5 ms·

I think you're discounting the opportunity cost here. In a world where browser manufacturers, as a block, refused to implement DRM, it's seems obvious that soo

I think you're discounting the opportunity cost here. In a world where browser manufacturers, as a block, refused to implement DRM, it's seems obvious that sooner or later visual media producers would be forced to the table, to gain access to paying consumers. We could be in a DRM-free world, without the inconveniences of elaborate technical restrictions on pass-through and mutual device compatibility, or black box binary blobs on otherwise open source operating systems. With a look on TPB, it seems evident that DRM doesn't work to prevent piracy. Any technical means that would be used to download a rate-adaptive video stream and save locally in the absence of DRM would seem to me to be more involved for the end consumer than downloading pirated media directly - so I don't think DRM even works as a speed-bump. A standards body is a great place to achieve consensus around a negotiating position. I don't think the consensus that was reached was the one that leads to the best final result. The distance between where we are now, and that final result, is the cost of this decision.

tptacek 9y ago
I see how that gets us to a DRM-free world, but not so much why ordinary consumers would care. To a first approximation, no ordinary consumer uses TPB. Unauthorized copies are less convenient (especially since mainstream playback devices won't play them) and frequently of lower quality. The price point for legitimate copies is low enough that the purchase decision isn't that hard. A standards body is a great place to achieve consensus around a negotiating position, but a pretty big chunk of this standards body doesn't want the negotiating position you want.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- barrkel 9y ago
  The arguments I've seen in favour of supporting DRM are all about enabling the delivery of "protected" media to the consumer - but it's competition of a Prisoner's dilemma kind that drives them there. If any one vendor - it doesn't matter whether it's a browser, or an operating system, or a graphics card, or a monitor, etc. - agrees to add DRM technology, they hope they'll get an increase in usage / sales at the margin by convincing shy media producers to distribute. The only way to stop it is to band together and refuse across the board. Individually, everybody gets picked off. You can't be the only monitor that can't play movies, or the only browser that can't show the latest episode of GoT.
- brians 9y ago
  The tracker/torrent numbers I see are consistent with more than a quarter of US college-aged people using them, and more than three quarters watching media obtained that way—those are better numbers than HBO. It absolutely has a role in tastemaking.
  - ghostly_s 9y ago
    Curious, who publishes figures on this?
- flukus 9y ago
  > To a first approximation, no ordinary consumer uses TPB. Ordinary consumers get it via sneaker-net on a USB key that they can now plug directly into their TV. Before that there was pirated DVD's and video cassettes, but the ease and cost of piracy is still improving faster than legitimate methods.
- lovich 9y ago
  >To a first approximation, no ordinary consumer uses TPB. I'm not sure how true that is. Currently getting content is easy enough that the average consumer doesn't use it, but at least back in the mid 00's the technical people in my social circle got introduced to torrents by people who didn't know how turn off a computer except by unplugging it. They we're willing to take all sorts of risks with their computer on sketchy sites the second it became the easiest way to get their content. If torrents and piracy become the easiest way again, I could easily see regular people going right back to it.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Related: remember SOPA, and the street protests with which Poland led the way to shutting it down in Europe? I still really don't think the protests happened because people suddenly became aware of abstract consequences of an obscure deal proposal. But exactly at that time, in an unrelated case, FBI shut down Megavideo, widely used by regular people then. This is what they took as a future of Internet under SOPA, and that's why, I believe (based on first-hand experience), they went to the streets.
    - lovich 9y ago
      Yea, I don't think the op does this himself but as a group the people on hacker news vasciliate between, comouter literacy is the new literacy and something that requires you downloading two programs(Torrent software and VPN) and go to one website, is beyond anyone but software devs. Computer literacy _is_ the new literacy so is it suprising that regular people can start doing things on computers for themselves?
- franga2000 9y ago
  In my experience, it has always been easier to pirate movies and TV shows - especially in the last few years. Netflix only had a few of the shows I watch, I had to get HBO Go for the rest. Now Disney is pulling everything to their service. You need multiple services, each with their own apps. Good luck on a 10Mbps connection. Getting DVDs is impossible less than a year after release. With CouchPotato, I find the movie on IMDb and click a button to add to to downloads. Sonarr downloads new episodes of shows just hours after release. Even Stremio (think PopcornTime, but better) is easier to use than most streaming services.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Unauthorized copies tend to be more convenient, since the days of region free DVD players. I strongly believe that the convenience of Netflix and iTunes only exists because of piracy, and the industry would never have chosen it otherwise. They'd be stuck on pay per view.
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    That's only true if you ignore the problem of malware getting on people's systems via pirated downloads. This is a large and significant source of malware (as people tend to override virus scanners and such). Piracy does have serious negative side effects on both content creators and end users. It's kind of a hacker fantasy that it doesn't.
