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Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

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Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#121

Post by Igelau »

profmonocle wrote: post #36

> desktop Linux and many Android devices only support level 1. In this case e.g. Netflix will not offer full HD or 4k resolutions And yet 4K webrips of recent Netflix shows are readily available on torrent sites. I don't understand who these higher levels of DRM are trying to target. They obviously don't stop the serious pirates from ripping and sharing the content with everyone. Yet the lower levels are "good enough…

I'm not a lawyer, but if we look at the DMCA,

17 USC §1201 (A)(1)(a): "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

No one is interested in perfect because the actual DRM is only a tiny sliver of the protection. The bulk of it is the threat of having to pay a huge settlement because you don't want to get the piss beaten out of you in court.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#122

Post by lifthrasiir »

hannasanarion wrote: post #101
lifthrasiir wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DRM punishes paying customers and does nothing to stop piracy. There is a plot twist here: DRM does help stopping piracy, but only for smaller businesses producing the contents that appeals enough to be copied but not enough to be paid for. I'm pretty fine with Steam DRM for that reason, without that indie games will have much harder time. For Disney+, I cannot understand their reasoning at all.

Most games on Steam don't have DRM. Valve's DRM product is called Custom Executable Generation (CEG) and it costs extra for developers to add to their games. Most steam games work fine even if you uninstall Steam and have no internet.

How exactly many games do (EDIT: typo) have DRM? AFAIK the answer is "many enough", I'm unable to give a concrete number but I do recall many games in my library that doesn't appear in a list of DRM-free games. I don't agree to your premise.

(To be clear, I do think DRM---so-called---is very bad in general. I accept DRMs for indie games only because DRMs have been already existed for games.)

[1] https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#123

Post by Erudite_Genius »

bilbo0s wrote: post #94
jaimex2 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty simple: They pay a hot shot company to try and stop piracy and thats the best they can come up with. Piracy can't be stopped but thats not what they want to hear. Piracy can be greatly reduced by distributing the content via Netflix but thats not what they want to hear.

> And yet 4K webrips of recent Netflix shows are readily available on torrent sites. and: > Piracy can be greatly reduced by distributing the content via Netflix Aren't you guys saying different things? One is saying people already pirate on netflix, and the other is saying netflix removes the need for piracy. If you're saying the same thing, I would interpret it to mean that piracy is greatly reduced on netflix, but…

Content piracy has long been about the exorbitant cost of acquiring content.

If you look at the cost of downloading a full, original quality Blu-Ray rip, then burning that to a dual-layer BD-R disc, you're looking at an hour to torrent plus up to $10 for a dual-layer recordable disc. Compare that to a store-bought copy that's $7.88 and comes with both Blu-Ray and DVD copies, and it's no contest.

Make that store-bought copy $49.95 (thanks, Marvel) and it makes piracy attractive. Add terrible DRM on top and you GUARANTEE piracy, because you're being hostile to people that have actually bought your movie.

If DRM had never been invented, piracy would only be about 5% worse, and your paying customers wouldn't be cursing your existence... but the media companies are too stupid to realize that.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#124

Post by gtirloni »

Spooky23 wrote: post #52
Vaslo wrote: post #30

“First of all, as always my opinions are my own, not those of my employer.” Why do you need to write that? It’s a benign article and more so it’s about as protective as the useless “Store is not responsible for carts that damage your car” signs.

Companies react in strange ways. I recall a forum post a few years back about an issue with a backup solution. The poster ran into a problem and shared it in response to a question. Someone from the storage company went apeshit, figured out who the poster was, and met with the CIO of the guys employee to get him to remove the post.

I really hope he's swimming in lawsuit money.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#125

Post by catalogia »

tshaddox wrote: post #70
nikanj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Device manufacturers. Play nice, or we won't grant you the magic pixie dust to play our content in glorious 4k.

To clarify, this isn’t just a cynical comment. It’s actually why digital content producers use DRM. Generally speaking, they’re not idiots, they know it will have little effect on determined pirates and will cause some hassle for some legitimate customers. The point really is so that the digital content producers can maintain control over the providers of computer hardware and distribution channels. Here’s an old art…

Reading that article, it seems to me that the arguments don't fit the conclusions. Media companies may be strong-arming software and device manufacturers, but they're doing so as a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Their motive for strong arming software and hardware manufacturers is their desire to control consumer behavior. That may be slightly more general than "piracy" specifically, but not that different.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#126

Post by ohazi »

debaserab2 wrote: post #28
cameronbrown wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would the cost of supporting an additional platform ever be zero?

Linux users are already used to zero support, and in this case there isn't a cost to developing a custom client... it's literally just a matter of flipping the "fuck Linux users" switch to "off."

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#127

Post by unangst »

I like to think that if Disney+ doesn’t work on Chromebooks, the “freshmen hivemind” (aka all of the freshmen) will solve it by complaining to Disney relentlessly. Seriously, not sure if Disney has thought through the market penetration Chromebooks have in the K-12 market AND the correlation between those students/districts and discretionary income for “yet another streaming service.”

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#128

Post by gruez »

Igelau wrote: post #121
profmonocle wrote: post #36

> desktop Linux and many Android devices only support level 1. In this case e.g. Netflix will not offer full HD or 4k resolutions And yet 4K webrips of recent Netflix shows are readily available on torrent sites. I don't understand who these higher levels of DRM are trying to target. They obviously don't stop the serious pirates from ripping and sharing the content with everyone. Yet the lower levels are "good enough…

I'm not a lawyer, but if we look at the DMCA, 17 USC §1201 (A)(1)(a): "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." No one is interested in perfect because the actual DRM is only a tiny sliver of the protection. The bulk of it is the threat of having to pay a huge settlement because you don't want to get the piss beaten out of you in court.

>No one is interested in perfect because the actual DRM is only a tiny sliver of the protection. The bulk of it is the threat of having to pay a huge settlement because you don't want to get the piss beaten out of you in court.

I don't find that argument convincing. I can't think of any famous cases of copyright holders or law enforcement going after rippers/encoders (the people who break the DRM and make it available for others to copy), but plenty of cases of them going after people who downloaded the content.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#129

Post by nyuszika7h »

shakna wrote: post #42
yumario wrote: post #19

AmazonPrime 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.

You can get 1080p streams from Netflix on Linux (for 99% of their collection) by switching your user agent to ChromeOS. Their check is just: a = /CrOS/.test(a.userAgent); this.Fma = this.Aw = q.Gu.PV; this.Qm = [x.$l.nV]; this.oo = [x.V.vA, x.V.wA]; a && this.oo.push(x.V.TH); It very much is _not_ "DRM not yet implemented". Both Prime and Netflix are fully capable of streaming their highest quality under Linux - if y…

Actually, you can’t get higher than SD for Amazon Prime Video since they started enforcing VMP a few months ago, which isn’t supported on Linux.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#130

Post by gok »

profmonocle wrote: post #36

> desktop Linux and many Android devices only support level 1. In this case e.g. Netflix will not offer full HD or 4k resolutions And yet 4K webrips of recent Netflix shows are readily available on torrent sites. I don't understand who these higher levels of DRM are trying to target. They obviously don't stop the serious pirates from ripping and sharing the content with everyone. Yet the lower levels are "good enough…

It gives content producers leverage with device manufacturers.
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