Save Netflix

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/save-netflix

by thecombjelly • 10 years ago

813 225 10 years ago

stegosaurus3• 10 years ago

Many companies that exist today seemingly couldn't begin in 2016.

The major computing platforms now have gatekeepers (Google Play, iOS App Store).

Personal computers with attached storage are disappearing and giving way to thin clients attached to the mainframe - without computing power, individuals have less choice.

I think we need to focus far more on hardware - it's never looked darker - Secure Boot and the ME make me worried for the future of x86, even.

I'll be fine as long as my old machines survive - but how are businesses going to produce mass market software when all the popular hardware is locked down?

Just to pick an arbitrary example - how does a project like Bitcoin take off when all we have are tivoized devices that won't run un"trusted" code? The community of a few hundred hardware hackers isn't big enough.

Not only that, despite the fact that 256GB of flash can be had for ~40GBP, the latest smartphones come with piffling amounts of storage and seemingly no expandable slots. It's a deliberate design decision to force the use of the network.

The IBM compatible desktop computer produced the revolution we see today. What's the next step?

Karunamon4• 10 years ago

ME is one thing (though given the hoops one must jump through to set it up, I'm inclined to believe most of the vitriol directed at it is the paranoid FUD variety),

..but secure boot? What possible reason could you have for being against a system that prevents bootkits from pwning your machine? You can load your own keys and boot whatever OS you want on all but a tiny subset of appliance-like locked down hardware nobody cares about.

In general, code signing is a Good Thing, so long as the control remains in the hands of the user.

nickpsecurity3• 10 years ago

"..but secure boot? What possible reason could you have for being against a system that prevents bootkits from pwning your machine?"

The fact that I can do the same thing with firmware on a cheap ROM write-protected with a jumper. Additionally, the fact that there's competing I.P. in FOSS and corporate sectors for firmware that does trustworthy boot while leaving what's allowed in my control.

"In general, code signing is a Good Thing, so long as the control remains in the hands of the user."

With Microsoft and Intel style secure boot, it remains in the hands of Microsoft and Intel. And so on. Which is why we're against it.

doctorshady• 10 years ago

Couldn't agree more. One of the really annoying things about the mass popularization of tech is we seem to always choose the sexier products over the more practical ones.

On the hobbyist side of things, I wonder what it would take to get like, say, a kit ATX motherboard developed; one with modular parts that could gradually be upgraded or repaired over time, and designed to last at least a decade or two.

HeyLaughingBoy• 10 years ago

Buy an old PC-XT motherboard and you'll have essentially that, except for the form factor.

anexprogrammer2• 10 years ago

It's always been the software. VHS beat Beta, both beat V2000. V2000 was the best quality by far. VHS took a long time to get close. VHS had the most films.

Same with PCs - the software done it. MS Office, Wordperfect, etc. Lots of more interesting, more sexy machines in the market became also-rans.

I'm glad cars never quite got to the same homogeneity or we'd all be driving a Datsun Sunny or something equally horrific.

I wish the market had settled for 5 or 6 different PC / phone / chip architectures, as I think the progress would have been more interesting, and much much further. Damnit Motorola should have kept making 680x0s, they were much nicer than Intels to program.

jerf• 10 years ago

"Many companies that exist today seemingly couldn't begin in 2016."

I've often thought all web search engines would be considered grotesquely illegal if they hadn't been there since the beginning, but only started today. It is at times a fragile existence as it is even so.

CamperBob2• 10 years ago

Same with public libraries, for that matter. Can you imagine the hue and cry that the major publishers would raise if someone were just now suggesting buying one copy of a book for the express purpose of lending it to hundreds of readers? Or worse, having the government pay for it?

They'd be burning up the telephone lines to Washington and hiring lobbyists by the trainload.

growt3• 10 years ago

You're right. In germany there is a law called "Leistungsschutzrecht" that makes it illegal to publish snippets of news stories of the big publishing houses especially in search results such as google news. After some months the publishers realised that now they weren't getting as much pageviews as before (go figure) and granted google an exclusive license to publish their stuff. So now there is a law that would require any new search engine to make deals with every major newspaper in germany. On the other hand we do not have such a thing as fair use, so I imagine that image search is an endless ongoing lawsuit in germany, as every image thumbnail is illegal publishing of copyrighted material.

gist2• 10 years ago

Another example might be robodialers if they hadn't been preceded by actual people making calls, which was preceded by people not being able to dial that many calls (rotary phone dialing is slow) and before that even needing an actual operator to complete a "sales" call.

All of the above certainly made it less annoying than it is today. Noting that there is no "do not call" list for businesses.

anewhnaccount• 10 years ago

I think the use case has been well cemented into "free use" & "transformative" in the US now, especially post Google Books. In the EU, however, there's nothing to suggest to me that a search engine would be legal. Here's a report about content mining in the EU http://www.scienceeurope.org/uploads/PublicDocumentsAndSpeec...

