paid and then want to make a copy for format shifting or some other fair use. And the legitimate value of battling that is a negative number.

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#448

Post by smaddock »

shawnz wrote: post #89

Google is being blatantly anticompetitive here and it's definitely not fair to OP. But as an aside, I actually would prefer this functionality to be provided by a browser extension rather than a separate app, like the OP describes at the end of the article. Please pursue this option! I think it would be much more convenient than having to launch a separate app, even if the functionality is reduced.

There are some features which make a desktop application more appealing to me. One feature required changing browser behavior [1] which wouldn't otherwise be possible.

A WebExtension could work, but has potential to run into the same gatekeeping issue of being removed by Google from their Web Store. With Google having ~70% market share, this wouldn't be a good outcome.

[1] https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/17203

Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me

#449

Post by ggggtez »

Mindwipe wrote: post #359
danShumway wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a single company can effectively decide whether a bunch of 3rd party sites that they don't control work on your browser, how is that any different? Google is effectively deciding that anyone other than pre-approved browsers can't play Netflix content. If an ISP fully embraced the Net Neutrality repeal and started blocking video content, and someone posted on HN that ISPs were "blocking them from building a streami…

> If a single company can effectively decide whether a bunch of 3rd party sites that they don't control work on your browser, how is that any different? Because those third party sites choose to utilise closed software from that company. And Netflix doesn't only utilise Widevine as a DRM, it uses several different DRM systems, so Google don't have control over anything.

This. Netflix is buying security for their product by doing this.

We may all think (know) DRM is dumb, but DRM is more than just about how hard it is to hack. Sure, everyone could in theory reverse engineer this stuff. But the point is that it's only legally protected as long as it's at least not trivial. Open sourcing would probably invalidate their legal defences against people downloading Netflix movies.

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