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The problem is DRM has been used for more than digital rights management. We've seen it used to surveill the user and collect information - and restrict action

by blitmap 10y ago

The problem is DRM has been used for more than digital rights management. We've seen it used to surveill the user and collect information - and restrict actions on the users' computer when it thinks you're doing something illicit (not allowing you to burn things to disc, restricting the ability to screenshot videos, uninstalling/deleting programs, adding rootkits, etc). Far outside the scope of providing authorized access to protected content. What's terrible is Netflix could have used it's considerable influence to tell _that_ _Industry_ that we won't walk this walk anymore. EME - as I understand it - allows them to create a closed-source program that runs in a sandbox to authorize and reproduce content we've paid to view. It should have very limited ability to do this - but breaking out of sandboxes is what some software engineers are employed to figure out. We're trusting those companies with the ability to run their programs on our computer so we can watch Paul Blart: Mall Cop. We hope it works as it's defined, but it's not a guarantee. It's not worth it and pirates don't rip from Netflix anyway. They usually work for the industry as some part of the distribution/theater network. This hurts the customer. Our computers are not our own.

threeseed 10y ago
The idea that Netflix could tell the movie and TV industries what to do is laughable and woefully ignorant of how those industries work. Why do you think Netflix et al invests so much in original content ? Because they have zero leverage and are beholden to the whims of Hollywood.
daenney 10y ago
> What's terrible is Netflix could have used it's considerable influence to tell _that_ _Industry_ that we won't walk this walk anymore. Why do you assume they didn't? And if they did and the industry said no, what should they have done? Walk away, lose access to all its content, see a large part of their subscriber base move to different services that do support DRM and therefor get the content and eventually have to start firing employees as their income drops? Just about any streaming service has this exact same problem. They don't love DRM nor want to support it, it's annoying and cumbersome. But it's how you get access to the content. And unless you can survive purely on your own content you don't really have the option to walk away over your ideals. If you want DRM out of the system, convince the content/rights holders that DRM isn't in their best interests, i.e they can make more money without it or at the very least won't lose money over not having it. If you're hoping that somehow a significant enough size of the population will boycott it for the industry to change, based on the ideals of the open web and open access, you'll be waiting a long time.
- derefr 10y ago
  It's interesting that DRM is basically a "free market problem." In cases where there is a government-supported media production/distribution service, as with the BBC in Britain, no DRM is needed, because the success of the service is not dependent on income from licensing the content. Instead, the content itself is often put up for free on a government-hosted online archive, in as many formats as possible, to ensure it can reach all the citizens who paid for it.
  - tssva 10y ago
    About a 1 billion of BBC revenues of about 5 billion GBP come from licensing content worldwide. They utilize both geolocation access restrictions and DRM in an attempt to protect this revenue.
  - pfooti 10y ago
    And yet, I cannot just simply stream BBC content in the US.
  - syshum 10y ago
    Aside from the fact that your wrong about the BBC the issue itself is not a "free market problem" because copyright only exists because of government interference. Government created the "right" DRM is protecting against. In a pure free market, there is no copyright, thus no need for DRM to protect a right that does not exist
    - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
      DRM schemes effectively allow the implementer to invent their own rules well beyond what copyright law specifically reserves (e.g. restrictions on resale and lending, ability to create their own licensing regime to publish on a given platform), so I don't see how DRM depends on government intervention. DRM is already defined more by business and technical considerations than by the law. If anything, it seems to me that draconian DRM schemes would be more desirable to vendors if they didn't also have copyright lawsuits in their arsenal.
guyzero 10y ago
The major EME providers are PlayReady, which is Microsoft, and Widevine, which is Google. You've already given those two companies pretty broad permission to run binaries on your computer (unless you use Firefox on Linux) so I'm not sure what the incremental security issue really is.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  That's quite the invalid assumption. Additionally, if I let Google run binaries on my system in one spot, it does not mean I have given them full access to run binaries elsewhere.
  - guyzero 10y ago
    I suppose but when you're already using Chrome using the Widevine CDM isn't a huge difference. When you're using Edge using the PlayReady CDM isn't a huge difference. I see the general theory of the argument for Opera and especially Firefox but even so, why trust a CDM blob less than any other commercial binary?
usrusr 10y ago
From a purely consumerist standpoint, by far the biggest problem with DRM used to be how it was falsely advertised as selling copies, when it was in fact just temporary access that could end any day, even tomorrow (company/server shutdown, hardware token malfunction/loss, general incompatibility with new stuff). Now that "buying" has mostly been replaced by streaming subscriptions, this problem has disappeared: it is perfectly obvious to even the most naive user that access to the content will be gone if they cancel Netflix (or if Netflix disappears) and as a bonus, it has become just as obvious that the streaming provider knows what you stream, open, "natural" surveillance instead of hidden, deliberate. Now it is more like the cashier knows what you buy at the supermarket (how else could they do their job?), whereas before it was a bit like the loyalty card backend knows (ignoring the massive difference in centralisation between cashier and loyalty card).
- acdha 10y ago
  I think you've perfectly summed up the problem the average anti-DRM advocate has: it's pretty easy to get people riled up when they paid a noticeable amount of money to “buy” something which goes away. In contrast, the Netflix/Spotify model where you pay a modest amount of money for all-you-can-eat accesss is hard to get much traction with since nobody thought they owned a particular work and the total price is so much lower that few people care. I can't decide whether this is bad or a sign of progress towards training people that DRMed content is not worth much.
jungletek 10y ago
>[...]pirates don't rip from Netflix anyway. Tell that to the 4k webrips on the private torrent trackers; I'm sure they'll be surprised both by the fact that they exist, and have apparently gained sentience.

