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Ask HN: Does disallowing people to download streaming videos help?

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Ask HN: Does disallowing people to download streaming videos help?

#1

Post by angrisha »

Hi,

I am working with a senior of mine in college who is building a video streaming platform which encrypts data packets on the fly. As a result, the video cannot be downloaded for offline viewing. This is an additional feature he added to the project which originally was intended to build a faster video streaming server software.

We have had a discussion on this and he feels that this adds more value to the video serving company. However I was not convinced.

So here goes my question : Does disallowing downloads to people for offline viewing do any good? Why not allow people to download videos for offline viewing?

Re: Ask HN: Does disallowing people to download streaming videos help?

#2

Post by saurabh »

I guess so. I loved blip.tv because they allowed me to download the videos to watch them offline and that too in multiple formats.

Sadly, they have discontinued this feature. But yeah, I think this was one of the features that I think made them popular.

Re: Ask HN: Does disallowing people to download streaming videos help?

#4

Post by 0x12 »

Screencams.

One good reason to not allow 'dowload' of a video is if it is a live stream of a person. People will say/do stuff on cam that they may later come to regret, if your platform can reliably (see 'screencams') stop others from recording the stream then there will be a market for that.

But you've got a lot of extra issues to contend with in your streaming server, it's hard enough just to pump the data out, if you have to uniquely encrypt a few tens of thousands of outgoing streams that is a real problem.

Re: Ask HN: Does disallowing people to download streaming videos help?

#5

Post by JoachimSchipper »

0x12 wrote: post #4

Screencams. One good reason to not allow 'dowload' of a video is if it is a live stream of a person. People will say/do stuff on cam that they may later come to regret, if your platform can reliably (see 'screencams') stop others from recording the stream then there will be a market for that. But you've got a lot of extra issues to contend with in your streaming server, it's hard enough just to pump the data out, if…

Just a note: per-stream encryption keys may make sense[1], but there's no need to encrypt the stream to different per-person keys - you can just encrypt the per-stream key with the per-person key and send it to the authorized users.

Your comment was not clear on this, but this obviously reduces the encryption overhead.

[1] It's not much harder for a pirate to build a script to extract the per-stream key from the player than it is to extract the key in the first place, so using a per-stream key instead of one key doesn't really help against piracy. It does help keep streams private against eavesdroppers, though.

Re: Ask HN: Does disallowing people to download streaming videos help?

#6

Post by JoachimSchipper »

Two thoughts:

- pirates will circumvent it; it sounds like the player is not-especially-well-obfuscated software running on standard PCs.

- people will probably still pay extra for it; it sounds good, and it does deter piracy at least a little.

That said, watermarking and banning anyone whose videos are found on TPB probably works better.

Re: Ask HN: Does disallowing people to download streaming videos help?

#7

Post by mikeknoop »

JoachimSchipper wrote: post #5
0x12 wrote: post #4

Screencams. One good reason to not allow 'dowload' of a video is if it is a live stream of a person. People will say/do stuff on cam that they may later come to regret, if your platform can reliably (see 'screencams') stop others from recording the stream then there will be a market for that. But you've got a lot of extra issues to contend with in your streaming server, it's hard enough just to pump the data out, if…

Just a note: per-stream encryption keys may make sense[1], but there's no need to encrypt the stream to different per-person keys - you can just encrypt the per-stream key with the per-person key and send it to the authorized users. Your comment was not clear on this, but this obviously reduces the encryption overhead. [1] It's not much harder for a pirate to build a script to extract the per-stream key from the play…

Just don't forget -- it's even easier to install desktop-recording software.

Re: Ask HN: Does disallowing people to download streaming videos help?

#8

Post by JoachimSchipper »

mikeknoop wrote: post #7
JoachimSchipper wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a note: per-stream encryption keys may make sense[1], but there's no need to encrypt the stream to different per-person keys - you can just encrypt the per-stream key with the per-person key and send it to the authorized users. Your comment was not clear on this, but this obviously reduces the encryption overhead. [1] It's not much harder for a pirate to build a script to extract the per-stream key from the play…

Just don't forget -- it's even easier to install desktop-recording software.

Honest question: doesn't that lose a lot of quality? (YouTube has shown that low-quality video can still be popular, but at least it would give pirates some reason to pay you.)

Re: Ask HN: Does disallowing people to download streaming videos help?

#9

Post by angrisha »

mikeknoop wrote: post #7
JoachimSchipper wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a note: per-stream encryption keys may make sense[1], but there's no need to encrypt the stream to different per-person keys - you can just encrypt the per-stream key with the per-person key and send it to the authorized users. Your comment was not clear on this, but this obviously reduces the encryption overhead. [1] It's not much harder for a pirate to build a script to extract the per-stream key from the play…

Just don't forget -- it's even easier to install desktop-recording software.

I agree. However use of desktop recording softwares is similar to using an audio recorder to record a song on the radio. We cant do anything about it

The main aim was to remove the download capability of the ubiquitous downloading tools/plugins (like FlashGot, DownloadThemAll, VLC etc) which mainly use the video saved in the cache. So far we have been successful in that.

Ideas to avoid recording via a screencam, anyone??

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