7 ms·

It seems as though it has been working for them though, no? Isn’t Netflix and its DRM evidence of that?

wpietri 8y ago
To me, Netflix is evidence that there's no point to DRM. I still can torrent any content I want, but I almost never do. But if it's on Netflix or anything else I subscribe to, I won't bother. I suspect Netflix's DRM is purely about pacifying video industry executives, and that it makes approximately no difference to the bottom line of anybody except the people hyping their proprietary DRM solutions.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  > To me, Netflix is evidence that there's no point to DRM. I still can torrent any content I want, but I almost never do. To me, it is rather the other way round: As Netflix offers no DRM-free version, I will never subscribe. So in other words: by insisting on DRM, the movie industry openly states that they don't want any money from people who don't want DRM. But if you "reverse" this sentence "in a hacker way", this means that they are not losing any money, if DRM-haters pirate (because they just stated that they don't want the DRM-haters' money). Thus, in my opinion is quite a pro-pirating slogan coming from the mouth of Hollywood.
  - CJefferson 8y ago
    I might just not have to imagination, but a DRM free Netflix wouldn't seem to work -- you pay a low monthly fee for temporary access to a huge library. What would you prefer?
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > I might just not have to imagination, but a DRM free Netflix wouldn't seem to work -- you pay a low monthly fee for temporary access to a huge library. What would you prefer? I do not get your point. Perhaps I misunderstand it, because English is not my mother tongue. I do not see a problem. First: If I really download a lot, I will soon get out of disk space (even if I own a NAS). Second: Netflix adds new movies/series all the time to its library. So there is an incentive to stay a subscriber.
      - joshuamorton 8y ago
        Storage is cheap. You can store 500 hours of video in a TB. And four TB is less than one year of Netflix, but gives you enough storage to download enough video to last a few years. I'd pay for one month of Netflix every two years instead of monthly, without question.
        wolfgke 8y ago
        > I'd pay for one month of Netflix every two years instead of monthly, without question. I can imagine that in this case Netflix would just have to change the price model somewhat: Make the first month much more expensive than the following ones to give a disincentive for canceling the subscription. At least this pricing model is applied by many software companies who love to sell subscriptions for their software.
        joshuamorton 8y ago
        I'm sure Netflix would have seen explosive growth if it required 1 year, $100+ contracts, and that's assuming content producers would have been okay with it (they wouldn't have). Sure they could have used a different business model, but had they, we wouldn't be talking about Netflix.
        CJefferson 8y ago
        But, that would I imagine be terrible for Netflix -- their cheap monthly price encourages people to sign up on a whim. I suspect very few people would sign up if the first month had been much more expensive.
        nybble41 8y ago
        They could keep the cheap monthly price for first-time subscribers, and just make it so that if you cancel and want to sign back up later you're charged for all the months in between.
        imtringued 8y ago
    - wpietri 8y ago
      A DRM-free Netflix would work just fine. How much work am I going to go to just to cheat Netflix out of $8/month? I can already torrent anything I want. But I don't because it's easier for me just to pay.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  Yes, I completely agree. I not only can torrent stuff, I can do it very comfortably as I used to do it a lot and have created a pipeline that will download it complete with subs in English and Czech, correctly name and categorize and make it available to my network so I can play it directly on my TV - all just by clicking on a magnet link. And yet since Netflix is available, I don't, Netflix is even more comfortable, and I want to support their original work.
- pdkl95 8y ago
  > there's no point to DRM. I still can torrent any content I want DRM appears to be useless because you are incorrectly assuming DRM's purpose is to stop or reduce piracy. DRM is and always has been about controlling the playback platform. Media companies like DRM so the can force anyone making a player to not implement features they don't like. Their ability to control how media is used was severely limited when the Betamax case[1] (1984) established that using a home video tape recorder to time shift was is fair use. Unable to legally control how media is used, media companies hade regularly attempted to establish and require a DRM scheme they could use to technologically control use. The proper response is to tell the media companies their right to control a copyright protected work ends at the first sale[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Unive.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
  - bogomipz 8y ago
    >"DRM appears to be useless because you are incorrectly assuming DRM's purpose is to stop or reduce piracy. DRM is and always has been about controlling the playback platform." I'm no fan of DRM or the idiots in Hollywood but isn't "controlling the playback" a means to control piracy? Why must they be mutually exclusive? >"Media companies like DRM so the can force anyone making a player to not implement features they don't like." I'm curious is there any evidence of this? How would the Hollywood studios even be aware of all of the new hardware devices?
    - EvanAnderson 8y ago
      Controlling playback allows the industry to insure that new works are industry-sanctioned and appropriately taxed by the incumbents. DRM allows the middle-men to continue being in the middle in the face of the democratization of production and distribution that technology has created.
      - bogomipz 8y ago
        >"Controlling playback allows the industry to insure that new works are industry-sanctioned and appropriately taxed by the incumbents" What industry are you referring to here - the tech sector, the entertainment industry? This is rather vague. Also which tax are you referring to? Who are the "incumbents"?
mtgx 8y ago
> Isn’t Netflix and its DRM evidence of that? How so? Can you not find Netflix shows on piracy sites? If you mean "Netflix has been successful in getting people to pirate less" that has nothing to do with the DRM, but with the fact that Netflix is a cheap and convenient enough service to stop many people from wanting to watch pirated content.
ryanlol 8y ago
Netflix videos are pretty easy to decrypt, there are a bunch of public exploits you can use to dump videwine device keys.

