This restriction is meant to protect high definition content from being ripped by pirates. Open systems don’t offer the same DRM guarantees as the locked ones.
Which is bullshit because DRM doesn’t effectively prevent ripping (source: you can find pirated hd content). So it’s literally only harmful to the customer.
I’ll give you a quick demo of how DRM is literally useless at protecting content:
You need:
a machine with any Nvidia GPU series 600 or newer running Windows, a browser with DRM support (e.g. chrome), and optionally sunshine. This is not an uncommon setup
any other machine that can run moonlight (even a phone).\
Services often use widevine as DRM provider, so using the Nvidia machine visit this test page and make sure DRM is working
Normally the DRM api ensure that the decrypted content of that video can never in any form get out of a special GPU buffer, not even the browser can access it
enable sunshine on the machine
Connect from the second machine to the using moonlight and notice that the video is not being shared. DRM seems to be working correctly.
Now disable sunshine and enable Nvidia gamestream from GeForce experience, and set it up to share the whole desktop
connect from the second machine to the first using moonlight
now the video is being shared to the second machine, and DRM is circumvented. There is literally nothing preventing you from recording the screen on the second machine
Now, this is a terrible way of ripping content, it causes at least one reencoding, which reduces quality (a lot of people won’t even notice it), but it is a stupidly simple working demo of DRM circumvention.
Btw, that procedure is not the result of some study, reverse engineering, or any clever stuff.
I was literally playing a game in streaming and I went “hmm, I wonder what would happen if I streamed widevine” and it just worked.
This restriction is meant to protect high definition content from being ripped by pirates. Open systems don’t offer the same DRM guarantees as the locked ones.
Ironically means that everything I watch on my Linux machine will definitely be pirated.
locked ones don’t provide DRM guarantees either. it takes a script kiddie five minutes to break DRM whenever some new scheme comes out.
It’s probably contractual obligations from shitty media companies.
quite probably. Ironically it does nothing helpful because pirates are gonna pirate.
If anything, it’s does the opposite by driving would-be legitimate buyers (well… Subscribers) into piracy.
You won’t provide it to me even if I pay you, because you don’t like the system I use? Fine, I’ll keep my money and pirate it instead.
the Dutch East India Company were the bad guys. Just saying.
…ok?
TF does that have to do with modern media piracy?
If the monopoly is the bad guys… the pirates are the good guys, right?
Ah, I see.
If purchasing isn’t owning, then pirating can’t be stealing.
Which is bullshit because DRM doesn’t effectively prevent ripping (source: you can find pirated hd content). So it’s literally only harmful to the customer.
I’ll give you a quick demo of how DRM is literally useless at protecting content:
Now, this is a terrible way of ripping content, it causes at least one reencoding, which reduces quality (a lot of people won’t even notice it), but it is a stupidly simple working demo of DRM circumvention.
Btw, that procedure is not the result of some study, reverse engineering, or any clever stuff. I was literally playing a game in streaming and I went “hmm, I wonder what would happen if I streamed widevine” and it just worked.
A much more simpler method is to just use Streamfab. No need for nVidia, a second PC etc.
What do you know, I have that kind of setup. I kinda want to try that now. I ain’t gonna subscribe to Netflix just to test this for myself tho.