- wtmt 9y ago
  Your points about usage of TPB, less convenience, lower quality, cost being low enough - all of them seem to be from the U.S. or first world perspective. In many other countries, TPB or equivalent is very common across classes of people (not just students but also workers in different non-technology industries). Unauthorized copies are more convenient because most people watch media on a tiny laptop or a small monitor desktop (often several years old or low end), where a free VLC or other player will play whatever is thrown at it. Quality of the video/audio isn't a big deal on these lower end, smaller screen and older devices (plus, many people may prefer lower quality for the lower data consumed from a broadband connection). One might argue that these people would never pay for content and so mustn't be considered when talking about paid content. But given a chance not to jump through hoops and with geography specific pricing, there are ways to get people to pay. That could add up when done right on a large population base. Right now the big content houses are literally leaving money on the table and encouraging piracy (to put it in a different way)!
  - hacking_again 9y ago
    TPB quality is usually very good, 1GB per hour is common and 4GB per hour is possible for high demand stuff. Plus you get a much better library. A fast internet connection makes the inconvenience of downloading vs. streaming go away.
    - barrkel 9y ago
      1GB per hour isn't enough if you have a big screen (I use a 100" screen with projector). Not even Amazon encodes video well, they have particularly poor colour quantization that ends up filling the screen with blotchy seas of uniform colour; Netflix has the best encoding settings IME.
      - nasredin 9y ago
        You are not downloading the right type releases. WRT movies: WEBDL is usually 4-5GB 720p Bluray: 6GB 1080p: 8GB and up.
- blfr 9y ago
  Unauthorized copies are less convenient (especially since mainstream playback devices won't play them) and frequently of lower quality. HD .mkv files can be viewed on virtually any device, including "smart" TVs long forgotten by their manufacturers which do not support Netflix/Roku/whatever apps, open source devices, smartphones, or regular computers. Usually, you just need to plug in a USB drive and press play. They can also be of arbitrary high quality. And usually higher, not lower than streaming sources which adjust to network conditions. It's true that the plans at legitimate distributors are currently very inexpensive. A good seedbox will run higher than Spotify and Netflix subscriptions plus a bowl of nachos but neither the quality, nor the choice, or convenience are even close to piracy.
- floatboth 9y ago
  > no ordinary consumer uses TPB In the US, maybe. In some other, less capitalist countries… well, paying for non-physical things seemed ridiculous. Still kinda does, but app stores have somewhat changed that.
- nasredin 9y ago
  "lower quality"? You can download entire BluRay disks, about 40GB, 4K shows, 10GB IIRC. You are wrong. Pirates have the same or HIGHER quality video in most cases.
Anderkent 9y ago
> In a world where browser manufacturers, as a block, refused to implement DRM, it's seems obvious that sooner or later visual media producers would be forced to the table, to gain access to paying consumers. We could be in a DRM-free world, without the inconveniences of elaborate technical restrictions on pass-through and mutual device compatibility, or black box binary blobs on otherwise open source operating systems. Well, that, or they would have went the direction of newspapers & news - give up on producing quality content, and instead cater to the lowest common denominator by producing the cheapest, most polarising content possible.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  In a large way, they already do that. They produce by viewership numbers, DRM or not.
icebraining 9y ago
In a world where browser manufacturers, as a block, refused to implement DRM, it's seems obvious that sooner or later visual media producers would be forced to the table, to gain access to paying consumers. Doesn't seem obvious to me. Why wouldn't they use their existing native apps?
- barrkel 9y ago
  Why isn't all software native apps? It comes down to the same set of reasons.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Most software don't have to choose between giving up DRM or not using web apps. I'm not convinced at all that their choice would be the former, especially since their clients already use native apps heavily.
- josteink 9y ago
  Netflix, the original HTML DRM-pusher, actually does. For a gazillion kinds of platforms and devices and they're doing fine. In fact it seems they have apps for all platforms out there, except the traditional desktop, something it would cost them almost nothing to provide on top of their existing app-offerings. Basically Netflix is the best proof you have that you don't need DRM in HTML. And yet here we are. It's absolutely infuriating.
  - nindalf 9y ago
    So what's the benefit to consumers if streaming services abandon the web? I know of one such service - NowTV, that insisted on me downloading the native app on macOS instead of watching within the browser. Personally I preferred Netflix's browser version, DRM notwithstanding. DRM is the price that content providers ask of Netflix. Netflix is fine with that, because the alternative is less content. Browser makers are ok with that, because the alternative is fewer people on browsers and more people on native apps. I'm personally ok with that because I dislike installing apps and I prefer the browser, although most people don't have a preference.
doikor 9y ago
> In a world where browser manufacturers, as a block, refused to implement DRM This is a world where we were a couple years ago. The content providers used plugins to provide DRM for the raw video (Widevine for example) or serve the video inside a container that has DRM (flash/silverlight). One of the main reasons for flash and silverlight dying away is that browsers could do more and more of what they did. And playing video the way the content producers/distributors wanted is a big part of that.

