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Comment by charcircuit | Hacker News Reader

>region-locked apps

There is no such thing. The respective app stores allow you to distribute apps in select regions. This is an important feature for app stores because an app may not be a good experience in all countries. The app may not be localized to all languages, there may not be content moderators for those languages, those countries have a multitude of laws that you need to comply with, your app may include copyrighted content which is only licensed to be distributed it certain countries, etc..

>preventing screenshots from DRM content

This is a feature requested app developers due to the legal requirements when licensing content such as movies. Movie studios don't want people streaming or recording their movies so app platforms need a way to surely show this content.

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>This is a feature requested app developers due to the legal requirements when licensing content such as movies. Movie studios don't want people streaming or recording their movies so app platforms need a way to surely show this content.

Of course, but if our industry had any chutzpah, we would have simply said "no, that's impossible" and continued to distribute operating systems where the user has ultimate control over the hardware and recordings. If movie studios want people to watch their content, they'll have to accept the risk of piracy. It's not like clipping and recording from your phone is how the pirate rips appear anyway. Even imagining that a movie was released only for one model of super-secure phone, someone somewhere will either break the security or simply stick their phone in a dark box and record it with a camera. Once they've done so, they can share the un-DRMed version online on pirate sites and everyone else can download it.

As long as the analog hole exists, DRM is anti-consumer without reducing the likelihood that copyrighted content will be reshared freely online.

Don’t share this too hard. I’m afraid for a future where we are only able to watch content that is being streamed to our ocular implant directly. This has the nice benefit that it allows for hyper personalisation and always visible hyper relevant ads!

>no, that's impossible

When you are a platform owner it is important that you evaluate the needs of all stakeholders and not just the needs of the users of the platforms. Telling app developers that you are not willing to compromise is not a great way to convince them to create apps for your platform. Also as a platform you want your platform to appear as a safe place for content owners to have their content on. You will have trouble convincing content owners that your platform is safe if it's security is much worse than everyone else's

> When you are a platform owner it is important that you evaluate the needs of all stakeholders and not just the needs of the users of the platforms.

I disagree. The literal entire purpose of every single non-user entity involved in this situation is to serve users, and if it's not serving users, then that's a systemic failure. If corporations want a place at the table, they should be serving users, and if they can't serve users, there should not be a table for them to sit at, period.

In the cases referenced, that means DRM should be illegal, period. Platforms shouldn't have to allow DRM to attract content creators, because there should not be competitors that have DRM. If the option to have DRM doesn't exist, then platforms don't have to compete to attract content creators with user-hostile misfeatures like DRM.

Our economy should be designed to serve people, not corporations. Anything else is a failure.

I understand the law says corporations are people. I'm saying the law is wrong.

>they should be serving users

Bringing content users want to watch is serving users.

>DRM should be illegal, period

Why? It is preventing users from doing illegal things. Saying that DRM should be removed so that users can make illegal copies of the media they are watching is not a strong argument to me.

>Our economy should be designed to serve people, not corporations

People make content and people want to be able to have their copyright not be infringed. Computers by default make it way to easy to violate the copyright of creators which in why making it possible to secure content is such a valuable idea.

DRM also prevents users from doing legal things. Such as making copies for personal use, which is legal in France. Or when done by library or archive, in the US. Or copying short clips, which is legal as "fair use" in many jurisdictions.

> People make content and people want to be able to have their copyright not be infringed.

Tough shit. Copyright is entirely arbitrary, and it's bad actors have ruined it for everyone else. DRM will be evil for as long as "buying isn't "owning"; until then piracy will be strictly superior.

> Computers by default make it way to easy to violate the copyright of creators

And my kitchen knives by default make it way too easy to violate homicide laws. You can argue it is overall more beneficial to the consumer to disadvantage themselves so the market can thrive, but that's still an anti-consumer market.

>Copyright is entirely arbitrary

Even if copyright wasn't a thing some creators do not want their work to be copied.

>And my kitchen knives by default make it way too easy to violate homicide law

If kitchen knives were made impossible to use for homicide, but could be made for the same exact price in the same amount of time and were just as effective at everything else there would be no reason for people to sell homicide capable knives.

> kitchen knives were made impossible to use for homicide

Can't wait for kitchen knives that immediately self-destruct if you use them on items that didn't come from the knife manufacturer's grocery store.

> If kitchen knives were made impossible to use for homicide, but could be made for the same exact price in the same amount of time and were just as effective at everything else there would be no reason for people to sell homicide capable knives.

If content were made impossible to pirate, but could be made for the same exact price in the same amount of time and were just as effective at everything else there would be no reason for people to sell piracy capable content.

But, homicide-incapable knives and piracy-incapable content aren't real. They're a fantasy, which does not exist.

All DRM does is make it harder for legitimate users to access content they have paid for.

To add to that:

We cannot create homicide-resistant knives because it is indistinguishable from lawful slaughter and butchering knives. Similarly, computers have a powerful native feature - the ability to infinitely copy digital content until you run out of storage or electricity. This can be used for legal and nonlegal purposes, but neutering it's capabilities is unthinkable.

