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Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

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Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#171

Post by matheusmoreira »

geofft wrote: post #81
turblety wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM punishes paying customers and does nothing to stop piracy. It reminds me of those "you wouldn't kill" segments at the start of DVD's that you couldn't skip, but just moaned at you to not pirate the DVD. But the only people they were telling this to was paying customers who bought the DVD. People who pirated the DVD, just plugged it into their computer, ripped out the content then published.

Sure, but why? Do the rightsholders believe that these mechanisms are effective at making them money somehow? How correct are they - are these mechanisms effective at stopping some amount of casual piracy and converting that into purchases?

They just refuse to license their intellectual property to streaming companies that haven't developed "adequate" protection against "piracy". It's all about making a billion dollar investment look less risky in the eyes of executives. I seriously doubt it's helping them make more money.

Any victory against copyright infringement will come from competing directly against it. The copyright holders are too busy competing with each other and fragmenting the market instead of building something that's actually equal to or better than "piracy". It's pretty sad how a bunch of "pirates" manage to provide a better product than corporations valued at tens of billions of dollars.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#172

Post by untog »

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…

They're available on torrent sites, but how are you going to watch that video on your Roku, Apple TV, smart TV or whatever? The key here is hardware control. The big players have it.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#173

Post by zelly »

voldacar wrote: post #89

Could this be fixed by disassembling the widevine .so/.dll and altering the function that returns the "security level" so that it always returns the highest level?

As I understand it, the DRM authenticates the physical monitor/TV with a key on the hardware. That part is uncrackable because authentication is done on Netflix-side.

But as for whatever is rejecting Linux but allowing Windows/macOS, that has to be completely in-software. I think you are right--this could be bypassed by changing a register value somewhere. This sounds like a fun project.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#174

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

> But if that be the case, would that not be evidence of netflix' anti-piracy measures working?

No. It's evidence that just having the content available on Netflix will reduce piracy. It is a bit less effective than it could be because Netflix doesn't run on literally everything, mostly because of anti-piracy protections, but it does run on nearly everything, so it's effective.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#175

Post by matheusmoreira »

jaimex2 wrote: post #85
geofft wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why? Do the rightsholders believe that these mechanisms are effective at making them money somehow? How correct are they - are these mechanisms effective at stopping some amount of casual piracy and converting that into purchases?

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.

> Piracy can't be stopped but thats not what they want to hear.

It can be stopped. All they have to do is destroy the computing and internet freedom we all enjoy today. Can't do subversive things like copy a file if they don't let us run our software. Governments around the world are also trying to erode these same freedoms by pushing encryption regulation.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#176

Post by jowsie »

catalogia wrote: post #95
unlinked_dll wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>DRM punishes paying customers and does nothing to stop piracy. Media companies aren't stupid. They know exactly how much DRM and piracy impact their bottom line. That's why DRM-free distribution is a non-starter for virtually every media company, because it saves them money. Like all things dealing with bad actors, DRM isn't about stopping behavior. It's about slowing it down and making it more cumbersome

They may not be stupid, but that doesn't mean they're totally rational either (that would be inhuman and I can assure you they're just as human as the rest of us.) Most of these media companies have never even tried no-DRM so a fully rational appraisal of the value of DRM simply isn't possible for them. The music industry largely went no-DRM (and streaming) and they were totally unscathed. A good quality mp3 or flac…

A good quality (for your average media consumer) 4k rip can be as low as 8gb. Sure it's not blu-ray quality but neither is Netflix, and no one cares. At least where I live, you're looking at 5-15 minutes to download a 4k rip on the average home connection. This is also completely ignoring pirate streaming sites, that while not as popular as they used to be, still exist and are lower friction than Netflix half the time.

I'd wager I know more people pirating films/tv than I do music.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#177

Post by c256 »

narrator wrote: post #99
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…

So the purpose of DRM is to thwart the first sale doctrine?

It is absolutely one prime motivation. “The purpose” is essentially non-verifiable.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#178

Post by Buge »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #27
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.

Publishers often refer to copying they don’t approve of as “piracy.” In this way, they imply that it is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them. Based on such propaganda, they have procured laws in most of the world to forbid copying in most (or sometimes all) circumstances. (They are still pressuring to make these prohibitions more complete.) If you don’t…

On the other hand, sometimes "pirate" seems to have a positive connotation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ju_10NkGY

And interestingly the 3rd highest comment on that video currently is about Disney+.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#179

Post by TrueDuality »

untog wrote: post #172
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…

They're available on torrent sites, but how are you going to watch that video on your Roku, Apple TV, smart TV or whatever? The key here is hardware control. The big players have it.

Plex.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#180

Post by jowsie »

untog wrote: post #172
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…

They're available on torrent sites, but how are you going to watch that video on your Roku, Apple TV, smart TV or whatever? The key here is hardware control. The big players have it.

Plex and similar software are pretty popular. Not to mention most phones can 'cast' to all those devices. Both my smart tv's even have USB ports.
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