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The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

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Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#191
post #177
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not. It’s enough to deter casual piracy. There is some value in that. If you could just right click and choose “download” for any Netflix original don’t you think that would be a problem for them?

> It’s not. It’s enough to deter casual piracy. There is some value in that. Casual pirates wouldn't bother right-clicking in the first place unless it's to store a local copy that they won't even know how to share effectively (since they're casual). The only thing DRM achieves for netflix is deterring new customers and hurting existing ones.

I’ve known enough casual pirates like that in my life. People who would sign up for Netflix for one month every three years and immediately download everything and then cancel again.

The fact they can’t do that is a benefit.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#192
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Piracy is so easy. Go to torrent site, download torrent, click on file. It really couldn't be easier. There's no DRM on the torrent. If you have a semi-modern GPU you can play any codec you might download. I'm really not sure what you're talking about, unless you're going to some weird torrent site. Piracy has a great user experience compared to paying for DRM and having to use a particular app instead of your…

I almost wrote "just wait for people to say 'no it's easy'" but I thought surely we are over that now. I want to watch The Climb 2023 S01E01. I Google "The Climb 2023 S01E01 torrent" First result is www.stagatv.com/series/the-climb-s01 (not linking because it is spam) Hmm nothing else useful on the first page except this: In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page.…

Things have changed a bit, but not much.

First, Google heavily censors results nowadays. You will get much more results with say Yandex.

Second, TPB is no longer the best public torrent host. For public sites rarbg and 1337x are better alternatives.

Also, for anyone actually doing this kind of stuff regularly, the key is to enter the world of private sites. There is more than enough public discussion around them on sites like reddit. https://old.reddit.com/r/trackers/

So, it's still really easy. Your knowledge (like TPB) is just outdated. However for people who have equivalent modern knowledge, things are simple.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#193
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to make the Netflix experience better for the average person than the experience of using a pirated source. And - IMHO - it works. I used to use Bittorrent quite a lot. There was a bunch of US shows I watched that were unavailable in Australia and so I had a pretty decent setup where things would automatically download when torrents were posted. Life happened, I stopped using it and haven't really tried…

Google the arr stack + Plex. Should give you your own personal Netflix without much work, or so I heard...

I want to signal boost this a bit because it's so incredible once you see it. The "arr stack" is a suite of interconnected software that automates finding pirate media by integrating with a HUGE number of ways to search for torrents, Usenet, etc. It's all self-hostable and with Overseerr as "pick what to download" frontend and Plex as the media viewer, it works so well that it's a genuine Netflix replacement, so easy that parents can use it.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#194
post #86

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...

Indefinite == not definite, i.e., not for a specific duration. It doesn’t mean ‘forever’.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#196

What’s Widevine? Also it sounds like linux complexities made this unnecessarily difficult

Widevine is Google's DRM. Their lack of linux support makes it difficult.

The point of the article is to support it instead of bypassing it, thus not violating DMCA.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#197

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…

Not just privately either, there have been tools circulating even on GitHub.

For a L3 example there's one repo [1] that's kind of still up but not really. Still enough to show that it happened. L1 bypass has also been on GitHub briefly. However these things get deleted rather fast for obvious reasons.

--

[1] https://github.com/tomer8007/widevine-l3-decryptor

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#198
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.

I think their licensing agreements probably mandate that Netflix needs some sort of DRM to check a box.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#199
post #79

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.

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.

Tracking the difference would be annoying and pointless. Why do that when you can wrap it around everything and go home early?

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#200
post #177
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not. It’s enough to deter casual piracy. There is some value in that. If you could just right click and choose “download” for any Netflix original don’t you think that would be a problem for them?

> It’s not. It’s enough to deter casual piracy. There is some value in that. Casual pirates wouldn't bother right-clicking in the first place unless it's to store a local copy that they won't even know how to share effectively (since they're casual). The only thing DRM achieves for netflix is deterring new customers and hurting existing ones.

Most pirates are not subscribed in the first place. They just download something someone else had removed DRM from, which also makes it a superior experience. It only takes one pirate with a decent computer to encode a good DRM-free copy for it to be shared via BitTorrent. It is pointless to deter casual piracy when one "professional" pirate is enough to free the content.
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