Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM • Hacker News Board

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#141

Post by giancarlostoro » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 12:05 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #128

Igelau wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 availabl…

And worse... You could have crappy DRM and if someone circumvents it. Its cheaper to produce and you can still prosecute the rippers.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#142

Post by neltnerb » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 12:06 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #114

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.

It's been decades and literally everyone in multiple industries is still refusing to admit they're throwing money after a lost cause? I won't say that's impossible, but the entire idea behind capitalism is that this happens rarely. Eventually someone will realize they can make more profit by not paying for anti-piracy, right?

They cannot possibly actually think DRM stops anything. Maybe they don't get that it's convenience that drives sales rather than the content itself.

I just rented Spiderman on Amazon streaming for like $6, about the same as I remember video rental used to be. I'm certain I could have pirated it if Amazon streaming had not worked on Linux. It was slightly easier and slightly more ethical feeling to rent it from Amazon, so I did.

I have seen a bit of a pattern where content distributors start out by cranking the DRM to 11 and then year over year get less and less worried about it. I guess they realize over time that the DRM isn't stopping anything, who knows, maybe they're using it to provide a PR argument that they're trying their best to push some other agenda.

But I think they know that it's the distribution method rather than the encryption that influences buying decisions unless they magically stop all casual piracy. Be at least as easy as casual piracy?

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#143

Post by giancarlostoro » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 12:07 AM UTC

Sendotsh wrote: post #104

foota wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine you'd see a lot more casual piracy if it were trivial to copy, i.e., people just sending the videos to their friends.

For every person torrenting there’s multiple getting movies off friends on USB sticks and stuff. One member of my family does the torrenting for a dozen others in my family, and I know plenty of others that work like that. I personally do a mix of paying for content and pirating. I’m 100% happy to pay for content if I can, but with geoblocking and platform restrictions and all the other bullshittery, it’s legitimatel…

Not sure if applicable to your region but have you given movieseverywhere a shot?

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#144

Post by mholt » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 12:08 AM UTC

alt219 wrote: post #136

hellofunk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole thread has been rather surprising to me, we've been enjoying Disney+ for a few weeks now and I've been amazed how wonderful all the content is. I've never seen any errors or the issue described in this article (I'm on Mac). The only thing about the UI that I miss is that it does not respond to keyboard shortcuts (like pressing spacebar to start and stop the playback). But overall, I've been very happy and…

Are you from the future? In all seriousness though, how are you able to enjoy Disney+ currently? It has yet to launch. According to the Disney+ website it launches in just under 23 days from now.[0] 0. https://disneyplus.com

It was released early in some regions like the Netherlands for testing and promotional purposes.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#145

Post by baddox » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 12:08 AM UTC

catalogia wrote: post #125

tshaddox wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, of course they ideally want end to end control. The point, though, is that the argument “pirates will still be able to pirate and legitimate users will be inconvenienced,” while true, is not a great argument for why content producers should stop using DRM, because DRM still works quite well for establishing control over hardware and distribution providers.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#146

Post by scrollaway » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 12:09 AM UTC

zokier wrote: post #116

prepend wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Niche or not “Disney won’t sell me content I want to buy” seems like a tough position for Disney to argue past. This was the argument back in the days when movies wouldn’t be released in many countries as the market is too small. What do you expect potential customers to do? Should they buy new computers? Not watch Disney stuff? I think I would expect the latter, but if they aren’t Disney’s customer then them piratin…

> Niche or not “Disney won’t sell me content I want to buy” seems like a tough position for Disney to argue past. I feel that is such an entitled attitude. Watching Disney+ is hardly some inalienable human right nor essential for survival. Why would anyone think their right to use a service, and cosume content, overrides Disneys well-established ownership?

Disney getting paid isn't an inalienable human right either. We're talking about customers paying for entertainment. And their ownership over the IP isn't either. It may be well established in law but it's not like we're talking about the right to air and water.

If Disney won't sell them the stuff they shouldn't be surprised they'll resort to other means to acquire the content.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#147

Post by thayne » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 12:09 AM UTC

filmgirlcw wrote: post #137

The hand-wringing in this thread is sort of amazing — especially since 99% of the people complaining weren’t going to subscribe anyway. Look, if there are indeed issues with actual ChromeOS (and not the Chromium variants — but the full mostly-proprietary Google procured ChromeOS), I fully expect that to be fixed — you might not get 4K support (but there are what, 3 Chromebooks with 4K screens? Plus, most streaming se…

I probably would pay for it if it had linux support. But since it doesn't, I won't. Every device in my household is either linux or Android, and I primarily stream from desktop linux. If disney+ doesn't work on that there is no rason for me to pay for it.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#148

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 12:09 AM UTC

alt219 wrote: post #136

hellofunk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole thread has been rather surprising to me, we've been enjoying Disney+ for a few weeks now and I've been amazed how wonderful all the content is. I've never seen any errors or the issue described in this article (I'm on Mac). The only thing about the UI that I miss is that it does not respond to keyboard shortcuts (like pressing spacebar to start and stop the playback). But overall, I've been very happy and…

Are you from the future? In all seriousness though, how are you able to enjoy Disney+ currently? It has yet to launch. According to the Disney+ website it launches in just under 23 days from now.[0] 0. https://disneyplus.com

[deleted]

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#149

Post by alt219 » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 12:12 AM UTC

mholt wrote: post #144

alt219 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you from the future? In all seriousness though, how are you able to enjoy Disney+ currently? It has yet to launch. According to the Disney+ website it launches in just under 23 days from now.[0] 0. https://disneyplus.com

It was released early in some regions like the Netherlands for testing and promotional purposes.

Thanks, I of course didn’t read the article before asking my question. Glad to hear it works well so far. Looking forward to it when it goes live. Cheers!

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#150

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 12:15 AM UTC

foota wrote: post #72

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 imagine you'd see a lot more casual piracy if it were trivial to copy, i.e., people just sending the videos to their friends.

The argument above was that the lowest level of Widevine is sufficient to prevent casual piracy (through that channel), and I agree: It's a lot easier to just torrent a clean version than to dump an encrypted Netflix stream, run some side-channel attack on Widevine (for which the PoC code doesn't seem to be public), then decrypt the dump.