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Comment by danShumway | Hacker News Reader

If a single company can effectively decide whether a bunch of 3rd party sites that they don't control work on your browser, how is that any different? Google is effectively deciding that anyone other than pre-approved browsers can't play Netflix content.

If an ISP fully embraced the Net Neutrality repeal and started blocking video content, and someone posted on HN that ISPs were "blocking them from building a streaming service", no one would be complaining that, "technically you can build it, you just can't reach any of your customers." Everyone on HN would understand that part of building a service is the having the ability to reach customers.

In the same way, part of building a web browser is having the ability to render web content. If Google can block your custom browser from rendering content, then for all practical purposes they are blocking your ability to build a browser.

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I never meant to suggest that this wasn't a big deal, just that the title was intentionally dramatic to get more views.

Which has proved, time and again, to be the only way a lowly user can appeal or seek redress for grievances with Google. If you don't -- or can't -- raise a shitstorm on social media, you have no voice in their decisionmaking process.

Break them up. They are no different from a competing government at this point.

I suppose you make a good point.

> If a single company can effectively decide whether a bunch of 3rd party sites that they don't control work on your browser, how is that any different?

Because those third party sites choose to utilise closed software from that company. And Netflix doesn't only utilise Widevine as a DRM, it uses several different DRM systems, so Google don't have control over anything.

This. Netflix is buying security for their product by doing this.

We may all think (know) DRM is dumb, but DRM is more than just about how hard it is to hack. Sure, everyone could in theory reverse engineer this stuff. But the point is that it's only legally protected as long as it's at least not trivial. Open sourcing would probably invalidate their legal defences against people downloading Netflix movies.

> invalidate their legal defences against people downloading Netflix movies.

I highly doubt that. A ToS violation is still a ToS violation (in the case of Netflix, which is expressly a streaming service), and copyright infringement is still copyright infringement. The legal protection that's afforded to DRM itself is something that's literally only useful to you as a content holder if you're looking to abuse copyright and go far beyond what copyright law actually grants you! That's what makes the whole notion so problematic in the first place.

Well, they are granting you a license to download the copyrighted content. That's the consideration you get in exchange for paying subscription fees. IANAL but it seems doubtful to me that copyright law on its own (without the anti-circumvention parts of the DMCA) could be twisted to produce criminal penalties for downloading licensed content in a non-streaming way given that it's legal to download it in a streaming way. And ToS violations are not criminal acts.

Agreed; most of the blame is on those third party sites.

Further, Google's own browser, Chrome, will not stream above 720p Netflix(and maybe Amazon now). So at most Google is a lesser DRM god.

Chrome receives 1080p content on ChromeOS.

The issue is more complex than that, and generally relates to some hardware APIs for securing the video path not being available to Win32 applications in Windows.

Chrome on Windows and OSX will not stream 1080p Netflix. You have to use IE or Safari.

It at least used to stream 1080p for Amazon, and it may for CBS but I'm not 100%.

It honestly seems like a decision made by the streaming providers.

> If a single company can effectively decide whether a bunch of 3rd party sites that they don't control work on your browser, how is that any different?

That's just a sensationalistic as the headline. There isn't a single company controlling and selling these modules. There is a several of them, in open competition. The OP chose Widevine because they are easiest, but with sufficient perseverance he could probably use any of them, or at least any that distribute x86 binaries. It's damned near impossible to prevent someone from running a binary if they really want to.

I also found the original article difficult to swallow. It gave very little detail - so little we have no idea what Widevine said no to. For example, was it "could you provide Widevine and loan me an engineer to help me integrate it with my browser - but I can't pay you because it's all open source". Or was it "I've got it all going, I'm willing to pay you commercial rates per licence - how can I buy licences?" It if is the former hats off to Widevine for replying at all.

As it is, we only get a small part of his side of the story, no insight at all into why Widevine reacted they way they did, and a headline that's guaranteed to get clicks.

Call me paranoid, but I get the feeling I'm being manipulated.

I've updated the article to include the email exchange, check the edit at the bottom.

> In the same way, part of building a web browser is having the ability to render web content. If Google can block your custom browser from rendering content, then for all practical purposes they are blocking your ability to build a browser.

Eh.. in a way, but not really. It can still work as a web browser but a web site can still render however they'd like based on your user agent.

If I made a site today, I could add the same functionality if I wanted to. Since I own the site, that's my choice.

I completely agree that Google should _not_ block their content based on your custom web browser. That is evil.

I would still claim two differences on the user agent side of things:

First, any browser can report any user agent they want. There are a number of examples of browsers faking or changing user agents to get around sites that try to differentiate based on those strings.

Second, while any individual web site can implement logic based on the user agent, that's the sole choice of the web operator. By restricting Widevine access, Google is blocking rendering of content on other people's domains.

The non-ISP, in-browser analogy I would use would be if Google decided that in order to render an AMP page in your new browser, you first needed to get their permission. They're not just blocking their own content, they're blocking an entire category of technology.

It's also worth mentioning that even under the user agent analogy, if this headline was, "Google uses user agents to block Firefox from accessing Youtube", pretty much every person on HN would call that anti-competitive behavior worthy of regulation.

Right! And when the headline was Google uses user agents to block Windows Phone from accessing Google Maps (along with reports that changing the user agent made the software work fine), we all agreed on swift and decisive action against Google /s.

https://mashable.com/2013/01/05/google-maps-windows-phone/

Oof, rereading this article in the present just hurts.

To be fair, the 2013 ecosystem was a lot more Google friendly than the 2019 ecosystem is. I'm sure the average non-HN reader still wouldn't care today, but I would at least hope HN itself would have a different reaction.

> By restricting Widevine access, Google is blocking rendering of content on other people's domains.

This isn't good, but it's not arbitrary control. These companies chose to implement widevine, so they chose to allow Google to dictate who gets to legally use WV.

The point isn't that the control was granted arbitrarily - as you note, the granting was explicit. The point is that as a result of that, we have arrived at a situation where Google is now capable of arbitrarily exercising control over this subset. This wouldn't be a problem if that subset was small, but it's not - it's huge, and ever growing.

But times change and today playing videos (including DRM protected ones) is no longer a feature but a required part of a browser. A requirement which likely will get stronger with time.

(Sure some "special purpose" browsers get away without, but they also only Target a very limited audience)

To be fair, I think that it's primarily the content owners pushing this ridiculousness. OP's project is not a general purpose browser, and it will not compete substantially with any Google products, so I don't think this is a case of Google trying to knock out OP.

I completely agree that this is unacceptable... but I think the blame really rests on the content owners who forced this DRM in the first place. Every damn thing on Netflix is widely available on torrents in hours, so it's totally useless and just makes things worse for everyday consumers.

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