5424582• 10 years ago

What is there in Bitcoin that requires running untrusted code?

iMerNibor• 10 years ago

Think they were talking about "untrusted" as in not reviewed by/available in an "app store"

JTon• 10 years ago

The major computing platforms now have gatekeepers (Google Play, iOS App Store)

So true. You can sideload on Android though. So all is not lost.

stegosaurus3• 10 years ago

I can. You can.

The general public can whilst the 'allow untrusted sources' box exists.

But once that box goes, the vast majority of the audience for software outside of Google Play is gone. F-Droid is already tiny as it stands!

coroutines• 10 years ago

I think what OP is talking about is even though we know how to get over the walls of these gardens, the average user would not. :(

Falcon9• 10 years ago

And with Xcode 7 you can deploy apps to your iOS devices with a free dev account.

cm34• 10 years ago

Personal computers with attached storage are disappearing and giving way to thin clients attached to the mainframe - without computing power, individuals have less choice.

Only for those who don't use more than a smart phone. Everybody who takes photos, does engineering, develops software, works with media, plays games, or has a laptop, will at least have external local storage of some kind.

What's the next step?

Something else produced on IBM compatible PCs or Macs, naturally.

All of this sounds like this: everybody goes to a fast food chain to get food, what will happen to kitchens now?

frio3• 10 years ago

Only for those who don't use more than a smart phone.

Sadly, that's an increasingly large segment of the population. Anecdotally, many of my extended family only have mobiles, maybe a tablet, and maybe a videogame console -- no laptops or desktops to be found. Many friends have similar stories.

EGreg2• 10 years ago

Funny enough, home kitchens used to not exist in Roman times as far as I know.

jonahx• 10 years ago

All of this sounds like this: everybody goes to a fast food chain to get food, what will happen to kitchens now?

But this isn't an absurd question at all: Fast food and packaged food have dramatically changed the way people eat, for the worse.

TrevorJ• 10 years ago

The trend has been towards locked down hardware and software, and that trend is starting to encroach on even desktop systems.

e12e• 10 years ago

> Personal computers with attached storage are disappearing and giving way to thin clients attached to the mainframe - without computing power, individuals have less choice.
Only for those who don't use more than a smart phone. Everybody who takes photos, does engineering, develops software, works with media, plays games, or has a laptop, will at least have external local storage of some kind.

I don't see why (if we're talking 10 years time here). Cameras comes with wifi, Photoshop and other software is rented in the cloud, arguably it's easier to have your data in one place, close to the processing -- publishing is done in the cloud (even if the end result is a photo print, it's likely that you use a third party to do the printing).

Games streaming is already a thing. Granted, there are some hard physical limits on latency (speed of light roundtrip) -- but I see no particular well-founded reason to believe all our computing privileges can't be locked up in "the cloud".

It's much more feasible for a small team to produce an entire computer today (as in instruction set, volatile and non-volatile memory, i/o etc), than it was in the 70s - but it's still fantastically more expensive than buying off the shelf hardware. Which means that if the majority of the market truly moves to locked down devices, everyone will have to move to locked down devices.

> What's the next step?
Something else produced on IBM compatible PCs or Macs, naturally.

I think how Apple handled Final Cut Pro is a great example of how dangerous tivoization of an entire platform for computing can be.

merpnderp• 10 years ago

HTML5 service workers allowing near parity of web apps to native apps could easily change all that. If my web app on a phone can receive push notifications from my server even when it isn't running, there's not much I can't do.

weisser• 10 years ago

Many companies that exist today seemingly couldn't begin in 2016.

Is that bad or surprising?

Companies are very much dependent on timing, opportunity, seeing things as they are vs where they should go, and moving things in that direction.

Example: Android — hardware companies didn't want Microsoft to dominate desktop AND mobile OS — huge opportunity for someone to act on this market reluctance to accept MS.

Once the timing is gone, so is much of the opportunity.

balls187• 10 years ago

Personal computers with attached storage are disappearing and giving way to thin clients attached to the mainframe

Just pulled my old punch cards out of the attic and dusted them off, hoping I can use them again!

digi_owl3• 10 years ago

I think we need to focus far more on hardware - it's never looked darker - Secure Boot and the ME make me worried for the future of x86, even.

Thing is that ever since the first PC, "personal" computing has really been about business computing. Heck, visicalc basically sold Apple IIs. This because it allowed accountants to not argue with sysadmins about mainframe time.

Secure boot and ME is Intel and MS responding to business needs.

Thing is tough that flexibility/usability will always be the enemy of security. A building is more usable when the door are left unlocked, but at the same time you can't use said building to store valuables.

PCs could ignore security for the most part back in the day, because they were airgapped.

Frankly the most secure thing a home user can do is to pull the plug on the router when they are not using the net. But then what is not using the net these days?

