I don't think they're attempting to stifle competition, and if so they sure are not succeeding at that because there are new streaming services all the time. It's so they can prevent a commercially viable piracy business.
But that's not because DRM works.
Getting a digital copy of some bit of media is still trivial. Netflix forcing its DRM on its customers doesn't mean that you can't illegally download Stranger Things in excellent quality, and their DRM doesn't slow anyone dedicated to doing so down at all.
In fact, Netflix could stream all their stuff without DRM, and nothing would change (with one exception I'll come to in a bit). What's made piracy harder is a combination of factors:
* The legal way is often easier (just pay Netflix a small monthly sum and watch stuff)
* The legal way suffices for a lot of people
* Getting caught infringing copyright has serious consequences in many countries
* Downloading files from shady sources puts your computer at risk (Windows in particular; e.g., ransomware)
If Netflix turned off all their DRM tomorrow, then perhaps some pirates would have a slightly easier way to source their material, but otherwise nothing would change.
Except that the end-user gets a better experience.
At this moment Netflix is refusing to serve 1080p video content to anyone who uses a free operating system and free browser, because 'the DRM isn't good enough'. For 4k the rules are even more stringent; you need Microsoft Windows, Edge, and pre-approved trusted-platform capable hardware (which includes the monitor/TV).
For the rest of us, Netflix and the major content studios begrudgingly allow us to watch 720p video on our way too open computers.
This isn't about protecting the media streams from piracy, this is about making sure that the future of media consumption means consumers will run the media producers' software, using their rules, on hardware they control. We are not supposed to run our own HTPC, or do clever things with media we pay for (e.g., letting an algorithm watch ahead to warn the user of scenes with strobe light effects for epileptic patients, as the EFF mentions, or simply controlling a string of LED lights behind your screen for added effect, or downloading the streams to watch on holiday, or cut fragments out of a stream to use as samples in a lawful manner (e.g., a blog about films, or some cultural analysis), or …).
The legal options have improved, but the illegal ones are still there and just as good.
Whether it is the real pirate bay or not doesn’t matter, you could never trust TPB.
You can't trust TPB because the content is user generated, TPB does not do much to stop people from uploading malicious content and boosting it to top10 by seeding with bots.
Pirating content has gotten SO easy that my elderly parents do it regularly by simply searching for streams of movies they want to see on google. DRM has stopped none of this - and the risks of getting drive-by malware are an afterthought to most people.
This is dangerous, because I'm not sure the people buying them understand that the content is pirated...
If Netflix captures the market of people who aren't comfortable subverting encryption, they win. 100% capture is unnecessary if they get the people who can't and intimidate the people who won't with the occasional prosecution of the people who do.
The illegal ones are not "just as good" - they faced the competition and got better in the past few years, learning from others successes.
Remember the Popcorn Time. It dropped a bomb because it was an evolution from "go to some tracker, find what you want, download it, wait, watch when it's done" to the modern standards of "think of a title, grab the popcorn and start watching".
(Just in case - I'm not approving or condemning of anything. Just stating the facts what had happened.)
Hahahah, amazes me how people still use that crap. Why not pirate it instead and give them a big fuck you with those restrictions?
But you are right, the downside is that my account is effectively limited to 720p because of complete non-sense.
The sad thing is that any competition (e.g., Amazon Prime) appears to follow the same rules as far as I can tell: sure, you can use your browser, for now, but nothing over 720p for you until you run our software outside of that sandbox of a browser on a verified trusted operating system.
I'm not sure where my point of rejection of this deal lies.
So freeriding is ok? Who pays for creating that content you enjoy?
See, now we have a useful phrasing that actually can be discussed and brings up real issues.
Generally, I pay for whatever content I download. I'd have to do some research to figure out how to rip a Netflix stream or export recorded video from my DVR. Ripping DVDs (and especially Blu-Rays) takes a bunch of time, and encoding the result can be hard to get right (embedding subtitles, choosing a codec and profile that works on most of my devices, etc). It's easier and faster to torrent it than do all the ripping and conversion myself. Not that I do it much anymore; I suspect that format-shifting wouldn't be a good legal defense. And I also suspect that my ISP (the only high-speed one in the area) would dump me as a customer at some point.
shame on you, good thing you aren't doing it either way ;)
> I suspect that format-shifting wouldn't be a good legal defense
you seem to imply by analogy to homerecording, torrenting stuff you once payed for (or didn't directly as with yt) might be ok, but sure enough, taperecordings were campaigned against, too.
Btw: I worry about codec and network exploits, so easy is not the exact term I would choose wrt torrents and p2p-"sharing".
srt's in the container, not hard-overlaid into the video ;-) We've got asshole neighbors. They'll purposefully rev their Ferrari to wake my kid up if they hear the TV (e.g. sound is up enough to easily understand a whispered conversation, then there's a bass-heavy explosion). Then there's the less-common use-case of watching a movie on a plane without blasting the audio.
