Is this a late april fools joke?
"Metastream: Watch streaming media with friends."
He's complaining that they won't let him use DRM. But his project's purpose is to literally broadcast media to your friends.
DRM exists to prevent that.
I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
221–230 of 632 posts
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#222The blame for this sits squarely on the w3c for their efforts in trying to replace flash by letting the content companies dictate standards for encrypted playback. If they had held fast, we could have forced the companies to do their key management in something like WebAssembly and avoided this gatekeeping mess.
The W3C isn't to blame. No one is to blame, really. We have DRM, we hate it but it's there, and it serves a purpose. If it is your intellectual property, you get to decide how it is used. And if you don't want to make copying too easy because you think that it will get you more money, that's your right. The goal of the W3C is not to make to make a political statement about the rightness or wrongness of DRM. They are…
The problem is that pretty much the only way to satisfy those obligations is to turn the internet into a huge walled garden (as is currently happening). So we'll either have to accept the consequences of that, decide that some of the rightsholders' claims described above are not in the public interest or find some kind of middle ground.
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#223let's address the elephant in the room. Google got the authority from everyone here who accepted chrome and IE DRM by default, to the point that even Firefox was forced to give in, so you all could be sedated by Netflix and other DRMed content.
The elephant is that so many bright people from the "best" schools continue to work for such an evil company.
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No, blame the movie studios, record labels etc. They're the one which require asinine DRM support for web browsers. Google/Microsoft/Apple/Adobe want to support media content, but to do so requires towing the line with the media companies otherwise they refuse to license the content (at least in HD+). Let's say Google, Microsoft and Apple announce that they will be removing any DRM from their browsers on 2020-01-01…
Why would they need to remove the DRM playback app in your scenario? If they would only remove it from the browsers, they would start pushing their native applications like Netflix for Linux, Netflix for Windows, Netflix for Mac. And browsers would be free of their DRM which causes all this.
Because that would still prevent Metastream from working with Netflix ;)
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#225DRM often results in a whitelist of media clients, killing standards in favor of a centralized authority. HDCP does the same for video feeds (HDMI, etc.). DRM-protected boxes can only output to DRM-protected displays, giving a central authority the ability to effectively deny new client devices from being made: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandwidth_Digital_Conte...
Mind helping me understand this a bit better?
The link mentions that to produce a HDCP-compatible device (eg one that has an HDMI port) it needs to be licensed, pay an annual fee, and make promises to frustrate DRM-mitigation efforts.
If I wanted to make my own monitor with a VGA input (or, more practically, pipe the signals coming from VGA into a program that does something with the feed) I would just have to find a suitable adapter and receive the serial data.
Does this mean that doing so with HDMI (either the real-world DIY monitor, or the in-software feed-ingestion program) would be:
A) Difficult/time-consuming to write due to a lack of open drivers B) Run afoul of IP laws pertaining to the HDMI standard and get me sued C) Prevented by the cryptographic handshake that happens between an approved display and the output drivers D) All of the above?
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simple: You'd have to install a plugin or a separate special app to watch video, like the bad old days of RealPlayer.
They could block that, too. (It won't work on Android and iOS anyway)
This would be an authoritarian action, compared to just opting out of supporting something. There's a huge difference and I think these organizations' supposed interest in ethics precludes that sort of move.
DRM is not illegitimate. It just sucks and operates in a way that is immune to free market competition - the reasons for that immunity are the true thing to fix. Users should have alternatives as there is a clear market there. If DRM is so bad, then that's what should kill it.
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can't the author do the same thing Firefox does, which also uses Widevine DRM with no issues?
RTFA. Widevine is owned by Google. Google gives Firefox permission to use Widevine. Google took 4 months to give this individual a one-line rejection, ostensibly his only option for supporting DRM in a chromium-based solution like the one he is using (Electron). Now what?
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Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that there was no such trade off here. If they refuse to approve DRM and then some browsers unwisely implement it anyway, having their approval makes it worse, not better. The browsers doing the wrong thing can claim to be following a standard, even though the standard is useless garbage because the entire point of having a standard is so that anyone can implement it, which in this case they still can't.
The trade off is in relevancy. If the standards body doesn't force a confrontation it knows it can't win, then it retains some power that it can throw behind or against future proposals. If the major browsers have already decided to completely ignore them and create their own consensus, there's that much less reason to listen to them next time. Not only has a precedent been set, but coordination on features outside t…
In some sense everything is always a trade off. But some things cost more than they're worth.
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Download and sandbox the Widevine binary blob the same way that Firefox does. Done. Mozilla has a license to redistribute the binary. You can't simply do that (legally).
Did Metastream ask for a license to redistribute the binary? We don't know anything about the conversation with Widevine other than that they wrote, "I'm sorry but we're not supporting an open source solution like this". They clearly are supporting an open source solution like Firefox. So what is the difference, and can Metastream be less "like this" and more like Firefox?
I asked for a license agreement to use the Castlabs fork of Electron, which supports Widevine. https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases
Re: I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the most plausible outcome. Netflix wouldn't just leave that money on the table and the most obvious thing to do would be to provide the support they want from browsers themselves. Users follow use cases and would not be averse to spending 30 seconds installing something in order to watch their favorite content. There's also sort of a game theory situation with the removal of DRM, as it would be a competitive…
All Netflix movies are on PirateBay already, in spite of their DRM. I’ve seen movies pop up on PirateBay the day they are released. They wouldn’t leave any money on the table. People paying for Netflix are paying for convenience. That wouldn’t change in absence of DRM.
I think you're greatly underestimating how much more cumbersome torrenting is even compared to a plugin, especially for "normal" users who are not necessarily tech-savvy.