Kliment2• 10 years ago

ME is a huge net negative for security though

enjo• 10 years ago

The major computing platforms now have gatekeepers (Google Play

I can happily install whatever I like on my stock Android device.

sspiff• 10 years ago

You need to enable untrusted sources hidden away in a settings menu somewhere, and click past a nasty warning informing you of how dangerous outside software can be.

brakmic• 10 years ago

I may sound way too off-topic, so I expect a lot of down-votes, but I think one should learn at least a little bit about hardware and how to design it manually. For example how to create FPGA designs by writing them in VHDL or Verilog.

In some sense it's like in the 70es or 80es. Big Corporations, (almost) monopolies, prehistoric laws...and a bunch of tech-savvy kids refusing to bow down ;)

cubano• 10 years ago

You're asking this of a population whom think that setting the time on their microwave oven is too difficult?

erichocean• 10 years ago

I'm doing that with my kids. Hardware has never felt so open. I'm loving the RISC-V project!

nunez• 10 years ago

The IBM compatible desktop computer produced the revolution we see today. What's the next step?

Something that envelops everything we do in our daily life whether we want it or not; sounds a lot like online advertising and social media!

derf_• 10 years ago

I think we need to focus far more on hardware - it's never looked darker...

On the contrary, the slowdown of Moore's Law means the future has never been brighter for open hardware. Someone could actually design something for a process that hasn't been obsolete for over two years and still have a hope of getting it manufactured before it becomes that way.

skybrian• 10 years ago

At one time, most people didn't use computers at all. The people who did were the hacker minority. Machines were not portable or networked - you'd only pack them up in your car to take them to the local computer group.

We may go back to that. There may be a hacker community using Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and Android phones and Chromebooks running in developer mode.

That's still going to be a lot more than a few hundred hardware hackers. Look at how many people bought Raspberry Pi alone.

There's a big middle ground between mainstream and utter obscurity.

bubblesorting• 10 years ago

Secure Boot and the ME make me worried for the future of x86, even.

funny you mention that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11422531

Razengan• 10 years ago

despite the fact that 256GB of flash can be had for ~40GBP, the latest smartphones come with piffling amounts of storage and seemingly no expandable slots.

I'm sure there's different speeds and other variables to consider in flash storage, just as prices vary for RAM and just about everything else really. The exact tech in an SD card may not be suitable for your phone or tablet's permanent storage, and definitely not suitable for an SSD, otherwise everyone would be installing their OS on SD cards.

jewel• 10 years ago

I'd love to have something like Netflix but with every movie ever. I'd even be willing to pay a reasonable fee per movie to stream them. I have hope that companies with a business model like VidAngel could legally provide that.

VidAngel is a family-friendly video streaming company that filters movies as they stream. While filtering may not be something that you're interested in personally, what I'd like to draw your attention to is their business model. They sell the movie to the viewer for $20, and then the viewer has the option to sell it back for $19 (SD) or $18 (HD) within 24 hours.

I have no idea if this is legal or if they are just under the radar, but so far VidAngel has a wide selection of new releases with a price point that feels reasonable to me personally.

jsmthrowaway3• 10 years ago

https://www.vidangel.com/legal/terms

VidAngel provides a service that allows its Users to buy or sell physical media, such as DVD and Blu-ray discs. While a User owns any physical media purchased from VidAngel, VidAngel will provide streaming services to permit the User to stream the Video Content associated with that physical media as many times as desired. [...] Using the VidAngel Services, a User may purchase physical media from VidAngel, whom then stores the physical media in VidAngel’s physical media vault. [...] VidAngel also provides shipping and handling service that allows any User to direct VidAngel to ship, to an address identified by the User, any physical media the User owns which is stored in VidAngel’s physical media storage vault. A reasonable shipping and handling fee applies. The amount of the shipping and handling fee, which is generally dependent on shipping location, time, and other shipping and handling circumstances, is disclosed to a User when the User requests the shipping.

You are buying a physical copy which they keep, or so they say. It is almost certainly questionably legal, because the license you receive from the film distributor when you purchase a physical copy does not permit you to stream the work, nor does VidAngel's license permit digitizing the work and streaming it out to you simply because you "own" another copy.

There's no army of contractors running around inserting your disc in racks upon racks of Blu-Ray players. They digitized and are serving a film from some other copy. That requires special licensing which their pricing scheme does not circumvent, nor the "ownership" (which is flirting with fraud, by my read).

Modifying the content with filters, especially user-selected ones, is even worse. Just doing that for broadcast requires special care. I know because I used to edit films for OTA broadcast, and observed the legal side that went into crossing every T. It took months before I was even allowed to load up a film in an editor, because merely importing the content into Avid entails a licensed usage. Film copyright is serious.

I don't care how many lawyers vetted this, it will not stand up under scrutiny (and, importantly, I'm not saying whether I agree or disagree with that). What concerns me more about VidAngel, though, is their mixed messaging and shadiness. On their about page, they say:

That’s why VidAngel does not claim to be a moral authority. We will never tell you what to watch or what filters to use. You have the choice to watch however the BLEEP you want.

