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Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

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Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#181

Post by barney54 »

chillfox wrote: post #163
geofft wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The entire theory of capitalism is that everyone always acts rationally and in their own interest. In reality, humans are frequently irrational and acts against their own interests. Basically the foundations upon which capitalism stands are cracked and have always been craked. Regulation is what usually fills out those cracks to prevent the entire thing from crumbling.

This view misses much of what has happened in economics since 1980. https://reason.com/2019/10/20/the-third-lesson-of-economics/

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#182

Post by voldacar »

zelly wrote: post #173
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.

>But as for whatever is rejecting Linux but allowing Windows/macOS, that has to be completely in-software.

Yeah that's more of what i was referring to.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#183

Post by jsjohnst »

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.

> how are you going to watch that video on your Roku, Apple TV, smart TV or whatever?

Plex ;)

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#184

Post by aaronax »

swebs wrote: post #90
vbezhenar wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How those webrips are performed? Are there leaked DRM keys or something like that? I thought that DRM encrypts stream all the way from website to display, so it's quite hard to intercept it.

HDCP has had its master key leaked in 2010. You can also buy hardware over the internet that bypasses HDCP.

Ok but that will be lower quality. The original compressed file will be decoded and sent to the monitor at full resolution and frame rate, and then the pirates will be able to capture that. Then the pirates will need to encode/compress that for distribution. This new file will be lower quality, I believe.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#185

Post by bscphil »

tbodt wrote: post #168
bscphil wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pirates cracked Widevine (and possibly other schemes). They have a drop-in replacement DLL (which they keep secret) that dumps the original content of the stream ( not a screen / HDMI capture, like the other two comments said). This is called a WEB-DL, while capturing and encoding the stream is usually called a WEBrip.

This doesn't work for Widevine L1, as L1 is handled in hardware. Windows has some interface to the Intel Management Engine used for this, Android OEMs write drivers and ship devices with keys, other platforms are out of luck.

That's correct. Anything actually protected by Widevine L1 (meaning no workaround to get L3 instead) would require a different approach than just cracking the library.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#186

Post by untog »

jowsie wrote: post #180
untog wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's kind of funny the number of people responding with Plex. I've used it for years, and it's an effective piece of software but it requires running a server in your house, managing storage, etc. etc... there's no way the average user is interested in doing that.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#187

Post by alvah »

chillfox wrote: post #163
geofft wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The entire theory of capitalism is that everyone always acts rationally and in their own interest. In reality, humans are frequently irrational and acts against their own interests. Basically the foundations upon which capitalism stands are cracked and have always been craked. Regulation is what usually fills out those cracks to prevent the entire thing from crumbling.

The theory of capitalism is that the means of production are privately owned (as opposed to government owned). What you're talking about is part of economic theory, not the same as capitalism at all.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#188

Post by hombre_fatal »

turblety wrote: post #60
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…

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.

> DRM punishes paying customers and does nothing to stop piracy.

I would think DRM stops trivial tools like a Chrome extension that adds a "Download" button on anything you're watching on Netflix.com.

Which is good enough. Because piracy is confusing to most people. Piracy sites are scummy and require tech-savyness just to navigate them and download the right thing.

For example, my girlfriend knows "The Pirate Bay" by name though a torrent client is still confusing to her. First google result for that is https://thepiratebays3.com.

It has a scary and scummy banner at the top: "Official The Pirate Bay Warning. Do NOT download torrent files without hiding your IP! With a VPN you can Hide your IP & stay anonymous, avoid fines and lawsuits, especially in USA. ". And searching anything doesn't work for me.

So, I think the war against piracy is more or less won due to how relegated it is to a tiny part of the population that's capable of navigating it.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#189

Post by noodlesUK »

catalogia wrote: post #109
bilbo0s wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

DRM doesn't inconvenience pirates, but piracy inconveniences consumers. It's inconvenient to free up 50 GB of hard disk space to torrent of a 4k netflix rip you found off some shady torrent site. It's much more convenient to just give netflix a few bucks a month. That inconvenience comes from law enforcement action against pirate sites and many users having trouble managing their hard drive space. Not from DRM.

It may be inconvenient to free up some disk space (citation needed, anyone on HN has probably got terabytes of free space somewhere), but the inconvenience of certain streaming platforms, or even the total hostility to watching anything ad-free (even paid users) will knock people into the piracy camp. There is no source where I can watch AAA movies that I buy on my laptop legally in 4K as it is illegal to break Blu-ray encryption (and I run Linux). I buy or rent movies I want to watch on my Apple TV in 4K, but what am I supposed to do if I want to watch something on a plane for instance?

Anything that is on Netflix I watch. I can’t watch amazon prime on my Apple TV because their region system is broken (yes, if an amazon employee is reading this, please fix having prime in multiple countries) so battlestar galactica and other shows in their catalogue aren’t available come from other sources.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#190

Post by jowsie »

andrepd wrote: post #151

>Widevine has 3 security levels and many devices, including desktop Linux and many Android devices only support level 1. In this case e.g. Netflix will not offer full HD or 4k resolutions, but otherwise everything works fine, which is a balance between DRM and usability. This reminds me of my very short foray into streaming services. I purchased a month of Netflix, or rather I got their 1 month trial, and opened the…

You're clearly not representative of the average Netflix customer.
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