6 ms·

This argument is deeply flawed. It is never about the few people who have the technical skills to circumvent copy protection schemes. Copy protection needs onl

This argument is deeply flawed. It is never about the few people who have the technical skills to circumvent copy protection schemes. Copy protection needs only to be economic. It works as soon as accepting the copy protection is convenient enough that enough customers prefer it to hunting down an illegal copy with good enough quality and without protection.

revelation 9y ago
That makes absolutely no sense. You need to pay to access Netflix. What then does DRM on Netflix achieve in making the "customer accept the copy protection"? The customer already fricking paid! Everything that is on Netflix you can already get on TPB (since the DRM is ineffective to those with technical skills), so how could the existence of DRM possibly have influenced the customers decision to pay vs. pirate?
- Mindwipe 9y ago
  The Pirate Bay is a much higher technical bar for general non-technical users than the average Hacker News poster seems to understand. There are lots of people who can right click save as who will never, ever, ever torrent.
  - pavelludiq 9y ago
    Considering torrenting is the preferred method to view online content at least here in Bulgaria, and I assume in most of the rest of the non-western world, I would advise against underestimating the technical abilities of most internet users.
    - briandear 9y ago
      You’ve never had to answer tech support tickets for a SME SAAS product, clearly. “How to I reset my password?” “Click ‘Forgot Password’”
      - revelation 9y ago
        This isn't an answer why DRM is making these customers choose Netflix over piracy. These people don't even know what DRM is.
    - Mindwipe 9y ago
      > Considering torrenting is the preferred method to view online content at least here in Bulgaria You're really getting "my own peer bubble" and "the general population" mixed up.
      - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
        Next door in Romania, I agree with what he says. Using torrenting or other pirate source is standard practice for anyone under the age of 35-40. It is by no means limited to a niche demographic of tech anoraks. A decade ago in my city, before the big ISP mergers, when you signed up for broadband internet our local ISP would actually give you the username and password for an eMule server where you could quickly share films and music with other people in the city.
  - depressedpanda 9y ago
    That argument is flawed. To prevent the plebs from right click-saving, it's enough to add some Javascript. If they have the skills to work around that, they have the skills to torrent. So what does DRM solve again?
    - jtuente 9y ago
      Side-stepping a little bit of javascript is something that can be taught trivially, avoiding malicious sources is not.
simion314 9y ago
It is not hard to find a illegal copy of a movie, you just need to know how to google, eventually you will find a website that embeds the video, no need for torrent application, downloading and running software.
- gmueckl 9y ago
  So tell me again why I should fire up Google, look for some shady website with dubiously dangerous ads to download or stream a movie when I can just fire up the Netflix app, tap the movie I want and start watching?
  - simion314 9y ago
    I think you did not understand my point, I have a steam and gog account, I pay for Intellij so I am not advocating for piracy, my point is that DRM does not make piracy super hard that only developers and linux users can pirate movies, I gave an example that you can watch a movie just by knowing how to use google, I am also sure that children in schools will teach each other how to get latest cartoons via torrent or website. If you go on gog.com you will see a large number of games, DRM free, music is now mostly DRM free, again my point is that Netflix offering a DRM free stream will not cause the number of subscribers to drop, because piracy is not that hard as the previous comment said it is. I agree with you 100%, I would pay the subscription to Netflix to avoid those websites, but it would be cool that I would not have to buy special hardware for it. P.S. I do not use or considered using Netflix because of my Internet speed.
    - gmueckl 9y ago
      And you misunderstand my point. DRM plays into many other measures to provide a sufficient incentive to seek commercial offers over piracy. DRM makes the initial copying hard. This pushes illegal copies into the dark corners of the web because of their lowered availability. At this point DRM was already successful.
      - simion314 9y ago

revelation 9y ago

That makes absolutely no sense. You need to pay to access Netflix. What then does DRM on Netflix achieve in making the "customer accept the copy protection"? The customer already fricking paid! Everything that is on Netflix you can already get on TPB (since the DRM is ineffective to those with technical skills), so how could the existence of DRM possibly have influenced the customers decision to pay vs. pirate?

Mindwipe 9y ago
The Pirate Bay is a much higher technical bar for general non-technical users than the average Hacker News poster seems to understand. There are lots of people who can right click save as who will never, ever, ever torrent.
- pavelludiq 9y ago
  Considering torrenting is the preferred method to view online content at least here in Bulgaria, and I assume in most of the rest of the non-western world, I would advise against underestimating the technical abilities of most internet users.
  - briandear 9y ago
    You’ve never had to answer tech support tickets for a SME SAAS product, clearly. “How to I reset my password?” “Click ‘Forgot Password’”
    - revelation 9y ago
      This isn't an answer why DRM is making these customers choose Netflix over piracy. These people don't even know what DRM is.
  - Mindwipe 9y ago
    > Considering torrenting is the preferred method to view online content at least here in Bulgaria You're really getting "my own peer bubble" and "the general population" mixed up.
    - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
      Next door in Romania, I agree with what he says. Using torrenting or other pirate source is standard practice for anyone under the age of 35-40. It is by no means limited to a niche demographic of tech anoraks. A decade ago in my city, before the big ISP mergers, when you signed up for broadband internet our local ISP would actually give you the username and password for an eMule server where you could quickly share films and music with other people in the city.
- depressedpanda 9y ago
  That argument is flawed. To prevent the plebs from right click-saving, it's enough to add some Javascript. If they have the skills to work around that, they have the skills to torrent. So what does DRM solve again?
  - jtuente 9y ago
    Side-stepping a little bit of javascript is something that can be taught trivially, avoiding malicious sources is not.

simion314 9y ago

It is not hard to find a illegal copy of a movie, you just need to know how to google, eventually you will find a website that embeds the video, no need for torrent application, downloading and running software.

gmueckl 9y ago
So tell me again why I should fire up Google, look for some shady website with dubiously dangerous ads to download or stream a movie when I can just fire up the Netflix app, tap the movie I want and start watching?
- simion314 9y ago
  I think you did not understand my point, I have a steam and gog account, I pay for Intellij so I am not advocating for piracy, my point is that DRM does not make piracy super hard that only developers and linux users can pirate movies, I gave an example that you can watch a movie just by knowing how to use google, I am also sure that children in schools will teach each other how to get latest cartoons via torrent or website. If you go on gog.com you will see a large number of games, DRM free, music is now mostly DRM free, again my point is that Netflix offering a DRM free stream will not cause the number of subscribers to drop, because piracy is not that hard as the previous comment said it is. I agree with you 100%, I would pay the subscription to Netflix to avoid those websites, but it would be cool that I would not have to buy special hardware for it. P.S. I do not use or considered using Netflix because of my Internet speed.
  - gmueckl 9y ago
    And you misunderstand my point. DRM plays into many other measures to provide a sufficient incentive to seek commercial offers over piracy. DRM makes the initial copying hard. This pushes illegal copies into the dark corners of the web because of their lowered availability. At this point DRM was already successful.
    - simion314 9y ago