Sounds great. But then, one reads this:

As VidAngel has grown and reached a broader audience, a few new customers have begun asking if they can stream on VidAngel without filters. [...] The short answer is, unfortunately, NO.
There are a lot of great streaming websites for unfiltered movies like Amazon, Google Play, and Vudu. Use those sites for watching movies as-is, and use VidAngel for any movies you choose to filter.

(Note that the second link asks "why are filters required?" and then does not answer the question.)

http://blog.vidangel.com/2016/01/07/vidangel-policy-can-i-wa...

https://vidangel.groovehq.com/knowledge_base/topics/why-are-...

So it sounds like the filtering is important in their interpretation of copyright law (I only say this due to "unfortunately") or they are a moral authority and don't want to admit it to you. Which smells either way. Avoid like the plague and throw a few bucks at someone who flies by day, has a registered DMCA agent, and doesn't employ WHOIS privacy on their domain. What are they hiding? Seriously, if you take money and employ WHOIS privacy, I get immediately suspicious.

They're based out of Provo and only reveal that on their Privacy page (legally-required, I'm sure). I can safely predict exactly what is going on based on their being based in Utah and that the owner went to BYU, which is why it's funny that they try so hard to convince you that they're not a moral authority but then don't let you watch uncut content at all, then tell you that you're getting a choice. Quite the spin.

djloche• 10 years ago

Guessing: Their justification is: You're not streaming 'Batman', you're streaming, 'JoeBob's Batman Personal Fair Use Derivative Version'.

Whether that would stand up in court, might depend on jurisdiction, judge, jury, etc.

thomas40192• 10 years ago

My guess is there's some provision in the "Family Entertainment and Copyright Act" that they think makes this streaming legal. The text clearly makes the displaying an edited version legal and does talk about transmitted works. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/110.

The key point is in (11). the following are not infringements of copyright: "the making imperceptible, by or at the direction of a member of a private household, of limited portions of audio or video content of a motion picture, during a performance in or transmitted to that household for private home viewing, from an authorized copy of the motion picture"

cpeterso2• 10 years ago

CLEANFLIX is a documentary (available on Netflix :) about CleanFlicks, a similar editing service (though they sold physical DVDs of the edited films) that was sued by Hollywood.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1007026/

theWheez2• 10 years ago

I'm an employee at VidAngel so I may be able to provide some insight (although my opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer and should not be taken as such).

When VidAngel says that it does not claim to be a moral authority, it is separating itself from the competition (e.g. ClearPlay). It is not going to tell its customers that x is inappropriate or that it is appropriate to view y. All it is saying is that it is up to the customer to decide their moral standing and what they would and would not like to view. We simply tag the content, they decide what they would like to view in their home.

VidAngel is, at its core, a filtering company. So if you are not filtering, VidAngel give you alternatives such as Amazon and Google Play. That does not conflict with its refusal to be a moral authority. It offers the service to filter movies and TV shows in the privacy of your own home, but what you choose to filter is not up to VidAngel.

VidAngel is a filtering company and doesn't offer unfiltered movies--because that is not the market it is after. Within that filtering, VidAngel offers no opinion on which filter is 'morally correct' or not.

As far as 'shadiness' goes, VidAngel definitely doesn't try to hide what it is doing. You can contact VidAngel at support@vidangel.com if you have questions.

civilian• 10 years ago

You can select a filter like "ending credits". Then you can watch a filtered movie that is essentially unfiltered.

vacri3• 10 years ago

if you take money and employ WHOIS privacy

I have my contact details on the company domain. I'm considering enabling the WHOIS privacy simply to get rid of the endless succession of people trying to sell me domains that are one character off.

forrestthewoods2• 10 years ago

iTunes has almost every movie ever. It costs between $4 and $6 to rent. That's sounds pretty reasonable to me.

mixmastamyk2• 10 years ago

Nope, most are only avail to buy as I was reminded when looking for star wars with my daughter, no way I'm paying $20 to see a forty year old movie.

alexashka• 10 years ago

So only those who have money should be able to enjoy Indiana Jones?

Your worldview makes total sense...

Thankfully, nobody sane agrees with you. Even Apple doesn't agree with you - its success of the iPod and iPhone is predicated upon pirated music and free access to information (the internet)

scott_s• 10 years ago

I make per-movie purchases digitally through Amazon's streaming service. I have been happy with it. (This is in support of your comment, to say there are services close to what was requested. I'm not trying to say iTunes is bad; it just doesn't work for me, as my "media box" is a PS4 hooked up to my tv.)

comex2• 10 years ago

In 2011 a company called Zediva tried something similar, though without the "sell back" or filtering bits. They were successfully sued into oblivion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Entertainment_Inc....

dragandj• 10 years ago

Currently, only torrents seem to offer this. On the technical side. I won't argue about the legal side, which might be different in different parts of the world.

If people weren't so moralizing, maybe the movie mafia would listen to the users a bit more.

m_t• 10 years ago

The technical side of torrents is lacking in this case, as a lot of rare, old, or more unheard of movies have no seed at all.

