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The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

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Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#111

Post by reisse »

gpm wrote: post #82
stefan_ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know we had that, they called it HDCP. It continues to frustrate users of beamers and what not today, despite the root key being leaked for many years now. Even before the key leak, it never did anything to stop shows appearing as torrents on day one. It will never work, if pirates have to replace the TV panel with an FPGA, they will happily do so.

> It will never work, if pirates have to replace the TV panel with an FPGA, they will happily do so. Evidence does appear to point to you being right, but I really wonder just who is going to these lengths to pirate things for other people? A significant investment of time and money, from highly a highly skilled individual, for... bragging rights? Is there some financial motive I'm unaware of?

> Is there some financial motive I'm unaware of?

As other people already said, some people do it purely "for the just cause". But the piracy is also a literal gold mine if you're able to manage legal risks. Basically, you take ripped content and either re-sell ad-free access worldwide (Netflix is really, really limited to the first world), or make it available for free with heavy ads, or both.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#112

Post by toast0 »

coldtea wrote: post #86
judge2020 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The terminology should be either "License", "Buy a License", or "Purchase Indefinite License ", but it's distinctively "not renting" since it's a one-time cost to obtain that indefinite license. Renting anything implies and requires some form of ongoing cost.

What "indefinite license"? They can, and do, take content off at any time...

Yeah, that fits within the definition of indefinite. It's not a permanent license, and at time of sale, it's unknown when it ends.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#113

Post by [deleted] »

judge2020 wrote: post #46
lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of “buy”, they should be labeled “rentals - as long as provider exists or chooses to give you access”.

The terminology should be either "License", "Buy a License", or "Purchase Indefinite License ", but it's distinctively "not renting" since it's a one-time cost to obtain that indefinite license. Renting anything implies and requires some form of ongoing cost.

[deleted]

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#114

Post by Longhanks »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #71
reisse wrote: post #63

The mere existence of Widevine is a mystery for me. How sensible for Netflix is to invest into DRM at all? It's not a gamedev situation, where DRM lasts long enough to make impact on initial sales. Pirated Netflix shows appear on the torrents same day, and unless they have full-stack protection from the decoder to the screen, not much can be done. They seem to make user experience worse for nothing.

Netflix doesn’t do it because they want to. They do it because it’s part of the licensing agreements they sign to get content.

Of course they want to. Who doesn’t want to protect his or her intellectual property?

There are probably millions of people subscribed to Netflix merely because pirating Netflix content is inconvenient enough to make people rather pay. How many would reconsider this if the user experience of pirating was exactly as convenient as a paid Netflix account?

Most probably enough so that enacting DRM is the smaller price to pay.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#115

Post by freeplay »

Widevine has been privately cracked/bypassed. The method hasn't been made public as it would obviously get patched rather quickly (if it even can be patched).

That's why Netflix content is available almost immediately on any decent tracker. The quality would not look nearly as good if it was grabbed using a capture card.

Like others have mentioned, it's security theater for the content owners who most likely require Netflix to have DRM in place in their contracts.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#116

Post by NieDzejkob »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #99
jasoneckert wrote: post #10

Excellent writeup. Asahi is my daily driver, but I've never had the need for either Spotify or Netflix. I guess the gospel of RMS and the FSF over the past few decades has steered me away from anything DRM-related.

> Asahi is my daily driver I'm guessing you have an x86_64 Mac and not an arm64 Mac?

Asahi is specifically about arm64.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#117

Post by redeeman »

Longhanks wrote: post #114
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix doesn’t do it because they want to. They do it because it’s part of the licensing agreements they sign to get content.

Of course they want to. Who doesn’t want to protect his or her intellectual property? There are probably millions of people subscribed to Netflix merely because pirating Netflix content is inconvenient enough to make people rather pay. How many would reconsider this if the user experience of pirating was exactly as convenient as a paid Netflix account? Most probably enough so that enacting DRM is the smaller price to…

netflix content is pirated the moment it gets released, so them employing DRM changes nothing

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#118

Post by depressedpanda »

heleninboodler wrote: post #102
Aissen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was the whole story, they'd put their own content (the rare ones for which they have 100% of the rights) with no DRM and the maximum resolution. But they don't do that. In some cases you might get 720p (Netflix content) instead of 540p (third party) with widevine L3.

Why would they do this if they've already gone to the trouble to solve the problem for content they don't own? Just to show off by taking on unnecessary risk? The fact that they didn't build this infra specifically to protect their own content doesn't mean they wouldn't enjoy the benefit of the extra protection anyway.

The point is, the extra "protection" is worthless.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#119

Post by snark42 »

reisse wrote: post #111
gpm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will never work, if pirates have to replace the TV panel with an FPGA, they will happily do so. Evidence does appear to point to you being right, but I really wonder just who is going to these lengths to pirate things for other people? A significant investment of time and money, from highly a highly skilled individual, for... bragging rights? Is there some financial motive I'm unaware of?

> Is there some financial motive I'm unaware of? As other people already said, some people do it purely "for the just cause". But the piracy is also a literal gold mine if you're able to manage legal risks. Basically, you take ripped content and either re-sell ad-free access worldwide (Netflix is really, really limited to the first world), or make it available for free with heavy ads, or both.

Or make it available on DVD.

I know this was the incentive behind a lot of the people financially supporting the warez scene in the past.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#120

Post by Gigachad »

jasoneckert wrote: post #10

Excellent writeup. Asahi is my daily driver, but I've never had the need for either Spotify or Netflix. I guess the gospel of RMS and the FSF over the past few decades has steered me away from anything DRM-related.

Spotify is usable with alt clients. If I was using Asahi regularly I’d probably just torrent video content that can’t be played due to drm.
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