tptacek 9y ago

I see how that gets us to a DRM-free world, but not so much why ordinary consumers would care. To a first approximation, no ordinary consumer uses TPB. Unauthorized copies are less convenient (especially since mainstream playback devices won't play them) and frequently of lower quality. The price point for legitimate copies is low enough that the purchase decision isn't that hard. A standards body is a great place to achieve consensus around a negotiating position, but a pretty big chunk of this standards body doesn't want the negotiating position you want.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
barrkel 9y ago
The arguments I've seen in favour of supporting DRM are all about enabling the delivery of "protected" media to the consumer - but it's competition of a Prisoner's dilemma kind that drives them there. If any one vendor - it doesn't matter whether it's a browser, or an operating system, or a graphics card, or a monitor, etc. - agrees to add DRM technology, they hope they'll get an increase in usage / sales at the margin by convincing shy media producers to distribute. The only way to stop it is to band together and refuse across the board. Individually, everybody gets picked off. You can't be the only monitor that can't play movies, or the only browser that can't show the latest episode of GoT.
brians 9y ago
The tracker/torrent numbers I see are consistent with more than a quarter of US college-aged people using them, and more than three quarters watching media obtained that way—those are better numbers than HBO. It absolutely has a role in tastemaking.
- ghostly_s 9y ago
  Curious, who publishes figures on this?
flukus 9y ago
> To a first approximation, no ordinary consumer uses TPB. Ordinary consumers get it via sneaker-net on a USB key that they can now plug directly into their TV. Before that there was pirated DVD's and video cassettes, but the ease and cost of piracy is still improving faster than legitimate methods.
lovich 9y ago
>To a first approximation, no ordinary consumer uses TPB. I'm not sure how true that is. Currently getting content is easy enough that the average consumer doesn't use it, but at least back in the mid 00's the technical people in my social circle got introduced to torrents by people who didn't know how turn off a computer except by unplugging it. They we're willing to take all sorts of risks with their computer on sketchy sites the second it became the easiest way to get their content. If torrents and piracy become the easiest way again, I could easily see regular people going right back to it.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Related: remember SOPA, and the street protests with which Poland led the way to shutting it down in Europe? I still really don't think the protests happened because people suddenly became aware of abstract consequences of an obscure deal proposal. But exactly at that time, in an unrelated case, FBI shut down Megavideo, widely used by regular people then. This is what they took as a future of Internet under SOPA, and that's why, I believe (based on first-hand experience), they went to the streets.
  - lovich 9y ago
    Yea, I don't think the op does this himself but as a group the people on hacker news vasciliate between, comouter literacy is the new literacy and something that requires you downloading two programs(Torrent software and VPN) and go to one website, is beyond anyone but software devs. Computer literacy _is_ the new literacy so is it suprising that regular people can start doing things on computers for themselves?
franga2000 9y ago
In my experience, it has always been easier to pirate movies and TV shows - especially in the last few years. Netflix only had a few of the shows I watch, I had to get HBO Go for the rest. Now Disney is pulling everything to their service. You need multiple services, each with their own apps. Good luck on a 10Mbps connection. Getting DVDs is impossible less than a year after release. With CouchPotato, I find the movie on IMDb and click a button to add to to downloads. Sonarr downloads new episodes of shows just hours after release. Even Stremio (think PopcornTime, but better) is easier to use than most streaming services.
pjc50 9y ago
Unauthorized copies tend to be more convenient, since the days of region free DVD players. I strongly believe that the convenience of Netflix and iTunes only exists because of piracy, and the industry would never have chosen it otherwise. They'd be stuck on pay per view.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  That's only true if you ignore the problem of malware getting on people's systems via pirated downloads. This is a large and significant source of malware (as people tend to override virus scanners and such). Piracy does have serious negative side effects on both content creators and end users. It's kind of a hacker fantasy that it doesn't.
wtmt 9y ago
Your points about usage of TPB, less convenience, lower quality, cost being low enough - all of them seem to be from the U.S. or first world perspective. In many other countries, TPB or equivalent is very common across classes of people (not just students but also workers in different non-technology industries). Unauthorized copies are more convenient because most people watch media on a tiny laptop or a small monitor desktop (often several years old or low end), where a free VLC or other player will play whatever is thrown at it. Quality of the video/audio isn't a big deal on these lower end, smaller screen and older devices (plus, many people may prefer lower quality for the lower data consumed from a broadband connection). One might argue that these people would never pay for content and so mustn't be considered when talking about paid content. But given a chance not to jump through hoops and with geography specific pricing, there are ways to get people to pay. That could add up when done right on a large population base. Right now the big content houses are literally leaving money on the table and encouraging piracy (to put it in a different way)!
- hacking_again 9y ago
  TPB quality is usually very good, 1GB per hour is common and 4GB per hour is possible for high demand stuff. Plus you get a much better library. A fast internet connection makes the inconvenience of downloading vs. streaming go away.
  - barrkel 9y ago
    1GB per hour isn't enough if you have a big screen (I use a 100" screen with projector). Not even Amazon encodes video well, they have particularly poor colour quantization that ends up filling the screen with blotchy seas of uniform colour; Netflix has the best encoding settings IME.
    - nasredin 9y ago
      You are not downloading the right type releases. WRT movies: WEBDL is usually 4-5GB 720p Bluray: 6GB 1080p: 8GB and up.
blfr 9y ago
Unauthorized copies are less convenient (especially since mainstream playback devices won't play them) and frequently of lower quality. HD .mkv files can be viewed on virtually any device, including "smart" TVs long forgotten by their manufacturers which do not support Netflix/Roku/whatever apps, open source devices, smartphones, or regular computers. Usually, you just need to plug in a USB drive and press play. They can also be of arbitrary high quality. And usually higher, not lower than streaming sources which adjust to network conditions. It's true that the plans at legitimate distributors are currently very inexpensive. A good seedbox will run higher than Spotify and Netflix subscriptions plus a bowl of nachos but neither the quality, nor the choice, or convenience are even close to piracy.
floatboth 9y ago
> no ordinary consumer uses TPB In the US, maybe. In some other, less capitalist countries… well, paying for non-physical things seemed ridiculous. Still kinda does, but app stores have somewhat changed that.
nasredin 9y ago
"lower quality"? You can download entire BluRay disks, about 40GB, 4K shows, 10GB IIRC. You are wrong. Pirates have the same or HIGHER quality video in most cases.