This is the main problem that you'll get with torrent if your goal is to have access to "every movie ever".

rashkov2• 10 years ago

This was so light on technical information that I am more puzzled than before I read the article. Haven't the browsers standardized on a few DRM schemes already? Does that have anything to do with what the W3C is doing now, and if not, just what is the W3C up to that is offensive to the EFF? Are they talking about protecting data streams, such as movies? Why would you compare that to what Netflix was doing with physical DVDs?

drdaeman• 10 years ago

I think it's all about EME: https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/

throwaway160303• 10 years ago

Yes they have, yes it does, they think the world would be better if everyone Just Said No to DRM and the W3C isn't going along with their grand plan, yes, and because they (correctly) think it'll sound convincing to the target audience (mostly other Just Say No-ers, probably consisting mostly of the EFF and Mozilla. And that's it.)

I'm really getting tired of what seems to be the EFF's somewhat-newfound mission (it's been getting steadily worse over the last couple years) to push the limits of "shrill squawking about nonsense" to new heights.

rashkov2• 10 years ago

I'm generally a fan of the EFF's work but I completely agree when you call this "shrill squawking". The lack of any coherent argument or details in this statement reminds me of some the "rally the mob" emails that I receive from Fight For The Future. It's a shame that they take their audience for granted and feel that it's enough to rile people up to send angry emails using nothing more than an appeal to their own authority. That may work for a while but at the expense of their credibility.

optforfon• 10 years ago

At the title is pure click-bait...

serge2k• 10 years ago

making some of the most innovative programming on any of our screens

Evidently the author hasn't seen "the ranch"

joshmanders• 10 years ago

I took time this weekend to watch it and holy crap is it so bad. But I watched the whole season, and when I let go of any sense of good that could come out of it, I enjoyed it.

blakeyrat3• 10 years ago

F is for Family is the last of their "original series" I tried.

Wow. What a hateful show. It's like they found the world's greatest misanthropist, gave them $10,000,000, and said, "here, make a show that's kind of like The Simpsons I guess."

I have to admit I watched all the episodes, kind of like how when you see a horrible train collision you stick around to see how many bodies will be strewn about when it's over.

waterside81• 10 years ago

It was comedian Bill Burr's idea. He pitched it to Vince Vaughan's production company, who then went to Netflix.

esolyt• 10 years ago

I don't think it's fair to call it "a show kind of like The Simpsons". The whole point is that it's taking place in 1970s and showing the life in that era. I found the show very interesting.

simoncion• 10 years ago

Fancy seeing you here!

Anyway. "hateful"? The show strikes me as a sitcom set in the 1970's about a middle-aged slightly-worse-than-average dad with an average family who's pretty dissatisfied with his life and social status.

Because it's a sitcom, it makes everything more two-dimensional and extreme than you'd see in real life. Once you get past that, you see that

* The dad thinks of himself as THE family provider, but is willing to back down from that position when the wife tells him to fuck off

* Both parents hate the fact that they're burdened with kids, but they don't hate the kids and understand that they have to make things as good as they can for the kids

* The kids are just your typical free-range, somewhat-troublesome kids

* The dad doesn't get the free-spirit neighbor, but kinda respects him and envies his lifestyle

* The dad tries to do what's best for the people that depend on him, but he's not above launching a mean-spirited prank on someone who has deliberately fucked him over for doing the right thing

voltagex_• 10 years ago

If crap like that allows things like Sense8, Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Orange Is The New Black to happen then that seems like a fair trade.

oldmanjay• 10 years ago

"The Ranch" is a preview of CBS comedies ten years hence, when the FCC gets over its aversion to the fuckword. Netflix is just trying to show us a peek of the broadcast future.

true_religion• 10 years ago

My best guess is that Netflix makes its original/shared rights programming for specific segments of its user base.

Some shows of theirs have really resonated with me, and others I can't even begin to approach.

However, that's just specific shows... with regular television, I'd feel that way about specific channels because they're targeting an entire userbase that doesn't include my tastes.

Netflix seems to cater to everyone, being extremely eclectic with what it holds in its catalogue, but when it comes time to make a series---they don't do the typical thing of watering down a series to try for broad appeal but rather they go for just to a specific niche.

thirdsun3• 10 years ago

And that's a good thing - I'd rather skip half of the shows and truly enjoy the rest instead of having to endure an endless sea of mediocrity.

city41• 10 years ago

Minor correction:

It's Netflix, from its founding in 1997, the company mailed DVDs around America and then the world, right up to 2007, when it switched to streaming.

Netflix's DVD service never went beyond the US, and still exists to this day.

morganvachon3• 10 years ago

I was bothered by that too. Up until three years ago, we had kept the DVD-by-mail subscription active for those movies we wanted to watch that weren't available on the streaming sub. After we got our first Roku, we dropped the DVD sub since pretty much anything we wanted to watch was offered on one Roku channel or another (not to mention Netflix's streaming offerings steadily improved over the years).

fludlight• 10 years ago

The information density of this article is very low.

