5 ms·

>Look, these media companies are looking to us for advice; We're doing both them an ourselves a disservice by continuing to sell them DRM snake oil. Seems to b

by gph 14y ago

>Look, these media companies are looking to us for advice; We're doing both them an ourselves a disservice by continuing to sell them DRM snake oil. Seems to be working out pretty well for Hulu/Netflix. Or is releasing your $100 million budget film DRM-Free onto the internet now profitable??

lucian1900 14y ago
Netflix requires a subscription to stream. DRM is irrelevant.
- gph 14y ago
  Care to elucidate that point? So if netflix streamed their content with no-DRM (which none of the content companies they license from would allow, but we'll skip that fact) you assume no one would just get a subscription, copy their entire catalouge, and freely distribute it? Doesn't sound like a very sustainable business model to me...
  - entropy_ 14y ago
    The point is, that it is possible for someone who is technically savvy and who has a subscription to copy the streams right now. The reason they can't download the entire catalogue is probably because netflix/hulu have(or at least I hope they do) a system in place which prevents a single subscriber from accessing streams at a speed above what would be reasonably necessary for watching things one movie at a time. Which means that downloading the entire catalogue would take as long as it would take to watch everything which is probably prohibitively too much time. However, if, say, there's a particular movie that is available on netflix/hulu which you want to distribute freely for whatever reason and you are technically savvy, no DRM(short of netflix/hulu controlling the actual hardware you're watching from) will prevent you from doing so. Therefore, DRM offers no additional protection beyond what a regular login cookie-based system with rate limiting would offer.
  - mmastrac 14y ago
    DRM didn't stop House of Cards from appearing on PB: http://thepiratebay.se/search/house%20of%20cards/0/99/0 http://thepiratebay.se/search/house%20of%20cards/0/99/0 I don't see Netflix going out of business because of this.
    - gph 14y ago
      Yea, but my point is different than a cracked version leaking into bittorrent. That doesn't have a drastically large footprint. If they streamed videos with no-DRM, everyone with a subscription would easily grab a copy of whatever they want. And all it would take is copying a file and sharing it with friends/family to have it spread. This might not seem like a huge difference, but honestly I think it would be. It would lower the barriers of sharing to the point that everyone could do it. Only those who hold onto a moral belief in not committing copyright infringement wouldn't participate. I think the past has shown that these people are in the vast minority.
      - analog 14y ago
        It's easy enough to copy a stream with DRM. Point your camcorder at your laptop stream, press record on your camcorder, press play on your laptop.
        takluyver 14y ago
        It takes ~2 hours to play the film, you can't make any noise in the room during that time, and the resulting picture and sound quality will be terrible unless you've got very expensive recording equipment. Content producers would love to get to the point where that's the only way to 'copy' films.
        analog 14y ago
        You're right about the time it takes to copy. Whenever I've encoded video it's always been a time-consuming process so I wouldn't see this as a major obstacle. As for picture and sound quality being terrible, simply not true. Recording from a projected image is one way to do telecine, and it works fine if you can set it up properly. [1] A half-decent telecine is very different from surreptitiously recording a film in a cinema. The stream will be re-compressed but this isn't such an issue as many people think. Back when TV was recorded on analog tape in the 90s, you were allowed 8 generations of copying and it would still be considered acceptable for broadcast (for news). [1] "The quality of a good telecine is generally comparable to a DVD without any post-processing." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine_(copying) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine_(copying)
