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A comment on Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix.

Re:Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix by tscizzle on Wednesday March 22, 2017 @05:59PM (#13935389)
Can someone explain to me (a developer, but one unfamiliar with this situation and issues) what Netflix did and why it's bad for the open web?

People do not seem happy about this, but I don't really understand what's going on.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix by thomastjeffery on Saturday March 25, 2017 @06:17PM (#13957814)
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is proprietary (closed-source) copy protection. It is made to prevent unauthorized copying.

In order to implement DRM, one must create a method for the user to decrypt a file without letting the user have any control over where that data goes. Netflix uses DRM to show the user a video file while making it difficult for the user to put that data anywhere outside of the browser's DRM plugin.

What Netflix has done here is strongarmed Mozilla into including the proprietary WidevineCDM component into their implementation of the open HTML5 standard. This means that Netflix has more control over what Firefox does on your computer than you do, or even Mozilla (who creates Firefox) does.

[ Parent | on HN ]