Anderkent 9y ago

> In a world where browser manufacturers, as a block, refused to implement DRM, it's seems obvious that sooner or later visual media producers would be forced to the table, to gain access to paying consumers. We could be in a DRM-free world, without the inconveniences of elaborate technical restrictions on pass-through and mutual device compatibility, or black box binary blobs on otherwise open source operating systems. Well, that, or they would have went the direction of newspapers & news - give up on producing quality content, and instead cater to the lowest common denominator by producing the cheapest, most polarising content possible.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
In a large way, they already do that. They produce by viewership numbers, DRM or not.

icebraining 9y ago

In a world where browser manufacturers, as a block, refused to implement DRM, it's seems obvious that sooner or later visual media producers would be forced to the table, to gain access to paying consumers. Doesn't seem obvious to me. Why wouldn't they use their existing native apps?

barrkel 9y ago
Why isn't all software native apps? It comes down to the same set of reasons.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Most software don't have to choose between giving up DRM or not using web apps. I'm not convinced at all that their choice would be the former, especially since their clients already use native apps heavily.
josteink 9y ago
Netflix, the original HTML DRM-pusher, actually does. For a gazillion kinds of platforms and devices and they're doing fine. In fact it seems they have apps for all platforms out there, except the traditional desktop, something it would cost them almost nothing to provide on top of their existing app-offerings. Basically Netflix is the best proof you have that you don't need DRM in HTML. And yet here we are. It's absolutely infuriating.
- nindalf 9y ago
  So what's the benefit to consumers if streaming services abandon the web? I know of one such service - NowTV, that insisted on me downloading the native app on macOS instead of watching within the browser. Personally I preferred Netflix's browser version, DRM notwithstanding. DRM is the price that content providers ask of Netflix. Netflix is fine with that, because the alternative is less content. Browser makers are ok with that, because the alternative is fewer people on browsers and more people on native apps. I'm personally ok with that because I dislike installing apps and I prefer the browser, although most people don't have a preference.

doikor 9y ago

> In a world where browser manufacturers, as a block, refused to implement DRM This is a world where we were a couple years ago. The content providers used plugins to provide DRM for the raw video (Widevine for example) or serve the video inside a container that has DRM (flash/silverlight). One of the main reasons for flash and silverlight dying away is that browsers could do more and more of what they did. And playing video the way the content producers/distributors wanted is a big part of that.