The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#131

Post by ziml77 » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

NavinF wrote: post #21

Uehreka wrote: post #14

So tonight I watched a 1080p pirated copy of Spiderman: Far From Home. And I gotta say, it was kinda crap. The sound would randomly cut out, and the compression was absolute ass (it was the perfect artifact to show people when explaining “not all 1080p’s are created equal”, especially when they’re fighting the water elemental) I really do think that DRM has won folks. We have seen the 4K HDR future, and what we find…

I’ve had the opposite experience: If you have a decent connection (1gbps), you can torrent the 50GB Blu-ray in 7 minutes instead of watching the 0.5GB stream on Netflix. The difference in bitrate/quality is massive during fast action sequences where the Netflix version splits into 100 puzzle pieces made of DCT blocks that don’t quite fit together. Oh and Netflix is one of the better sites when it comes to bitrate. Ot…

Gigabit is not a decent connection, it’s an excellent connection. Many people can’t afford or don’t even have access to that speed.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#132

Post by gcr » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

opan wrote: post #130

progbits wrote: post #99

Off-topic but the archive.org page is unusable for me on mobile due to the donation banner: the close button is obscured by the timeline and can't be clicked, "maybe later" replaces it with a different banner asking for contact info which I also can't close. I love IA and have donated to them before but this is slowly sliding into the dark UX patterns making web unusable.

Your description immediately reminded me of Wikipedia. It's a shame these good projects fall to these levels.

Nonprofits gotta solicit donations. NPR does this, PBS' infamous pledge week does this. This isn't "falling," it's an old practice.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#133

Post by peoplefromibiza » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #129

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not pretend that media companies are givers though... https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/music-news/tv-film-co... https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/oct/26/squid-g... https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57838473 https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57382459 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/scarlett-johansson-sues-dis... https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-56815282 Also, str…

I’m far from a proponent of the big media companies but isn’t this argument basically “my theft is okay because they’ve stolen too”? Arguing that those companies are abusive seems like a much stronger argument for watching something else or voting for legal reforms, not taking advantage of other people’s work without compensation.

would you download a car?

theft is when you take something from someone, when you download a movie, Netflix users can still watch it, Netflix can still stream it and they don't lose anything.

In fact their profits have gone up, despite helping piracy by releasing more and more content easily sharable outside of their platforms.

Netflix alone made 7.5 billions in the third quarter of 2021, up from 6.4 billions in the third of 2020.

someone really believes that leaks are unfortunate? have you seen a single image leaked from the next Indiana Jones movie? Do you know the title?No? you know why? because they'll work next year on the post production and are keeping everything under rigorous control. leaks will be useful only when they are ready to launch. When Luca..ehm Disney wants to take secrecy seriously, they absolutely can and will.

Anyway: I pay for prime video, because it's included with prime. I rarely watch other streaming services nor download their content.

Last exception was Foundation from Apple, thank god I did not pay for that!

Usually it works like this: I wanna watch an old movie, say Total Recall, some streaming service bought it for Christmas or whatever occasion together with all Schwarzenegger movie, to release a "member berry" bundle

I probably already have it, ripped from DVD, when it comes out I download it again because I'll probably find the x265 version which is smaller or the 2160p (or 1080p) restored version.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#134

Post by pmontra » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:32 PM UTC

_0ffh wrote: post #123

netcan wrote: post #54

>> The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices. This is a good spot to place the pin. The "theological" view is that (1) copyright is a moral right. (2) The Law just protects right against wrong, and(3) economic side effects of laws are incidental. Real life is a lot less naive, so to speak. The commercial intellectual property concerns at stake are are record labels,…

Yes, though I prefer an alternative "theological" view: (1) Property rights exist to peacefully resolve conflicts over naturally scarce resources (2) Information resources are not naturally scarce

I try to be the Devil's advocate.

The scarse resource is not that song or that movie. It's the time of the people that created that song and that movie. That's is part of the cost of production.

This is similar to there are millions of houses but only a few in the most scenic places. Want one of them, pay more. It could be the same for the most popular songs and movies. The time of their creators is more valuable than mine. When writing software probably the other way around.

