6 ms·

The studios place DRM requirements on the content as part of the content deal. Its not Netflix's call.

by mikeryan 14y ago

angryasian 14y ago
yeah but i don't see why they couldn't of used a flash solution
- ajross 14y ago
  Hulu and Amazon stream using flash only, over largely reverse-engineerable protocols. See, for example, the XBMC plugins for those services which work quite well. Now neither Hulu nor Amazon have the depth of content availability that Netflix does, but they're clearly not shackled by DRM handcuffs either.
  - bduerst 14y ago
    I don't know about that. I've tried reversing Hulu's player to access their *.flv files, but they appear to do some sort of handshake that is uniquely generated for each user session and hashed.
    - ajross 14y ago
      It may not be easy, but it's been done. Check out the source to the bluecop Hulu plugin for XBMC if you're curious. All the content goes over conventional streams. There's no deeply-integrated "DRM" layer, just stuff you can do from flash.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
jiggy2011 14y ago
This doesn't surprise me, but just seems like an obviously flawed way to prevent piracy. If you want to prevent your movie from appearing on the pirate bay in a DRM free format you have to make it so that nobody in the entire world is capable of recording the stream. Even if you make sure the stream remains encrypted all the way from the server to the monitor, at some point it has to be decrypted in order to play. You only need one guy with the skills to take his monitor apart and modify it to feed the input into the actual OLEDs into another device. Once that happens it's game over. The only way to really win would be prevent consumer playback devices from actually playing DRM Free content at all and insist that all content is signed. In essence force every consumer who wants to pirate to make a hardware modification.
- ixnu 14y ago
  It's called the Analog Hole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole
- T-hawk 14y ago
  That last bit has well-accepted precedent: Game consoles. They do exactly that. Ever since the NES, game consoles have been designed not to play open content but to verify some sort of signature (not necessarily cryptographic, could be in the physical media like the NES's lockout chip.) Pirating on a game console has always required modification; a hardware modchip for older consoles or a software jailbreaking exploit for newer ones with an operating system. But the market accepted that just fine. Such a restriction doesn't perfectly prevent piracy, but is broadly effective.
  - chii 14y ago
    Yet, the piracy market for consoles are so large that dedicated pheripheral sellers (these mod chip sellers) can exist. This just points to the fact that software is notoriously difficult to keep safe via DRM, and that people _want_ the content, just not at the price point that large publishers are selling at, and people _think_ that the price point should be lower.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      The amount of piracy of console games is minuscule compared to piracy of movies , MP3s and PC games. If you force people to jailbreak or hardware mod their equipment it drops the rate dramatically. The issue is that the lower price point in the case of piracy appears to be free. People still pirate $1 iphone apps.
      - chii 14y ago
        > If you force people to jailbreak or hardware mod their equipment it drops the rate dramatically. this is a very key quote - it indeed drops the rate of piracy. But does it increase the profits earned correspondingly? that is, did the anti-piracy measures contribute positively to profit? I am unsure what the case is in reality, since its so hard to compare. Most pirate's intuition is that anti-piracy measures don't increase the profits (or unit sold, so as not to complicate currency+accounting issues). Companies that use anti-piracy measures seem to think the exact opposite.
czervik 14y ago
I've always assumed studio contracts were the reason. Surely most if not all engineers at Netflix would love to support Linux. They have released some very cool Open Source projects like Eureka and regularly post details about the inner workings of their AWS infrastructure on the tech blog.

The studios place DRM requirements on the content as part of the content deal. Its not Netflix's call.

angryasian 14y ago

yeah but i don't see why they couldn't of used a flash solution

ajross 14y ago
Hulu and Amazon stream using flash only, over largely reverse-engineerable protocols. See, for example, the XBMC plugins for those services which work quite well. Now neither Hulu nor Amazon have the depth of content availability that Netflix does, but they're clearly not shackled by DRM handcuffs either.
- bduerst 14y ago
  I don't know about that. I've tried reversing Hulu's player to access their *.flv files, but they appear to do some sort of handshake that is uniquely generated for each user session and hashed.
  - ajross 14y ago
    It may not be easy, but it's been done. Check out the source to the bluecop Hulu plugin for XBMC if you're curious. All the content goes over conventional streams. There's no deeply-integrated "DRM" layer, just stuff you can do from flash.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

jiggy2011 14y ago

This doesn't surprise me, but just seems like an obviously flawed way to prevent piracy. If you want to prevent your movie from appearing on the pirate bay in a DRM free format you have to make it so that nobody in the entire world is capable of recording the stream. Even if you make sure the stream remains encrypted all the way from the server to the monitor, at some point it has to be decrypted in order to play. You only need one guy with the skills to take his monitor apart and modify it to feed the input into the actual OLEDs into another device. Once that happens it's game over. The only way to really win would be prevent consumer playback devices from actually playing DRM Free content at all and insist that all content is signed. In essence force every consumer who wants to pirate to make a hardware modification.

ixnu 14y ago
It's called the Analog Hole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole
T-hawk 14y ago
That last bit has well-accepted precedent: Game consoles. They do exactly that. Ever since the NES, game consoles have been designed not to play open content but to verify some sort of signature (not necessarily cryptographic, could be in the physical media like the NES's lockout chip.) Pirating on a game console has always required modification; a hardware modchip for older consoles or a software jailbreaking exploit for newer ones with an operating system. But the market accepted that just fine. Such a restriction doesn't perfectly prevent piracy, but is broadly effective.
- chii 14y ago
  Yet, the piracy market for consoles are so large that dedicated pheripheral sellers (these mod chip sellers) can exist. This just points to the fact that software is notoriously difficult to keep safe via DRM, and that people _want_ the content, just not at the price point that large publishers are selling at, and people _think_ that the price point should be lower.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    The amount of piracy of console games is minuscule compared to piracy of movies , MP3s and PC games. If you force people to jailbreak or hardware mod their equipment it drops the rate dramatically. The issue is that the lower price point in the case of piracy appears to be free. People still pirate $1 iphone apps.
    - chii 14y ago
      > If you force people to jailbreak or hardware mod their equipment it drops the rate dramatically. this is a very key quote - it indeed drops the rate of piracy. But does it increase the profits earned correspondingly? that is, did the anti-piracy measures contribute positively to profit? I am unsure what the case is in reality, since its so hard to compare. Most pirate's intuition is that anti-piracy measures don't increase the profits (or unit sold, so as not to complicate currency+accounting issues). Companies that use anti-piracy measures seem to think the exact opposite.

czervik 14y ago

I've always assumed studio contracts were the reason. Surely most if not all engineers at Netflix would love to support Linux. They have released some very cool Open Source projects like Eureka and regularly post details about the inner workings of their AWS infrastructure on the tech blog.