For the first time in its history, the W3C is adding encumbrances to the Web, rather than removing them.

How, specifically, so?

davexunit• 10 years ago

How, specifically, so?

By pushing the EME standard. A Netflix employee is on the working group for it.

tombert3• 10 years ago

I don't know the right solution to the HTML5 DRM thing. I hate DRM, I don't really support its use, but I also use Linux full-time.

Without the HTML5 DRM, I don't think I'd be able to watch Netflix on my laptop, without some Wine wrapper, and really, is that much better? I don't see the studios signing off on Netflix without the use of DRM, and since Silverlight doesn't work on Linux, I selfishly don't have a problem with HTML5 DRM...most of the time.

That said, ethical-me totes does have a problem with DRM being part of the otherwise-open web. Relying on stuff that I can can't break sort of makes my inner-Stallman sad.

zerocrates2• 10 years ago

I have a hard time getting too worked up over EME. Netflix's content providers want DRM (as probably does Netflix itself, for its self-productions), and the EME-based stuff seems to be a clear win vs. Flash or Silverlight. The alternatives are clinging longer to Flash and friends or pushing things yet further out into apps where services are free to have whatever DRM they want.

Sure, you could instead hope for a world where the the studios don't want or mandate DRM, but that's pretty pie-in-the-sky thinking, especially for a cheap subscription service like Netflix.

Matt3o12_4• 10 years ago

Why do companies still want DRM. I can understand that they wanted it when it was new but DRM has been proven to be worthless in terms of adding copyright protection and be a pain in the ass for the end use (I can't watch Netflix on my PC because the VGA adapter does not supper DMR). It is only a matter of hours before a cracked movie lands on torrent sites. So what is the purpose of DRM?

wallacoloo2• 10 years ago

Sure, you could instead hope for a world where the the studios don't want or mandate DRM, but that's pretty pie-in-the-sky thinking, especially for a cheap subscription service like Netflix.

Whether the studios want or even mandate DRM is irrelevant. DRM is fundamentally not securable (in the sense that it will always be breakable).

Bits are (nearly) free. When I buy digital goods, I'm not paying for the goods. I'm paying for the service and ultimately just voting with my money ("make more films and services like this, please", so to speak).

Illegal film services offer me superb service. I can download whole seasons of shows in whichever quality I want in the click of a button. I get archivability - I don't have to worry about the media ever becoming unavailable due to licensing, censorship, the publisher going out of business, etc. And I get desktop integration; I can hit the super key, type 'Sherlock' and hit enter, and an episode starts playing immediately. Netflix requires that I open a new browser (Google Chrome b/c Firefox on Linux doesn't work), type a URL, authenticate, and then proceed with the above steps, all on the assumption that they even have what I'm looking for (new shows don't get added very quickly) and that I have a solid internet connection. After that, the video has to buffer and I can't seek randomly.

If purchasing rights to this media involves supporting such an anti-user system, I simply won't purchase the media. It's a shame for the artists - I wish it were different - but in the meanwhile I will support the arts by dumping the money I would have spent on Netflix, Google Play, etc into more usable and pro-consumer/pro-artist systems like Bandcamp and Patreon.

gergles• 10 years ago

EME is just Flash 2.0, only it's even worse, as it relies on architecture specific binary blobs being sent to your browser and running in the (privileged) context of your graphics card driver. At least in Flash, the Flash VM could theoretically have provided some degree of sandboxing.

Daiz4• 10 years ago

I don't know the right solution to the HTML5 DRM thing.

Easy. If they want content protection, they should build it in JavaScript. Doesn't threaten the entire existence of the Open Web, any sufficiently decent scheme will prevent casual copying (dedicated pirates will always find a way, if nothing else then via screen capture), and it's actually cross-platform (unlike EME, where "cross-platform" is entirely up to the creators of the black box DRM plugins, so if Netflix et al wanted to say "sod off, we're not making our DRM plugin available on Linux" then you'd be totally out of luck).

Sadly, of course this isn't actually enough for the people demanding heavy DRM, since it's not just about "protecting the content" but about controlling the whole platform, which is what really makes EME such an existential threat for the entire Open Web. That's why I can't approve of it, and why you shouldn't either.

But content protection through JavaScript? Totally fair game, I say. Assuming that it's for a catalog rental model like what Netflix offers, anyway. Content protection has no place in any individual (media) products you buy, those should be DRM-free - otherwise you're not really buying them, just renting them for an undefined period.

(On a final note, I also practice what I preach here - I work for a comic publisher and am in charge of most things digital distribution, including the content protection scheme for our catalog rental subscription service. It's developed in JS and I'll do my utmost best to ensure we never ever touch EME in any way. Should be more cost effective for us that way anyway!)

tombert3• 10 years ago

I'll admit that I know almost nothing about the ways DRM works, but my gut tells me that JS would be too slow to implement anything too robust. If DRM is anything like crypto, wouldn't it require something relatively CPU-heavy?