Of course they don't sell songs and movies like that and creators sometimes only get peanuts. I'm not a very good Devil's advocate.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#135

Post by jtbayly » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #121

petepete wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popcorn Time being shut down by the MPAA is the reason there's no simple app for your mum and aunt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn_Time Unfortunately now there are so many streaming platforms piracy will gain in popularity again. Lots of people don't mind paying for one or two, but probably not five or six. Especially when some just have one or two good programmes.

> Lots of people don't mind paying for one or two, but probably not five or six. Especially when some just have one or two good programmes. 'Subscription rotation' may become a thing: you pay for a service for a few months, catch up on any shows that were released on it that you haven't seen, and then cancel and move onto the next one. A year later you come back to the first one and do a new catch-up. There may be on…

People will Pirate before they do this.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#136

Post by zinekeller » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

gcr wrote: post #132

opan wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description immediately reminded me of Wikipedia. It's a shame these good projects fall to these levels.

Nonprofits gotta solicit donations. NPR does this, PBS' infamous pledge week does this. This isn't "falling," it's an old practice.

I don't know IA's budget (might be just the pandemic has tolled its finances), but I have reservations about Wikimedia's use of money. (Only the main foundation, others like the German affiliate is efficient about money and except for 2020 has a surplus which obviously went to cover inevitable shortfalls.)

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#137

Post by mysterydip » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #82

netcan wrote: post #54

>> The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices. This is a good spot to place the pin. The "theological" view is that (1) copyright is a moral right. (2) The Law just protects right against wrong, and(3) economic side effects of laws are incidental. Real life is a lot less naive, so to speak. The commercial intellectual property concerns at stake are are record labels,…

My take: "The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices and their own consumers." How have I regretted purchasing Blu-Rays in the past. They require an update to the drive firmware, they require their own GPU driver version, they require an update to the player software, and they try to sneak spyware onto my PC anyway. It is almost impossible to legally watch an authent…

My personal favorite example right now, having three smaller children, is amazon's "expiration" of videos installed on their kindles, that we don't find out about until we're on a trip somewhere. How do I explain to a kid that they can't watch their favorite movie that worked fine last time, or that they can't download any more episodes of their favorite show because someone decided they could only have 20 videos regardless of storage capacity?

#138

Post by sandworm101 » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #54

>> The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices. This is a good spot to place the pin. The "theological" view is that (1) copyright is a moral right. (2) The Law just protects right against wrong, and(3) economic side effects of laws are incidental. Real life is a lot less naive, so to speak. The commercial intellectual property concerns at stake are are record labels,…

>> (3) economic side effects of laws are incidental.

Not with intellectual property. This isn't ten-commandments stuff, protections against evil. Intellectual property law is an openly commercial law meant to increase the profitability of innovations.

I remember an article from way back about what the Bible would think of copyright "piracy". It is such modern set of laws that anyone mentioned in the bible would probably stare in bewilderment at the concept. It would be like asking about the morality of air traffic control regulations.

#139

Post by jtbayly » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #88

jayd16 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If pirate sites were allowed to flourish, they'd surely end up feeling as good as Netflix or better.

I don't know. You have to put up with popups from streaming sites, sure - adblocker only stops most of them - but in general, playback is just fine and I can find most movies and shows. The allure of Netflix is simply legality, but for selection it is a step backwards from a decent streaming site.

Yes. It’s a major step back in terms of selection. And more to the point, it’s continuous major steps back every year, even compared to itself from a few years ago.

Part of what people don’t seem to remember is that one of the benefits of iTunes was its huge selection. Netflix is becoming more and more like BandCamp, not iTunes, in terms of selection. I don’t go there to find something to watch anymore. I only go there if I want to watch one of the few things worth watching on it.

There is currently no legal video platform for watching all the things. (And that’s ignoring the DRM crap.)

#140

Post by kiklion » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

progbits wrote: post #99

Off-topic but the archive.org page is unusable for me on mobile due to the donation banner: the close button is obscured by the timeline and can't be clicked, "maybe later" replaces it with a different banner asking for contact info which I also can't close. I love IA and have donated to them before but this is slowly sliding into the dark UX patterns making web unusable.

I use default safari on iPhone and was able to hit the x to hide the timeline and then another x to hide the donation banner.