  - lucian1900 14y ago
    I could copy their entire catalog now, if I wanted to. It would only be very slightly harder because of the DRM.
    - gph 14y ago
      Yea, you could. But, you aren't going to first of all. And secondly you are a drop in the bucket. Even if you put it on all the bittorrent trackers it's still not a dent in their overall market share. But if every subscriber could simply right-click on download because they have ZERO DRM that would be very different. I won't drone on because I already stated my case to another comment. I don't see why you guys keep pressing this point about some tech savvy people being able to get through DRM.
      - sethrin 14y ago
        YouTube videos are trivial to copy, but you can't right-click on them to download. The thing is, you are holding a mathematically untenable position here. In order to allow someone to consume your encrypted content, you must give them a valid decryption key, in some form. If you can view the content, it is literally impossible to prevent a determined user from copying it, either digitally or through the analog hole. In current computer systems there is no way to prevent making a high-quality digital copy of an encrypted media stream. Also, since we've developed a network to propagate information around the planet at a terrific rate, that one determined user's ability to share that content is limited only by the number of people who [a] are interested in the content and [b] have the (lesser) technological skill required to obtain a copy, via file sharing networks or sneakernet. DRM is pure snake oil. It does not and can not do anything to prevent content distribution. The only possible outcome is to inconvenience legitimate use -- thus degrading the value of your product versus the pirated media. You're already competing with "free", you might want to avoid stacking the deck further against yourself. The ultimate conclusion here is that enforcing copyrights on digital works is impossible. It's not practical to close the digital hole, and impossible to close the analog one. I'm sorry if that impacts your business model.
  - lambda 14y ago
    Of course someone would do that; even with DRM, people have done that. What content is available on Netflix that is not available on The Pirate Bay? DRM has completely failed at preventing people from pirating content; and yet, companies selling content seem to be doing plenty well at it. Why do we keep insisting that DRM is necessary or else people will pirate all of the content, and thus making our software and standards more complex, more flaky, and work against the interests of users, when the existence of piracy is obviously not destroying the content providers now? You know what's preventing them from making more money? The fact that because of complex licensing schemes, DRM, and the like, I can't be guaranteed that if I buy content I can play it on the devices that I choose to use. If I pirate a video, I can play it anywhere. Content producers are shooting themselves in the foot because of their fear of piracy; piracy works better than buying the content directly, and will continue to do so as long as they insist on DRM.
homosaur 14y ago
I'm confused why anyone would think it would make it more profitable. You do understand that any content which is unencrypted is mind-numbingly simple to copy, right? That's how bits work. If you think DRM stops any copying or piracy for digital media, you're very confused on how technology works.