Copy protection tries to put the genie back in the bottle, and then blames the community when things go wrong. It's a circular process that resists advancement and protects exploitative parties.

> Why?

Read the rest of my post.

> It is preventing users from doing illegal things.

It's not, clearly. Search your favorite DRM'ed TV show name followed by "torrent S01E03" (to indicate season 1 episode 3) and see how well that DRM is working.

> Saying that DRM should be removed so that users can make illegal copies of the media they are watching is not a strong argument to me.

I didn't say that.

DRM should be removed so that users can access content they've paid for. DRM nearly always effects legitimate users.

> People make content and people want to be able to have their copyright not be infringed. Computers by default make it way to easy to violate the copyright of creators which in why making it possible to secure content is such a valuable idea.

It's not a valuable idea, because it's an impossible idea. If you can view the content, you can pirate it. Period. DRM has done absolutely nothing to stop pirates and has consistently harmed users.

It's worth noting that content creators are often totally on board with releasing without DRM: it's content distributors who are worried about this, generally.

I worked for a couple years at a company that delivered electronic assessments. Their use case makes sense for control of the device ( these assessments were usually delivered to a classroom environment where proctors could observe physical cheating ). It took a lot of pushback with Apple to be allowed to “not allow screenshots”. Which, I think, is pretty great that they originally pushed back, but then understood the product.

The way Apple have implemented region localisation on the App Store is very bad. You basically have to nuke your whole account to change regions, and that includes losing all your subscriptions (if you have any annual subscriptions that’s just too bad for you). So if you spend time between two counties, and need a region locked app in each one, there’s actually no workable solution.

Your explanation for the anti-screen shot DRM doesn’t hold up very well either. I don’t know of any streaming app that doesn’t also have a website that I can take screenshots (as well as full screen captures) on, so it’s clearly not a content licensing requirement.

>I don’t know of any streaming app that doesn’t also have a website that I can take screenshots (as well as full screen captures) on

Your browser does not have DRM support which typically means you are not sent the full quality videos. And not all media apps have a website. Not every app that I am talking about are from massive companies that can support making apps and a website.

> Your browser does not have DRM support which typically means you are not sent the full quality videos

To take this argument seriously I’d need you to provide some examples. I use some of the bis streaming services, and they all stream full high quality media to my laptop. Which are the ones that don’t?

> And not all media apps have a website.

Again, examples? Every streaming app that’s ever blocked me from taking a screenshot has also had a streaming website. What portion of the market licenses content with a requirement to use DRM to block screenshots?

Netflix won’t send your browser high resolution video unless your browser supports Widevine. Typically it’ll restrict you to 480p iirc.

Which doesn’t prevent you from taking screenshots… (and doesn’t make it especially difficult to just capture the whole stream either)

This whole screenshot point is silly to begin with, because screenshots aren’t a form of piracy or copyright infringement.

It prevents you from taking high resolution recordings , whether they’re screenshots or video.

You either take a low resolution capture or the DRM layer prevents content from being displayed when recording.

The legality of the subject is not something I’m talking about. You just asked for examples and I provided them.

For starters, it does nothing at all to prevent taking screen shots. Which is what this thread is about.

As for high quality video capture, it is trivially easy to do. How do you think high quality copies of Netflix-only content ends up on the pirate bay they same day it comes out?

Yes it does. HD Netflix in Chrome, Edge or Safari will result in black rectangle when you screenshot it.

Yes it does prevent taking screenshots of high resolution playback. Your options become low resolution capture or nothing.

High quality captures are still possible if you connect an external capture device coupled with something that provides the necessary drm authentication or you need a software based drm defeat.

Neither are “trivial” as you say.

An HDMI splitter completely removes HDCP, so if you want to do a hardware approach, that doesn't require any software at all. If you don't want to use some cheap product from amazon, just run Netflix in a desktop VM. Both of these options are very trivial to implement, no complicated software bypass at all. Also remember that for piracy to occur, you only need one person to go to this very small level of effort to get a torrent uploaded. These protections are useless, and achieve nothing other than bothering legitimate users.

Also, here's a screenshot I just took of a Netflix show (it's 1080p, but still...) https://imgur.com/a/evJjf06

Yah, this works terribly for expats. A warning should be sufficient for non-DRM content, and for DRM content just use the Netflix model of “we’ll show you content you can see based on where you are right now”.

Being locked out of Starbucks Thailand app because I don’t want to change my whole iTunes account is ridiculous.

Your answer amounts to "Yes, both those things exist to the detriment of the user, but they were requested for the benefit of corporate app writers, so it's okay that the device the user supposedly owns obeys someone else."

>to the detriment of the user

Except these features are not to the detriment of users. If apps were not region locked at the store either they just won't be in the store or they will implement the region lock themselves. Similarly DRM is seemless for users. The users get the same media watching experience they expect, but the content is securely played to stop people from making illegal copies.

>the device the user supposedly owns obeys someone else

The user may own the device, but they don't own a movie that the device is playing. Your device isn't obeying someone else. DRM is a feature that lets your device handle other people's content in a safe manor.

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