> you seem to imply by analogy to homerecording, torrenting stuff you once payed for (or didn't directly as with yt) might be ok, but sure enough, taperecordings were campaigned against, too.
Tape recordings don't involve automatic sharing of the data with other people in the swarm as an implementation detail. I did a fair amount of downloading 8-15 years ago, but mostly dropped it when I started working.
The kids are using unlicensed streaming sites and get anything they want in the browser at the click of a button.
I wish they even gave this, but at least in here, many mainstream flicks are of even worse quality (although this restriction on some content seems to apply even on Windows and Edge browser, at least on my computers). Not that it really matters what's the nominal resolution of a 1000 kbps stream anyway (and lately Netflix has removed the option to see the actual resolution of the video I think), however...
... selling out the free web got us so much indeed.
Netflix, Steam and Spotify made it incredibly convenient to obtain content legally and at a reasonable price. They removed most of the incentives for piracy. There was a surprisingly long period when piracy was hands down more convenient than buying stuff legally, and services like these were responsible for reversing that trend.
More specifically, Spotify deserves a special mention, as it has been single-handedly responsible for massively changing my listening habits, because of the way the Daily Mix/Discover Weekly features keep pushing my boundaries. It gives me something valuable that I couldn't get otherwise.
Well, it works only for crooked purposes, and that's exactly the point EFF is making. DRM is therefore unacceptable, including in the context of the Internet.
And you are still missing the point. DRM doesn't make any pirating difficult. All it does is giving power to undemocratically extend copyright law in arbitrary directions by slapping DRM on something, and saying that breaking that DRM is illegal. It's a power grab tool. Just take a look how this garbage was used to prevent users from switching mobile carriers, claiming that unlocking the mobile phone (i.e. breaking its DRM) is illegal.
The real problem is DRM _law_, which is a gross overcriminalization of justifiably legal activity, like repairs, format shifting (both to and from DRM devices), security research, tinkering with your own possessions, etc. And on top of that, then demanding that all countries in the world follow suit.
I first check Hulu and Amazon video, if it's not on there I pirate it. I can't remember the last time I heard of anyone being burned legally for pirating, and torrents are not difficult to use.
If you can't find a movie on hulu/Netflix/etc, do you then buy it on DVD?
Torrents aren't difficult, but typically I'll burn more time trying to get what I want, uncorrupted, than my available time warrants. Legal burn is unlikely, but burned by bugs or malice is likely enough to waste time I could have spent just watching it via inexpensive legal sourcing.
And then there's that little issue about ensuring content creators actually getting paid, so there is actually content worth consuming.
This is something creators need to get better at. Creators need a "Pirated my media but want to make sure we still get paid? Click here!" button. I want to pay a lot of artists, but I also don't want them to think I want to pay for the DRM'd form.
I think it's exactly this. They know they can't stop DIY hackers from pirating, but they can stop the next Napster.
That's exactly the point of the article.
The alternative is that there is no way to protect IP on the web, which means that there is no incentive to transmit IP over the web which takes a shitload of value off the table.
These anti-DRM arguments smack of blind ideology.
This is a major part of the argument being made here and helps to close the gap between blind ideology and serious issue.
I think what the EFF is saying her though is that the claimed protections for content creators is just a cover for anti competitive behavior.
If they would agree to only enforce DRM/DMCA laws on people abusing copyright laws it would be easier to get behind it.
Unfortunately, we have no protections on one side, and anti competitive shinanigans on the other.
If there was no DRM you could just save the movie to your HD with little effort.
Enough people pay for streaming services to make them a viable business model. That's all the empirical data you need to show that DRM does work for its indented purpose.
...after subscribing to the streaming service. At which point they have your money.
And it's not like you can cancel your subscription after that because then you wouldn't get new content, which is the entire point of having a streaming service instead of watching the same pile of old DVDs you've had since 1998.
Popcorn Time? The streaming bandwidth is handled by the very people watching the video.
And this to me, is the critical problem with all of these services. We don't need gatekeepers anymore, because that's a leftover from physical media. Those days are gone, and the gatekeepers need to die.
Pretty hilarious to have put up with that at all.
Now my gaming library is a trivial folder of executables like it should be.
You do if you don't want the material to show up on pirate sites, which is why they claim they want it.
> The alternative is that there is no way to protect IP on the web
Protect it from what? It can't be posting the material to pirate sites because it's already there. It can't be preventing users from making a fair use copy because that isn't a thing to legitimately want protection from.
You can try and legislate DRM all you want, but like a law to make pi=3 or enacting laws to declare that water not be wet, it is the wrong thing to legislate.