by gph 14y ago

lucian1900 14y ago

Netflix requires a subscription to stream. DRM is irrelevant.

gph 14y ago
Care to elucidate that point? So if netflix streamed their content with no-DRM (which none of the content companies they license from would allow, but we'll skip that fact) you assume no one would just get a subscription, copy their entire catalouge, and freely distribute it? Doesn't sound like a very sustainable business model to me...
- entropy_ 14y ago
  The point is, that it is possible for someone who is technically savvy and who has a subscription to copy the streams right now. The reason they can't download the entire catalogue is probably because netflix/hulu have(or at least I hope they do) a system in place which prevents a single subscriber from accessing streams at a speed above what would be reasonably necessary for watching things one movie at a time. Which means that downloading the entire catalogue would take as long as it would take to watch everything which is probably prohibitively too much time. However, if, say, there's a particular movie that is available on netflix/hulu which you want to distribute freely for whatever reason and you are technically savvy, no DRM(short of netflix/hulu controlling the actual hardware you're watching from) will prevent you from doing so. Therefore, DRM offers no additional protection beyond what a regular login cookie-based system with rate limiting would offer.
- mmastrac 14y ago
  DRM didn't stop House of Cards from appearing on PB: http://thepiratebay.se/search/house%20of%20cards/0/99/0 http://thepiratebay.se/search/house%20of%20cards/0/99/0 I don't see Netflix going out of business because of this.
  - gph 14y ago
    Yea, but my point is different than a cracked version leaking into bittorrent. That doesn't have a drastically large footprint. If they streamed videos with no-DRM, everyone with a subscription would easily grab a copy of whatever they want. And all it would take is copying a file and sharing it with friends/family to have it spread. This might not seem like a huge difference, but honestly I think it would be. It would lower the barriers of sharing to the point that everyone could do it. Only those who hold onto a moral belief in not committing copyright infringement wouldn't participate. I think the past has shown that these people are in the vast minority.
    - analog 14y ago
      It's easy enough to copy a stream with DRM. Point your camcorder at your laptop stream, press record on your camcorder, press play on your laptop.
      - takluyver 14y ago
        It takes ~2 hours to play the film, you can't make any noise in the room during that time, and the resulting picture and sound quality will be terrible unless you've got very expensive recording equipment. Content producers would love to get to the point where that's the only way to 'copy' films.
        analog 14y ago
        You're right about the time it takes to copy. Whenever I've encoded video it's always been a time-consuming process so I wouldn't see this as a major obstacle. As for picture and sound quality being terrible, simply not true. Recording from a projected image is one way to do telecine, and it works fine if you can set it up properly. [1] A half-decent telecine is very different from surreptitiously recording a film in a cinema. The stream will be re-compressed but this isn't such an issue as many people think. Back when TV was recorded on analog tape in the 90s, you were allowed 8 generations of copying and it would still be considered acceptable for broadcast (for news). [1] "The quality of a good telecine is generally comparable to a DVD without any post-processing." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine_(copying) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine_(copying)
- lucian1900 14y ago
  I could copy their entire catalog now, if I wanted to. It would only be very slightly harder because of the DRM.
  - gph 14y ago
    Yea, you could. But, you aren't going to first of all. And secondly you are a drop in the bucket. Even if you put it on all the bittorrent trackers it's still not a dent in their overall market share. But if every subscriber could simply right-click on download because they have ZERO DRM that would be very different. I won't drone on because I already stated my case to another comment. I don't see why you guys keep pressing this point about some tech savvy people being able to get through DRM.
    - sethrin 14y ago
      YouTube videos are trivial to copy, but you can't right-click on them to download. The thing is, you are holding a mathematically untenable position here. In order to allow someone to consume your encrypted content, you must give them a valid decryption key, in some form. If you can view the content, it is literally impossible to prevent a determined user from copying it, either digitally or through the analog hole. In current computer systems there is no way to prevent making a high-quality digital copy of an encrypted media stream. Also, since we've developed a network to propagate information around the planet at a terrific rate, that one determined user's ability to share that content is limited only by the number of people who [a] are interested in the content and [b] have the (lesser) technological skill required to obtain a copy, via file sharing networks or sneakernet. DRM is pure snake oil. It does not and can not do anything to prevent content distribution. The only possible outcome is to inconvenience legitimate use -- thus degrading the value of your product versus the pirated media. You're already competing with "free", you might want to avoid stacking the deck further against yourself. The ultimate conclusion here is that enforcing copyrights on digital works is impossible. It's not practical to close the digital hole, and impossible to close the analog one. I'm sorry if that impacts your business model.
- lambda 14y ago
  Of course someone would do that; even with DRM, people have done that. What content is available on Netflix that is not available on The Pirate Bay? DRM has completely failed at preventing people from pirating content; and yet, companies selling content seem to be doing plenty well at it. Why do we keep insisting that DRM is necessary or else people will pirate all of the content, and thus making our software and standards more complex, more flaky, and work against the interests of users, when the existence of piracy is obviously not destroying the content providers now? You know what's preventing them from making more money? The fact that because of complex licensing schemes, DRM, and the like, I can't be guaranteed that if I buy content I can play it on the devices that I choose to use. If I pirate a video, I can play it anywhere. Content producers are shooting themselves in the foot because of their fear of piracy; piracy works better than buying the content directly, and will continue to do so as long as they insist on DRM.

homosaur 14y ago

I'm confused why anyone would think it would make it more profitable. You do understand that any content which is unencrypted is mind-numbingly simple to copy, right? That's how bits work. If you think DRM stops any copying or piracy for digital media, you're very confused on how technology works.