That said, I didn't know the cross-platform thing was optional, and I agree that when I buy something, it should be DRM free. If it has to phone-home, then I don't own it, and things like Darkspore prove it can be stolen from me be the company.

DaveMebs2• 10 years ago

But if the DRM solution is implemented through JS code in the browser, it is trivial to pirate. I know DRM is always broken, etc., but at the same time it is hard to take an argument at face value that discounts the security differences between these approaches.

JS is trivial for anyone moderately skilled to crack - you're sending content in the clear from the browser through the stack.

DRM solutions enabled by EME can be much more robust and difficult to crack.

Similar to other commentators, I struggle with the issue, but just saying "put it in JS" is not a very compelling argument. The current EME approach of a publically defined API that any DRM solution can plug into feels like a pretty reasonable compromise here.

tajen• 10 years ago

Why doesn't Netflix/all film directors distribute slightly different versions of their movies to every single viewer? Half a second here, a whiter scene there, it takes only 32 boolean situations to uniquely identify 2bn views, and they culd chase the viewer in court. Or do they do that already?

guyzero• 10 years ago

If the decryption keys were exposed in JS you'd only be a few debugger operations away from defeating any DRM system.

brianpgordon• 10 years ago

You can hardly call anything beyond JavaScript "heavy DRM." Something written in pure JavaScript running along the rest of the page's scripts could hardly be called DRM at all. It would be completely trivial to break.

I'm actually OK with the current HTML5 DRM scheme. Sure some binary blob runs and you don't know what's going on inside, but Firefox runs it in a sandbox so it can't do anything bad. Seems fine to me.

tryitnow• 10 years ago

Glad to see this. I've criticized EFF before. Not because I disagree with them but because they haven't done a good enough job clearly communicating why they're relevant.

This article shows that they're improving in that direction. Netflix is something that average people really get and the idea that future Netflixes could be stillborn is a good way to communicate the importance of these issues.

Good job, EFF.

deegles2• 10 years ago

I believe that in a few years every content owner will have developed their own streaming platform. Or the opposite in Netflix's case. Customers will be forced to pay for N different providers to get access to all content.

What we need is legislation similar to radio broadcasting, which has fixed per-play rates, but for video.

cpeterso2• 10 years ago

Perhaps this is a business opportunity for white label streaming services (as hosted SaaS or on-premise deployment).

malka• 10 years ago

Plex could develop their product to fill this market imo

deegles2• 10 years ago

I'm surprised Netflix hasn't already done this TBH.

tootie• 10 years ago

I don't understand this post at all. And I'm smart.

schnable2• 10 years ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but how would EME have stopped Netflix? They always had proper licensing and DRM for their digital content.

thomas40192• 10 years ago

I'm wondering the exact same thing.

jcl• 10 years ago

I think the author's point is that the Netflix of today was only able to afford proper licensing and DRM for digital content because they made so much money mailing around discs, against strong objection from the content providers. And if someone wanted to bootstrap a new video distribution service today on a digital platform, EME would give the content providers the power to put an end to it.

smaili• 10 years ago

Anyone else miss Blockbuster?

blakeyrat3• 10 years ago

Blockbuster's DVD mailing service was way better than Netflix's. Ironically, while Blockbuster stores were (rightly) criticized for having a very small, limited selection, their selection of DVDs was incredibly complete-- far larger than Netflix's. Even their envelopes were better-designed.

So yeah I kind of miss it.

AndyMcConachie2• 10 years ago

I don't understand this argument. Netflix depends on DRM and always has.

Also, this pledge won't protect anyone. Because there's no guarantee that the people/companies suing the developer who breaks future DRM will have signed the pledge. The best protection a developer can have against the DMCA is to not live in the USA.

I generally support everything the EFF does, but I don't get this. If the W3C doesn't standardize DRM we'll still get DRM. It will just be more buggy and with more security holes. Just like MS Silverlight and Adobe Flash.

The idea that you can prevent something from being developed by not standardizing it is absurd.

digi_owl3• 10 years ago

I don't understand this argument. Netflix depends on DRM and always has.

Nope, they never really have (though it may be changing now that they are producing their own content). The studios supplying them with content on the other hand has.

AndyMcConachie2• 10 years ago

Do you think they would have gotten any contracts for content without DRM? I doubt it.

schnable2• 10 years ago

No DRM support from Netflix - no content on Netflix.

zanny• 10 years ago

The argument is that Netflix grew on the first sale loophole, but today movies are not being released on physical media and for some bizarre reason the people are complacent in these companies effectively removing first sale doctrine if the information isn't on external media.

You could not start start Netflix's DVD business with steaming, and since DVDs are dead, streaming is all that is left, so you cannot found another Netflix - which means you cannot get to another independent content developer like Netflix has become that way.

wallacoloo2• 10 years ago

I can understand somebody completely disagreeing with this statement, but perhaps:

By not standardizing DRM, the shitty, near-unusable DRM environment will remain shitty and unusable. More users will be discontent with the system, and this gives more opportunities for companies that present a good (non-DRM) system to compete.

