Because Netflix is freeloading on our open technology to deliver closed content, and putting the cost to support their DRM on us. It's not right. It's not fair.
They are fragmenting the web by making "web sites" which are browser and OS-specific.
If they want to make closed, OS-dependent stuff anyway, they should have to pay the cost, not us. They should just make a native app. Like they already do for at least 10 other platforms.
Basically keep your closed and non-free poison out of my browser and open web-standards. That's a no-DRM zone.
I'll use your app though, if you just go make it.
Netflix came in and screwed over everyone, in a way that is just as bad as Flash.
Sure, use the TCP/IP stack. Send your data over the internet. Make your own software based on that, it's just a transport layer and it screws no one else. Except they seem to be pretty damn awful at it, considering how comically bad all their desktop apps are.
By forcing their way into the standard with EME, yes, they did. You cannot implement the full standard without getting their blessing.
They profited from the entire work done by hundreds of persons on an open standard, and implemented a proprietary solution on top of it. And made it part of the standard.
Besides, they said that the Apple Music Store couldn't survive without DRM. And then one day they removed it and nobody even noticed. Now nobody uses DRM when they sell music. Even Spotify don't bother encrypting cached mp3s on your hard drive.
If Netflix switched to unencrypted streams tomorrow, it would have no effect. There is no content that is exclusive to Netflix. As soon as Netflix makes something available, it is immediately ripped losslessly and put on The Pirate Bay.
Uh, why not? All Netflix series are already getting pirated even with DRM.
And even if you take netflix original content out of the picture, that applies. their "viable business" is "stream other people's content" and "other people" have to agree to that, and won't without DRM.
"This is a requirement for any premium subscription video service" -- this is blatantly false, unless you redefine premium to mean "requires DRM", in which case it's circular.
Also note the use of "protect" as if it was a positive or good thing.
1: http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/04/html5-video-at-netflix.h...
Premium = big name movies
Big name movies = big name studios
Big name studios = full of corporate bigwigs who dont understand that DRM doesn't stop piracy
Where can you buy it DRM-free?
"We didn't bother protecting our content, and yes, sales are down 25% year over year, but..."
Fired.
Are you suggesting that there are many shows on Netflix that someone wants to pirate, but the DRM is preventing them?
If one day the industry recognizes that DRM is useless and it's no longer demanded by content holders, then as CEO of Netflix you can abandon it.
Steve Jobs told the music industry to suck it up and deal, and they did. He was unable to convince the movie/TV industry to do the same.
I hope you realize the movies people 'pirate' have been stripped of the DRM. Even if the original file had DRM, that does not inconvenience downloaders at all.
Digital IP is different - you can make infinite copies of it. A copy I make does not diminish your copy, nor does it deprive you of possession of your copy, or usage of that copy.
What it does deny you is the amount of money which you might have made on the sale of that copy (if you are the rights-holder and are selling the digital IP "thing" to others). I haven't, however, stopped you from continuing to sell your digital IP "thing" - you still have it. You just don't have the money.
Surely you can see this difference? If it could be called anything, it would be considered theft of opportunity, rather than theft of an object. You have been deprived of making a portion of money.
Now - that's very close to - if not almost identical, to me going up to your digital IP (via website, a kiosk, you at a table burning copies onto disc - whatever), looking at it, then saying to you "I would love to have a copy of this, but you know, I just won't, because you are charging money for it".
I still haven't deprived you of your IP - you still have it, you still have your copy, etc. What I have done is deprived you of the opportunity of making money. Should I go to jail, or be fined, or be forced to pay you the money in some manner because I didn't buy it?
The only real difference between the two? Well - in the first scenario, I have a copy of the digital IP; in very real terms, I have the knowledge of a particular number (because that is what any digital work can be reduced to - just a very large number) - in the second case - I don't.
But - what if on the off chance I somehow guess that large number? What if I am able to do that? Since it is a real number, there is that possibility (granted, the probability of being able to do so is vanishingly small). I know have the knowledge of that number, and can use it as I see fit - including decoding it to watch it as a movie, or play it as a piece of music, or whatever. But I didn't copy it from you; in fact, you might not even know that I now know your number!
Have I committed a crime?
DRM (and the laws which surround it) - in a very real sense - is a system put in place to criminalize and prosecute people for knowledge of particular numbers - nothing more, nothing less. In other words, knowledge of such numbers is considered a crime, unless you have paid money for that knowledge - even possibly if you independently arrive at that knowledge.
Agree or disagree - but it's the truth.
The manufacturing (copying) cost for digital content being 0 doesn't really matter; it just means that the net cost of production is front-loaded. I can invest $30,000,000 in a housing complex with a tangible amount of units, or a Hollywood movie with infinite "units". I still deserve to get a return on my investment.
See https://www.gog.com/forum/general/introducing_gogcom_drmfree...
It was obviously never going to be my contention that there were no DRM-free video content producers. Just the major ones.
And I meant major ones. They admit that DRM isn't needed. See the report in the link above. Their usage of DRM isn't caused by business enabling requirements, but has completely crooked unrelated reasons.
From the recently released, Shadow Warrior 2 is also pretty big. I wouldn't call the above mentioned TToN a small game either.
Uber wouldn't be a viable business model if it didn't exploit drivers and dodge laws that apply to taxis.
Airbnb wouldn't be a viable business model if it didn't sidestep hotel laws.
If your business depends on having unjust power over your customers then you ought to go out of business.
Also, many people seem to have a real hard-on for the same legal system that outlaws marijuana and created the DMCA.
The conventional way to do so would require recipients to download an encrypted video file, then run a separate program to decrypt the file. Then they could play the file. Then they have to remember to delete the decrypted file if it is something sensitive that should not be lying about unencrypted on their system.
It should be possible to design a system that plugs into EME that greatly simplifies this.
If you mean that the recipients of the video are restricted in what they can do with it, that's a DRM use case.
I don't see anything that requires that the key be delivered over the net. I just did a test with Clear Key where the page with the video playback has a text field that the viewer pastes the key into, and that worked [1].
The scenarios I'm envisioning involve sharing videos between people that have good non-web methods of communicating, so can distribute a video's encryption key via some non-web means. End user encryption applications tend to by usability train wrecks for non-tech people (heck, they are often terrible for tech people, too...), so what I'm going for here is trying to get rid of the video viewer having to go outside their browser to deal with viewing an encrypted video.
Maybe this can be done with MSE without EME, by handling the decryption in JavaScript?
[1] Based on the Clear Key sample here: https://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/eme/basics/