To me, Netflix is evidence that there's no point to DRM. I still can torrent any content I want, but I almost never do. But if it's on Netflix or anything else I subscribe to, I won't bother. I suspect Netflix's DRM is purely about pacifying video industry executives, and that it makes approximately no difference to the bottom line of anybody except the people hyping their proprietary DRM solutions.

wolfgke 8y ago
> To me, Netflix is evidence that there's no point to DRM. I still can torrent any content I want, but I almost never do. To me, it is rather the other way round: As Netflix offers no DRM-free version, I will never subscribe. So in other words: by insisting on DRM, the movie industry openly states that they don't want any money from people who don't want DRM. But if you "reverse" this sentence "in a hacker way", this means that they are not losing any money, if DRM-haters pirate (because they just stated that they don't want the DRM-haters' money). Thus, in my opinion is quite a pro-pirating slogan coming from the mouth of Hollywood.
- CJefferson 8y ago
  I might just not have to imagination, but a DRM free Netflix wouldn't seem to work -- you pay a low monthly fee for temporary access to a huge library. What would you prefer?
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > I might just not have to imagination, but a DRM free Netflix wouldn't seem to work -- you pay a low monthly fee for temporary access to a huge library. What would you prefer? I do not get your point. Perhaps I misunderstand it, because English is not my mother tongue. I do not see a problem. First: If I really download a lot, I will soon get out of disk space (even if I own a NAS). Second: Netflix adds new movies/series all the time to its library. So there is an incentive to stay a subscriber.
    - joshuamorton 8y ago
      Storage is cheap. You can store 500 hours of video in a TB. And four TB is less than one year of Netflix, but gives you enough storage to download enough video to last a few years. I'd pay for one month of Netflix every two years instead of monthly, without question.
      - wolfgke 8y ago
        > I'd pay for one month of Netflix every two years instead of monthly, without question. I can imagine that in this case Netflix would just have to change the price model somewhat: Make the first month much more expensive than the following ones to give a disincentive for canceling the subscription. At least this pricing model is applied by many software companies who love to sell subscriptions for their software.
        joshuamorton 8y ago
        I'm sure Netflix would have seen explosive growth if it required 1 year, $100+ contracts, and that's assuming content producers would have been okay with it (they wouldn't have). Sure they could have used a different business model, but had they, we wouldn't be talking about Netflix.
        CJefferson 8y ago
        But, that would I imagine be terrible for Netflix -- their cheap monthly price encourages people to sign up on a whim. I suspect very few people would sign up if the first month had been much more expensive.
        nybble41 8y ago
        They could keep the cheap monthly price for first-time subscribers, and just make it so that if you cancel and want to sign back up later you're charged for all the months in between.
      - imtringued 8y ago
  - wpietri 8y ago
    A DRM-free Netflix would work just fine. How much work am I going to go to just to cheat Netflix out of $8/month? I can already torrent anything I want. But I don't because it's easier for me just to pay.
TomMarius 8y ago
Yes, I completely agree. I not only can torrent stuff, I can do it very comfortably as I used to do it a lot and have created a pipeline that will download it complete with subs in English and Czech, correctly name and categorize and make it available to my network so I can play it directly on my TV - all just by clicking on a magnet link. And yet since Netflix is available, I don't, Netflix is even more comfortable, and I want to support their original work.
pdkl95 8y ago
> there's no point to DRM. I still can torrent any content I want DRM appears to be useless because you are incorrectly assuming DRM's purpose is to stop or reduce piracy. DRM is and always has been about controlling the playback platform. Media companies like DRM so the can force anyone making a player to not implement features they don't like. Their ability to control how media is used was severely limited when the Betamax case[1] (1984) established that using a home video tape recorder to time shift was is fair use. Unable to legally control how media is used, media companies hade regularly attempted to establish and require a DRM scheme they could use to technologically control use. The proper response is to tell the media companies their right to control a copyright protected work ends at the first sale[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Unive.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
- bogomipz 8y ago
  >"DRM appears to be useless because you are incorrectly assuming DRM's purpose is to stop or reduce piracy. DRM is and always has been about controlling the playback platform." I'm no fan of DRM or the idiots in Hollywood but isn't "controlling the playback" a means to control piracy? Why must they be mutually exclusive? >"Media companies like DRM so the can force anyone making a player to not implement features they don't like." I'm curious is there any evidence of this? How would the Hollywood studios even be aware of all of the new hardware devices?
  - EvanAnderson 8y ago
    Controlling playback allows the industry to insure that new works are industry-sanctioned and appropriately taxed by the incumbents. DRM allows the middle-men to continue being in the middle in the face of the democratization of production and distribution that technology has created.
    - bogomipz 8y ago
      >"Controlling playback allows the industry to insure that new works are industry-sanctioned and appropriately taxed by the incumbents" What industry are you referring to here - the tech sector, the entertainment industry? This is rather vague. Also which tax are you referring to? Who are the "incumbents"?

mtgx 8y ago

> Isn’t Netflix and its DRM evidence of that? How so? Can you not find Netflix shows on piracy sites? If you mean "Netflix has been successful in getting people to pirate less" that has nothing to do with the DRM, but with the fact that Netflix is a cheap and convenient enough service to stop many people from wanting to watch pirated content.

ryanlol 8y ago

Netflix videos are pretty easy to decrypt, there are a bunch of public exploits you can use to dump videwine device keys.