by blitmap 10y ago

threeseed 10y ago

The idea that Netflix could tell the movie and TV industries what to do is laughable and woefully ignorant of how those industries work. Why do you think Netflix et al invests so much in original content ? Because they have zero leverage and are beholden to the whims of Hollywood.

daenney 10y ago

> What's terrible is Netflix could have used it's considerable influence to tell _that_ _Industry_ that we won't walk this walk anymore. Why do you assume they didn't? And if they did and the industry said no, what should they have done? Walk away, lose access to all its content, see a large part of their subscriber base move to different services that do support DRM and therefor get the content and eventually have to start firing employees as their income drops? Just about any streaming service has this exact same problem. They don't love DRM nor want to support it, it's annoying and cumbersome. But it's how you get access to the content. And unless you can survive purely on your own content you don't really have the option to walk away over your ideals. If you want DRM out of the system, convince the content/rights holders that DRM isn't in their best interests, i.e they can make more money without it or at the very least won't lose money over not having it. If you're hoping that somehow a significant enough size of the population will boycott it for the industry to change, based on the ideals of the open web and open access, you'll be waiting a long time.

derefr 10y ago
It's interesting that DRM is basically a "free market problem." In cases where there is a government-supported media production/distribution service, as with the BBC in Britain, no DRM is needed, because the success of the service is not dependent on income from licensing the content. Instead, the content itself is often put up for free on a government-hosted online archive, in as many formats as possible, to ensure it can reach all the citizens who paid for it.
- tssva 10y ago
  About a 1 billion of BBC revenues of about 5 billion GBP come from licensing content worldwide. They utilize both geolocation access restrictions and DRM in an attempt to protect this revenue.
- pfooti 10y ago
  And yet, I cannot just simply stream BBC content in the US.
- syshum 10y ago
  Aside from the fact that your wrong about the BBC the issue itself is not a "free market problem" because copyright only exists because of government interference. Government created the "right" DRM is protecting against. In a pure free market, there is no copyright, thus no need for DRM to protect a right that does not exist
  - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
    DRM schemes effectively allow the implementer to invent their own rules well beyond what copyright law specifically reserves (e.g. restrictions on resale and lending, ability to create their own licensing regime to publish on a given platform), so I don't see how DRM depends on government intervention. DRM is already defined more by business and technical considerations than by the law. If anything, it seems to me that draconian DRM schemes would be more desirable to vendors if they didn't also have copyright lawsuits in their arsenal.

guyzero 10y ago

The major EME providers are PlayReady, which is Microsoft, and Widevine, which is Google. You've already given those two companies pretty broad permission to run binaries on your computer (unless you use Firefox on Linux) so I'm not sure what the incremental security issue really is.

CaptSpify 10y ago
That's quite the invalid assumption. Additionally, if I let Google run binaries on my system in one spot, it does not mean I have given them full access to run binaries elsewhere.
- guyzero 10y ago
  I suppose but when you're already using Chrome using the Widevine CDM isn't a huge difference. When you're using Edge using the PlayReady CDM isn't a huge difference. I see the general theory of the argument for Opera and especially Firefox but even so, why trust a CDM blob less than any other commercial binary?

usrusr 10y ago

From a purely consumerist standpoint, by far the biggest problem with DRM used to be how it was falsely advertised as selling copies, when it was in fact just temporary access that could end any day, even tomorrow (company/server shutdown, hardware token malfunction/loss, general incompatibility with new stuff). Now that "buying" has mostly been replaced by streaming subscriptions, this problem has disappeared: it is perfectly obvious to even the most naive user that access to the content will be gone if they cancel Netflix (or if Netflix disappears) and as a bonus, it has become just as obvious that the streaming provider knows what you stream, open, "natural" surveillance instead of hidden, deliberate. Now it is more like the cashier knows what you buy at the supermarket (how else could they do their job?), whereas before it was a bit like the loyalty card backend knows (ignoring the massive difference in centralisation between cashier and loyalty card).

acdha 10y ago
I think you've perfectly summed up the problem the average anti-DRM advocate has: it's pretty easy to get people riled up when they paid a noticeable amount of money to “buy” something which goes away. In contrast, the Netflix/Spotify model where you pay a modest amount of money for all-you-can-eat accesss is hard to get much traction with since nobody thought they owned a particular work and the total price is so much lower that few people care. I can't decide whether this is bad or a sign of progress towards training people that DRMed content is not worth much.

jungletek 10y ago

>[...]pirates don't rip from Netflix anyway. Tell that to the 4k webrips on the private torrent trackers; I'm sure they'll be surprised both by the fact that they exist, and have apparently gained sentience.