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Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

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Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#201

Post by joecot »

untog wrote: post #186
jowsie wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> it requires running a server in your house, managing storage, etc. etc... there's no way the average user is interested in doing that

Which is why my family, my girlfriend's family, and all our friends just use my Plex server

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#203

Post by catalogia »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #197
catalogia wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Piracy" is inconvenient. It takes knowledge, effort, time and money as well as computing power, storage and network bandwidth to participate in the ratio economies of private torrent trackers. It gets to the point it looks like an enthusiast operation run by people who want the best possible version of everything. What's truly sad is how so many people find this preferable to paying for the official services. It spe…

There are some users, such as myself, who find the legal streaming sites intolerable for technical reasons if not ethical reasons. But I think the vast majority of users prefer the legal options when they're available, which is the part the media industry keeps on fucking up.

If they were better at their jobs, better at delivering to consumers what consumers want, they wouldn't have to worry about DRM, piracy, control of consumer behavior or any of this nonsense.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#204

Post by kuon »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #188
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.

> 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" b…

I know some not very technical people that bought some HDMI network restreamer on ebay, it's basically an HDMI splitter with an ethernet port that will act as a (I think rtmp) server. I didn't check the technicals details, and he uses VLC on his desktop computer to record movies he wants to keep. He does it at night with TV luminosity and volume at near 0.

Of course you have to play the movie/serie in mirror on the TV, but he can record HD (not sure about 4k) movies of whatever plays on the TV. The cherry on top is that he bought 3 IR mirrors (well, it was just aluminum sheets) that he placed strategically to be able to control the IR stuff of the TV from his bedroom.

He was a but uneasy when he showed that to me, but I didn't mock him, I was genuinely fascinated by that setup. For someone who has near zero technical knowledge, this was very good.

I don't really have a point, I just thought of it when you mentioned your girlfriend fear of the pirate bay.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#205

Post by ehsankia »

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.

That's not necessarily true. I agree with the DVD example, but for example, I've almost never had any issues with Netflix's DRM. I can even pre-load videos on phone/tablet, and for the most part it works as expected. Same thing with Steam, it's fairly transparent to the user.

Yes there are bad DRMs out there, but there can be a balance when done right where it doesn't hurt the customer and provides more value than pirating (like Steam).

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#206

Post by matheusmoreira »

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…

People outside the United States have to suffer through all that for access to a subset of the full Netflix library. And Netflix is one of the better companies in that regard. Most of them simply tell me the content is "not available in my country". And when people ask them why, they have the gall to blame "piracy".

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#207

Post by noodlesUK »

catalogia wrote: post #195
noodlesUK wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

I'm talking about the typical consumer, not a HN user. Most people aren't running linux, have legal streaming options available to them, don't have terabytes available to them at any particular moment (maybe they have a few terabytes of portable harddrive in a closet somewhere, but not mounted and ready to roll.) Are there scenarios where typical consumers turn to piracy? Sure, aboslutely. They generally do that when…

You’re probably right, but I know plenty of people who are happy to use putlocker etc who aren’t technically competent at all (and yeah, they sure get malware...)

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#208

Post by sucrose »

earenndil wrote: post #159
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #22

I believe it morally justifies downloading Disney+ content via torrents.

If you purchase a subscription and then torrent, that's justified. Otherwise--uh, no.

I think the point is to not pay them until the get their service fixed.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#209

Post by matheusmoreira »

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?

Getting paid isn't some inalienable human right either. Even if it were, Disney is not a human. Disney is a corporation worth tens of billions of dollars. It used a portion of that money to lobby for multiple copyright extensions, eroding the rights of every american. So who's really entitled here? The social contract behind copyright was "we'll pretend your intellectual property is scarce for like 20 years so you can make your profits and once the time's up your work enters the public domain". When was the last time you saw something enter the public domain? You are literally defending the company that did that. They will try again in the 2020s. They have no intention to fulfill their end of the bargain.

If "piracy" could straight up kill Disney, copyright infringement would be a moral imperative. We don't even have that power.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#210

Post by Kasoha »

phist_mcgee wrote: post #192
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…

Well look at it from Netflix's perspective. You are in no way an indicative normal customer. They don't support certain browsers, because there is no need to. Privacy hiding VPNs are used to evade content locking as part of Netflix's business models/licensing agreements, so why would they allow your privacy hiding vpn? I'm not agreeing that they should do these things, but you are approaching a service from a very st…

yeah, I'm looking. Dude paid for the content with his credit card. Yet netflix still putting up hurdles after hurdles. No wonder dude ended up on piratebay. If I buy something I expect goods delivered to me. app store, play store, GOG, steam, everything...
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