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Comment by jhasse | Hacker News Reader

> No, blame the movie studios, record labels etc. They're the one which require asinine DRM support for web browsers. Google/Microsoft/Apple/Adobe want to support media content, but to do so requires towing the line with the media companies otherwise they refuse to license the content (at least in HD+).

Let's say Google, Microsoft and Apple announce that they will be removing any DRM from their browsers on 2020-01-01. They will also remove any DRM playback app from their App Stores. So no Netflix on PCs, Macs, iPhones, iPads or any Android device (including stuff like Android TV).

What do you think would happen?

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Media companies would rejoice. Since such a coordinated move from Google, Microsoft and Apple would destroy streaming for everyone indiscriminately, it would re-level the playing field and enable everyone to start competing anew. Disney, HBO and others would fork Chromium and add DRM support back, then market the shit out of it. They'd start signing deals with phone and TV manufacturers to get their DRM back, each preferably in a way that excludes the others. There'd be a lot of churn as whole media space gets re-balkanized, but that's all good, since churn means they make money.

A lot of smaller companies would die, and a lot of users would suffer - but none of the parties involved actually cares about the users; we're just a natural resource to be stripmined.

Just as the only browser with DRM would have a huge advantage in that scenario, the one streaming service without DRM would have, too. I honestly think Netflix would take that chance for their own content.

The internet before streaming (when downloading postage stamp clips took 3 hours) was close to that described state, and people just exchanged burned CDRs right and left.

Even elderly people were using and watching pirated stuff installed by their kids as they just couldn’t bother.

No DRM support in major browsers would mean pirating becomes the #1 way to see anything again.

That is a realistic outcome.

Then again, the way media companies are balkanizing the streaming space, this could become (again) a reality soon anyway.

Simple: You'd have to install a plugin or a separate special app to watch video, like the bad old days of RealPlayer.

This is the most plausible outcome. Netflix wouldn't just leave that money on the table and the most obvious thing to do would be to provide the support they want from browsers themselves.

Users follow use cases and would not be averse to spending 30 seconds installing something in order to watch their favorite content.

There's also sort of a game theory situation with the removal of DRM, as it would be a competitive advantage being the only one that supports it.

All Netflix movies are on PirateBay already, in spite of their DRM. I’ve seen movies pop up on PirateBay the day they are released. They wouldn’t leave any money on the table.

People paying for Netflix are paying for convenience. That wouldn’t change in absence of DRM.

I think you're greatly underestimating how much more cumbersome torrenting is even compared to a plugin, especially for "normal" users who are not necessarily tech-savvy.

This argument is repeated ad nauseam but it’s false, all it takes is a torrenting app installed, that’s the only threshold.

But back to the point, if Netflix wouldn’t use DRM, it would change absolutely nothing since copyright infringement is still illegal and those DRM protections are completely useless.

Can my torrenting app stream my video, or do I have to wait for a full assembly of the pieces from torrent hosts and enough downloaded to watch it?

If the latter, torrenting is plenty cumbersome enough that if the studios are pushing movie-viewing to "Pay us money or you have to torrent it," they're winning.

Pop-Corn Time would like to have a word with you

I don't think it would, unless it begins playing within thirty seconds of the user choosing a video and provides an uninterrupted streaming experience?

Last I checked, the BitTorrent protocol didn't provide packet sorting that would allow for this behavior (by forcing the beginning of the movie's bytestream to be the first data downloaded), so my mistake if the protocol has improved and I was unaware it provided this service.

The downloading client is in charge of which parts of the file it gets first. It can easily go in order.

How easily, and how much setup is necessary? Remember, we're talking about competing with a service that doesn't even make the end-user consider whether that is a problem that needs to be solved (just plug in a credit card and off you go).

A coder spent an hour changing the code, once, and now it requires zero effort for users. They never know the difference. Open popcorn time and wait for it to quickly buffer.

> Can my torrenting app stream my video

Yes, and this functionality has been built into many of the largest torrenting programs out-of-the-box for quite some time now. In the case of µTorrent, it was added in version 3.0 all the way back in 2010.

Obviously, how quickly the stream will buffer depends entirely on the state of the swarm. Popular items will work almost immediately, while particularly unpopular items won't be streamable at all.

Anecdotally, I have personally witnessed my (very nontechnical) friends streaming 4+ GB 1080p ...popular cat videos... that weren't available from Netflix. They did not struggle with the process in the slightest.

They could block that, too. (It won't work on Android and iOS anyway)

This would be an authoritarian action, compared to just opting out of supporting something. There's a huge difference and I think these organizations' supposed interest in ethics precludes that sort of move.

DRM is not illegitimate. It just sucks and operates in a way that is immune to free market competition - the reasons for that immunity are the true thing to fix. Users should have alternatives as there is a clear market there. If DRM is so bad, then that's what should kill it.

> You'd have to install a plugin or a separate special app to watch video

How is that different from the current state of EME plugins? Other than that proprietary browsers ship with the most popular plugins installed.

Edge and Safari have the appropriate tools to deal with DRM, so significantly different. The built in browsers already just work.

This is the correct solution. The big tech companies control the distribution channels. Currently, they bend to the requirements of large content producers. If they leaned the other way, toward open source and DRM-free distribution, the producers would have no choice but to comply.

Of course, content producers could run back to the state for more protection (as they always do) and get legislation forcing browser makers to comply. And around and around it goes.

> Of course, content producers could run back to the state for more protection (as they always do) and get legislation forcing browser makers to comply.

Implementations of such forced-by-court features tend to be buggy. ;-) The implementation bugs might differ in subtle ways in each new browser release. ;-)

Mac and PC, Netflix would make their applications available outside the App stores. Apple would have to shut down its Apple TV operation.

Then Apple and Google would get deluged with complaints from their customers and Jailbreaks would once again become popular.

> What do you think would happen?

Consumers will have to purchase or rent horrible and overpriced hardware supplied by broadcasters. Like they were doing for decades with satellites, and early IPTV.

Piracy will raise a lot. Many users don’t want to pay, or can’t pay for that custom hardware. I was using Netflix service for some time without major issues, but they don’t have anything in my country, too small one, they won’t be selling and supporting their set top boxes any time soon. Unlike accepting credit cards and broadcasting videos, physical retail doesn’t scale that easily.

Why would they need to remove the DRM playback app in your scenario?

If they would only remove it from the browsers, they would start pushing their native applications like Netflix for Linux, Netflix for Windows, Netflix for Mac. And browsers would be free of their DRM which causes all this.

Because that would still prevent Metastream from working with Netflix ;)

Simple, which ever one switches first will lose all their users as they scramble to use a browser that still lets them watch the content.

Antitrust complaints / lawsuits?

Good point. I wonder if that would apply though.

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