3 ms·

The author seems to make the simple mistake of convenient for him to watch DRM content in his browser == good for the web.

rocky1138 13y ago
Indeed. This sort of spin feels like newspeak.
Millennium 13y ago
Pretty much. Providers refuse to provide DRM-free video now because they know that as long as nobody takes the plunge into DRM-free, they can wring marginally more money out of every customer with DRM. But once one company takes the plunge into DRM-free, this model is over. Customers will demand it of the other companies, and the ones who want to stay in business will have little choice but to abandon DRM and the unethical-yet-slightly-more-profitable models that depend on it. This worked for music. All signs indicate that it's working for books, though that is still in progress. It will work for video, too, if we let it. All that's required is a few more years' worth of patience. Unfortunately, the W3C doesn't seem to get that.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  I'd be curious what the effect of DRM on movies is to the bottom line for holywood. I mean what the DRM software does is make it harder for me to save a copy of a netflix stream to my harddrive to watch later after my netflix subscription has expired. But it doesn't make it any harder for me to hit up the pirate bay and download the exact same content minus the DRM.
  - MatthewPhillips 13y ago
    DRM is about protecting future revenue streams, not current ones. Once you've bought a movie on iTunes you're locked into using it the way that the media company and Apple have agreed upon. You cannot watch it on your Xbox or vice versa. You cannot transfer it to more than 5 devices. You cannot come up with a creative new way to play the content. Rather, any innovation has to be first approved, allowing the possibility for you to be charged for it again.
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      So really it isn't anything to do with stopping piracy (since the pirates can just pirate anyway) but to try and make non-pirates possibly pay multiple times for the same content?
      - MatthewPhillips 13y ago
        Or new uses of the content, yes.
  - anonymous 13y ago
    Why would you even want to save a Netflix stream? You can generally find pretty good blue-ray rips of whatever Netflix has which would be higher quality since they don't have to be low-bitrate enough for streaming. Not that I'm saying Netflix itself is pointless, just that archiving things from Netflix streams is pointless.
    - kefka 13y ago
      And I see that not saving downloaded data to be wasteful. If I download it, I should be able to play and replay it without further data transmission. And being able to 'download vid, watch later' would be nice with a netflix model. I can understand not caring about junk like cat videos: they are watch once, delete. Streaming makes sense. Aside that, the pirates fit my wants better than the ones that want my money. I'll spend my money on other things.
  - bcoates 13y ago
    Hollywood has a serious piracy problem with all their content distribution channels. The entire industry is dependent on a network of third party distributors (theaters, DVD duplicators and retailers, hotel PPV, cable channels) that would much rather profit off films without paying for them. Hollywood spends tons of money and effort enforcing these deals, plugging leaks, and putting down the criminal syndicates acting as middlemen in the pro piracy world. The possibility that Internet video distribution will open up new and interesting ways for their distributors to rip them off keeps Hollywood execs up awake at night. Until very recently (or possibly, the near future) it hasn't been possible to do large-scale, for-pay video distribution on the Internet without doing a bunch of intrusive tooling on the client side to make the streaming work right anyway. They might as well demand that Netflix, etc. build in DRM while they're at it. I would also be really surprised if Netflix's DRM systems weren't tightly integrated with the accounting and auditing systems that measure what Netflix owes the film distributors. Basically, you're not the target of the DRM systems, and "Content Protection" is a perfectly reasonable thing that's effective enough everywhere but the last-hop retail streaming to users. There, it's just an afterthought and a habit, not something that actually helps the bottom line.

rocky1138 13y ago

Indeed. This sort of spin feels like newspeak.

Millennium 13y ago

Pretty much. Providers refuse to provide DRM-free video now because they know that as long as nobody takes the plunge into DRM-free, they can wring marginally more money out of every customer with DRM. But once one company takes the plunge into DRM-free, this model is over. Customers will demand it of the other companies, and the ones who want to stay in business will have little choice but to abandon DRM and the unethical-yet-slightly-more-profitable models that depend on it. This worked for music. All signs indicate that it's working for books, though that is still in progress. It will work for video, too, if we let it. All that's required is a few more years' worth of patience. Unfortunately, the W3C doesn't seem to get that.

jiggy2011 13y ago
I'd be curious what the effect of DRM on movies is to the bottom line for holywood. I mean what the DRM software does is make it harder for me to save a copy of a netflix stream to my harddrive to watch later after my netflix subscription has expired. But it doesn't make it any harder for me to hit up the pirate bay and download the exact same content minus the DRM.
- MatthewPhillips 13y ago
  DRM is about protecting future revenue streams, not current ones. Once you've bought a movie on iTunes you're locked into using it the way that the media company and Apple have agreed upon. You cannot watch it on your Xbox or vice versa. You cannot transfer it to more than 5 devices. You cannot come up with a creative new way to play the content. Rather, any innovation has to be first approved, allowing the possibility for you to be charged for it again.
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    So really it isn't anything to do with stopping piracy (since the pirates can just pirate anyway) but to try and make non-pirates possibly pay multiple times for the same content?
    - MatthewPhillips 13y ago
      Or new uses of the content, yes.
- anonymous 13y ago
  Why would you even want to save a Netflix stream? You can generally find pretty good blue-ray rips of whatever Netflix has which would be higher quality since they don't have to be low-bitrate enough for streaming. Not that I'm saying Netflix itself is pointless, just that archiving things from Netflix streams is pointless.
  - kefka 13y ago
    And I see that not saving downloaded data to be wasteful. If I download it, I should be able to play and replay it without further data transmission. And being able to 'download vid, watch later' would be nice with a netflix model. I can understand not caring about junk like cat videos: they are watch once, delete. Streaming makes sense. Aside that, the pirates fit my wants better than the ones that want my money. I'll spend my money on other things.
- bcoates 13y ago
  Hollywood has a serious piracy problem with all their content distribution channels. The entire industry is dependent on a network of third party distributors (theaters, DVD duplicators and retailers, hotel PPV, cable channels) that would much rather profit off films without paying for them. Hollywood spends tons of money and effort enforcing these deals, plugging leaks, and putting down the criminal syndicates acting as middlemen in the pro piracy world. The possibility that Internet video distribution will open up new and interesting ways for their distributors to rip them off keeps Hollywood execs up awake at night. Until very recently (or possibly, the near future) it hasn't been possible to do large-scale, for-pay video distribution on the Internet without doing a bunch of intrusive tooling on the client side to make the streaming work right anyway. They might as well demand that Netflix, etc. build in DRM while they're at it. I would also be really surprised if Netflix's DRM systems weren't tightly integrated with the accounting and auditing systems that measure what Netflix owes the film distributors. Basically, you're not the target of the DRM systems, and "Content Protection" is a perfectly reasonable thing that's effective enough everywhere but the last-hop retail streaming to users. There, it's just an afterthought and a habit, not something that actually helps the bottom line.