I can’t imagine the vast majority of their customer base uses Linux, and was likely left out as a fast follow as it isn’t worth being a supported system until they can see it gains traction.
Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM
11–20 of 330 posts
Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM
#12Is Disney+ expected to work fully before launch date? Isn't in 'testing' right now as described by the author? Why is everything expected to be perfect while still in testing? From this text, it sounds like Disney is actively working on the issue. The product has not launched yet. I'm not sure what the problem is. Aside from a faster initial customer support response (for a product that isn't even out!) would could D…
You're ignoring the analysis that Disney+ seems to be blocking use entirely at the lower "security level" assessed by Widevine. It would not take significant time or effort for them to change the threshold value if it were something they considered broken. It seems prudent at this point to avoid becoming a paying customer until they address it, if you care about this sort of thing.
> It would not take significant time or effort for them to change the threshold value if it were something they considered broken.
Do you have reason to believe this? To me that sounds like a complicated change with significant potential business impacts. Have they signed contracts already where this kind of security is ambiguous? Does changing the flag actually solve the issues on all devices or do other issues present, since they have been untested? Testing must happen post-change, I would imagine.
The issue still sounds complex to me. I use Linux and I want Disney+ to support it, obviously. But I don't see Disney as being in the wrong here (yet) - they're potentially just working on the issue before release. We'll see, I guess.
Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM
#13Interesting. I'd been toying with signing up for Disney+ at some point (when does it even go live officially?). But if this is the case, I absolutely won't be getting a subscription as I use Linux as my desktop OS. "No Linux support" == "no customer"
While I agree with the philosophy that Disney should try to support as many platforms as possible, I really don't think it will notice the Linux market is missing.
Cost of building and maintaining a Linux client > Potential revenue from Linux users.
Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM
#14I was planning on subscribing instead to a VPN that supports peer-to-peer torrenting.
Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM
#15>In this case e.g. Netflix will not offer full HD or 4k resolutions, but otherwise everything works fine, I don't understand the point of this type of thinking. Video DRM isn't like Denuvo where it can actually get you a few days or even weeks before any pirated versions exist on the web. If it can be watched by a human pirates will copy it, even if they have to rip it straight from the display controller of their mo…
They do this because Hollywood doesn't understand technology. Netflix understands technology and understands this stops no one, but they are licensing the content from Hollywood, who thinks this behavior actually helps.
Netflix is forced to play ball with them.
Your next question is usually, "Why doesn't the Netflix original content not have these shenanigans then?".
The answer is that most Netflix content is still made by Hollywood studios, so they have the same restrictions. Netflix is only a distributor in most cases, not the content creator.
The other answer is that it is a lot more complicated in the software and for testing to say "can this content be played at 4K based on the publisher?" than to just say, "DRM level 1 means no 4K".
Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM
#16Interesting. I'd been toying with signing up for Disney+ at some point (when does it even go live officially?). But if this is the case, I absolutely won't be getting a subscription as I use Linux as my desktop OS. "No Linux support" == "no customer"
While I agree with the philosophy that Disney should try to support as many platforms as possible, I really don't think it will notice the Linux market is missing. Cost of building and maintaining a Linux client > Potential revenue from Linux users.
Cost of building a Linux client should be zero. It's not because they want to have their proprietary DRM/spyware restricting what you can do.
Ever heard the phrase "piracy is a better service", Disney?
Edit: Cost should be negligible. You should build for web/browser standards, not the OS.
Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM
#17Interesting. I'd been toying with signing up for Disney+ at some point (when does it even go live officially?). But if this is the case, I absolutely won't be getting a subscription as I use Linux as my desktop OS. "No Linux support" == "no customer"
While I agree with the philosophy that Disney should try to support as many platforms as possible, I really don't think it will notice the Linux market is missing. Cost of building and maintaining a Linux client > Potential revenue from Linux users.
Looks like this is more of "requiring widevine level 2/3", their player and DRM should work with Linux Firefox and Chrome with minimal changes.
> Disney+ OTOH seems to have the drm features kranked up to maximum draconian settings
Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM
#18I'm pretty sure Disney is optimizing for the majority of their audience who use Windows, OSX, iOS etc, not developers/hackers who run desktop Linux. I'm curious about Android though.
Optimizing how?
Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM
#19AmazonPrime video does not delivers HD content in Linux... I tried everything switching browsers, changing User agent, wine, running virtual box. I seems some type of DRM is not implemented yet in Linux. Netflix is the same I think.
I happily pirate content now.
Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM
#20>In this case e.g. Netflix will not offer full HD or 4k resolutions, but otherwise everything works fine, I don't understand the point of this type of thinking. Video DRM isn't like Denuvo where it can actually get you a few days or even weeks before any pirated versions exist on the web. If it can be watched by a human pirates will copy it, even if they have to rip it straight from the display controller of their mo…
It's like asking why they bother paying customers with anti-piracy ads at the beginning of legally-purchased DVDs when obviously pirates are going to trim them. It's not supposed to be reasonable.
It's design by committee, it's bikeshedding, it's weird clauses in complex contracts etc... From the right's holder point of view your reasoning doesn't make sense, instead it goes the other way: if people buy our product anyway when we do it that way, why change it? Do you think that when NBC licenses The Office to Netflix they care about Linux users not being able to stream it in 1080p? Do you think Netflix is willing to spend time and money to fight for the tiny portion of the user base who both watches Netflix on Linux and cares for high-def?