CaptSpify2• 10 years ago

If the W3C doesn't standardize DRM we'll still get DRM. It will just be more buggy and with more security holes. Just like MS Silverlight and Adobe Flash.

Honestly, this is what I want. That way, people will roll their eyes at installing "yet another plug-in". It'll be hacky, and terrible, and people will want to get rid of it. Standardizing it is basically accepting it as inevitable, which I don't view to be true.

thirdsun3• 10 years ago

I'm not so sure - don't confuse the general consensus on HN with the wider public. Average Joe won't think twice about clicking "install" on that dialog that tells him to install Flash in order to watch the movie he's been looking forward to.

hmans• 10 years ago

Remember when everyone agreed that there was no point to competing with AOL and CompuServe?

shmerl4• 10 years ago

Film industry is one of the most corrupted and backwards thinking (MPAA is the prime example). So this can be rephrased as "Help fixing film industry which keeps pushing for retarded idea of DRM at every occasion!". And really it's not the whole film industry. Actual creators most often don't care about this garbage. It's publishers and lawyers who feel the need to satisfy their unquenchable urge for control. DRM and DMCA give them that. Ego feeding control feeling (which is really fake, since in essence they don't control it anyway). I'd call them control freaks.

And how can one exactly fix it? GOG attempted it a while back[1], trying to replicate their success with DRM-free gaming. But they failed.

[1] https://www.gog.com/forum/general/introducing_gogcom_drmfree...

profeta• 10 years ago

Wow. the whole thread here one have a single top-level comment, with a completely wrong understanding of the issue. (and yes, the title of the linked article is awful)

useYourIllusion• 10 years ago

5 years old but still very relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg

rtpg• 10 years ago

So this is about the DRM stuff in the new specs? Didn't Netflix use DRM since the outset?

I know there's some moral positioning about standardising DRM, but would it really affect the 'next Netflix'? Standardised DRM responds to business needs, and companies have already discovered that DRM-Free is a feature, so standardising DRM won't make DRM-free stuff disappear...

From the petition page:

Imagine a new, disruptive company figured out a way to let hundreds of people watch a single purchased copy of a movie, even though the rightsholders who made that movie objected.
Of course, it's also the business model of Netflix, circa 1997

This is only true in a pedantic sense. Netflix was shipping around physical copies. Sending digital copies goes by another name: broadcasting! The Supreme court already ruled on that one.

I can't see people being like "oh, yeah, people should be able to broadcast other people's content to hundreds of thousands without the content owner's positions" (Think: this is the main objection to Facebook's Video strategy)

I guess EFF has a position and this is them trying to defend it but their narrative is pretty unconvincing from where I stand.

dfc2• 10 years ago

I am confused. Save netflix from DRM? Despite Netflix's commitment to open source I can't stream movies because the DRM solution Netflix chose is not supported under linux.

ac292• 10 years ago

Netflix works fine under Linux and has for over a year.

dfc2• 10 years ago

Wow! This is great news, I never thought there would be an open source Netflix solution. Can you give me some pointers for where to find more information? I did a quick search and did not find anything.

Houshalter• 10 years ago

This article is very confusing. What exactly about DRM prevents Netflix?

empressplay• 10 years ago

TFA makes it sound like Netflix bootstrapped itself by buying DVDs from WalMart, which is false -- Rental DVDs, of course, are purchased from distributors and are substantially more expensive than consumer DVDs.

nkurz• 10 years ago

You state your answer with great confidence, but I think you are wrong. In the US (where Netflix is based), the "first sale doctrine" has been held to allow the rental of any legally purchased DVD (even those purchased at Walmart):

  Because of the first-sale doctrine, any DVD reseller,   
  including Netflix, can basically buy a DVD at WalMart, and 
  turn around and rent it to someone else the very same day. 
  The content owners have absolutely no control over whether 
  the copy can be resold or rented. Period. As such, Netflix 
  has the ability to rent (via DVD) any movie which has ever 
  been sold on DVD, and its costs are relatively fixed as a 
  result of the retail price of the actual DVD.

http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/09/18/understanding-why-netfli...

In your defense, it appears that many lawyers also do not understand this law. Here for example we see three saying that rental of consumer DVD's is clearly illegal, and two saying that it's just fine: http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/is-it-legal-to-rent-out-dv...

This is probably because various studios have attempted to convince the public that rental of consumer DVD's is not allowed, even though falsely marking DVD's in this way is probably not legal: http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2007/05/first-sale-fandango...

But while I'm pretty certain you are wrong, and although I think I understand the law here, I am not a lawyer, much less a specialist in copyright law. If you can point to evidence that supports your contention, I'd be eager to see it.

disposeofnick9• 10 years ago

Verizon is throttling YouTube for unlimited data-plan customers a lot, to where it's unusable... other sites work somewhat better.

worldunited• 10 years ago

Why is my phone going to CRASH

scorpio3203• 10 years ago

Honestly I have no thoughts on this

Save Netflix

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