Because if you can playback 4k video from Netflix with a browser under your control, then you can playback 4k video to a file and thereby create a cracked copy that can be pirated.
DRM is built on a self-contradictory premise that tremendous amounts of effort are going into making work. Namely, if we save content in a special format, then we can make it impossible for it to be used except as we decide.
However they then put that software on hardware controlled by people whose interests are not necessarily aligned with that goal. And once there, that software can be changed. That hardware may be an emulation that can also be changed. And so on and so forth.
To make the fiction appear to work, they need to find every way that they can to avoid escape. They add detection code that tries to identify running under emulation and blocks it. They obfuscate their software in every way that they can. They only place their software in other software that they trust. They embed various checks that nothing looks suspicious.
And even so, they are doomed to fail. See https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/10/google-mending-another-c... for example. But they just need to make it hard enough to bypass the encryption that it is hard to get pirated copies. And make the penalties for trying to do so to discourage a pirate scene. And this they have done.
>Because if you can playback 4k video from Netflix with a browser under your control, then you can playback 4k video to a file and thereby create a cracked copy that can be pirated.
Can't you just record the screen to do this? Or split the signal in the cable or have the screen itself send the data on to another device. At the very least you can always just physically record the screen itself.
At the end of the day, you have to ask whether this is worth it. Does it actually help sales to offset the costs?
Why yes, you can. And so there is pressure on every single hardware vendor to do fancy handshakes to guarantee that it is only going to authorized places that will do authorized things with it. Exactly to make the bypass that you're describing harder to do.
At the end of the day, you have to ask whether this is worth it. Does it actually help sales to offset the costs?
Actually it doesn't matter what your belief is on that. In the end, Netflix believes that it does. And as long as they are where you buy the content that you want, that means you have to play by their rules. No matter how stupid you think that they are being.
Or they believe that their media partners, who license the media to Netflix, believe that it does. Or perhaps those media partners are members of the MPAA, which wants to take a hard-line stance and never do anything that looks like backing down, even if their own technical advisors say it's getting silly.
But, yes, whatever Netflix's reasons, those who buy from them will do so under Netflix's terms.
>Actually it doesn't matter what your belief is on that. In the end, Netflix believes that it does. And as long as they are where you buy the content that you want, that means you have to play by their rules. No matter how stupid you think that they are being.
I meant that Netflix and co have to ask this. Because it's pretty obvious that none of the direct anti-piracy measures have worked. What has worked is making content more accessible and providing other incentives to users for getting the media legitimately. I think Netflix itself is that type of advancement, but I guess they're looking to get more "marketshare".
DRM is built on a self-contradictory premise that tremendous amounts of effort are going into making work. Namely, if we save content in a special format, then we can make it impossible for it to be used except as we decide.
However they then put that software on hardware controlled by people whose interests are not necessarily aligned with that goal. And once there, that software can be changed. That hardware may be an emulation that can also be changed. And so on and so forth.
To make the fiction appear to work, they need to find every way that they can to avoid escape. They add detection code that tries to identify running under emulation and blocks it. They obfuscate their software in every way that they can. They only place their software in other software that they trust. They embed various checks that nothing looks suspicious.
And even so, they are doomed to fail. See https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/10/google-mending-another-c... for example. But they just need to make it hard enough to bypass the encryption that it is hard to get pirated copies. And make the penalties for trying to do so to discourage a pirate scene. And this they have done.