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Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

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Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#211

Post by paulddraper »

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…

> many Android devices only support level 1

Isn't Android the biggest OS on the planet by # of users?

Wouldn't the impact be huge?

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#212

Post by acdha »

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…

Look at it from Netflix’s perspective: most of their collection has legal strings attached, even most of their exclusives, with substantial penalties if they don’t take measures to encumber content and there’s a real threat of auditors catching implementation lapses. If they use HTML video with EME and someone comes up with a way to copy it, that’s a problem for Google’s Widevine (used by both Chrome and Firefox), Microsoft, Apple, etc. as long as they can show they used the system correctly. Similarly, they don’t need to be absolutely perfect in region locking as long as they can defend the mechanism in court. Similarly, VPN detection needs to be at the level where they have a good chance of avoiding a court case – auditors definitely know to try that.

Now ask how many Linux users running Firefox without the Widevine CDM installed over a VPN there are likely to be and how much revenue that brings in compared to the legal risks of not being able to check those boxes.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#213

Post by lowercased »

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…

> Most people aren't running linux, have legal streaming options available to them... Are there scenarios where typical consumers turn to piracy? Sure, aboslutely

my wife - a non-tech person, really - falls in to this camp. she's turned to torrenting things because the experience of streaming is just... slow. and bad. and stuttery. oh, and we still get ads on things (hulu, for one). She figured out how to find free streams for soccer matches - when we paid for "real" streams, they still had ads taking up 20% of the screen. And still somewhat jittery/stuttery (but - those 2 minute car ads at the start of the stream were never jittery).

yeah, the 'free' stuff experience isn't always great, but when the paid experiences are still kinda crappy, what's the point of paying?

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#214

Post by matheusmoreira »

catalogia wrote: post #203
matheusmoreira wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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, contr…

Completely agree with you. If their services were good enough, I doubt they would even need copyright protection to make money. The fact they can't match the quality of a bunch of underground sites despite being a multi-billion dollar industry is a sign the industry is relying on artificial scarcity to have any chance of competing in the marketplace.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#215

Post by proc0 »

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…

Yeah this means this was a business decision and not technical. They probably looked at user numbers for the different browsers.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#216

Post by shadowgovt »

Kasoha wrote: post #210
phist_mcgee wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

But to phist_mcgee's point, if Firefox-plus-VPN isn't a very common use-case, they can afford to eat the cost of that one dissatisfied customer.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#217

Post by shadowgovt »

cameronbrown wrote: post #16
reaperducer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with the philosophy that Disney should try to support as many platforms as possible, I really don't think it will notice the Linux market is missing. Cost of building and maintaining a Linux client > Potential revenue from Linux users.

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.

DRM encryption is a browser standard.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#218

Post by shadowgovt »

yk wrote: post #35
debaserab2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They just need to not develop drm.

That implies they could not offer the service due to the legal entanglements of offering films owned by multiple parties without copyright protection, so it's equivalent to saying "They just need to not exist."

Understandably, they've chosen an alternative.

Re: Disney+ streaming uses draconian DRM

#219

Post by deogeo »

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 don't understand who these higher levels of DRM are trying to target.

They target device manufacturers. If you want to sell a computer/tablet/phone/TV that will play Disney+/Netflix/etc, then you must submit to their demands, pay their licensing fees, and hope you don't anger them. They want to be the gatekeepers to who can make a commercially-viable product.

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