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I wonder why: according to their website, their DRM works on Linux (and just about everything else too). They certainly don't have any control of the OS there. I do have one clue though: WIdevine is a Google company. Maybe they're doing this to try to shut down rooted Android phones because Google hates that.

Widevine is "DRM and Content Protection" scheme (see http://www.widevine.com). But is it open source? The Widevine plugin appears to be a binary without any source code.

https://tools.google.com/dlpage/widevine

Is Mozilla putting a binary blob into Firefox, or do they have the source code for Widevine?

And queue a bunch of the beginner Linux sites releasing articles on how to pin Firefox on 48. Because "Hell no" to that crap on my system.

Widevine is "DRM and Content Protection" scheme (see http://www.widevine.com). But is it open source? The Widevine plugin appears to be a binary without any source code.

https://tools.google.com/dlpage/widevine

Is Mozilla putting a binary blob into Firefox, or do they have the source code for Widevine?

It is open for anyone to use, so your favorite porn site will incorporate it as well.

Details are a bit thin, and will presumably depend on the hardware; but Google has this to say:

"Android also now supports hardware-backed storage for your KeyChain credentials, providing more security by making the keys unavailable for extraction. That is, once keys are in a hardware-backed key store (Secure Element, TPM, or TrustZone), they can be used for cryptographic operations but the private key material cannot be exported. Even the OS kernel cannot access this key material. While not all Android-powered devices support storage on hardware, you can check at runtime if hardware-backed storage is available by calling KeyChain.IsBoundKeyAlgorithm()."

They don't explicitly say how the media DRM features are handled; but it would certainly appear that they've been busy supporting higher-than-kernel hardware mechanisms that would certainly have the capability to verify the system state and freak out if filthy 'owners' have the temerity to mess with the device.

(Google has also owned Widevine for some time now, a company that is studiously unhelpful about the details; but which, according to its patent portfolio and past press releases, has been doing set-top-box DRM for a while now, with a long list of chipset vendors on the client list. They have a lot of chatter about a 'Virtual Smartcard', which sounds software-like; but 'software' could include firmware baked into a system well below the level of being manipulated by the kernel, short of a successful attack against the firmware.)

That sounds,

A few weeks ago I started to manage the new VOD platform. It's local, working only in my country, so its name is not relevant here. Project was started by a movie distribution company, seeking diversification and alternative to their DVD sales business, without the technical competence. They hired programming company, deeply Microsoft-related (partnership and so on). As you can expect, the platform was based on .NET/Windows Server, using IIS Smooth Streaming with PlayReady DRM, and Silverlight player. Then the problems with interoperability have started, as CEO quickly discovered, this solution has not worked on his iPad or iPhone, nor the Mac OS X playback was free from errors (most people in the company are appleheads, after all its movie business).

I come to the company as the manager with technological expertise (working a few years as the hosting guy/web developer, mostly in open source technologies), to oversee the work done by these external programmers. Our business strategy was to rely on presence on many different platforms, but now we're locked in. Luckily we were able to come on Samsung SmartTV platform, but only due to PlayReady implementation on these devices. We find a developers to prepare for us iOS app (Apple devices are PlayReady certified) and Sony PS3 app (also PlayReady certified). The advisors declared that there is no chance in moving our platform to Android and Linux, because THERE ARE NO DRM SYSTEMS AVAILABLE for these platforms.

The problem is that we have partners building their own settop boxes with Android on board, who want to use our VOD service as the source of premium video content for their users. The Android app would be great, but we cannot stream movies from our catalogue without DRM protection. I know that DRM sux, and is easy to circumvent, but you know, its a requirement put there by major movie producers - we cannot ignore that.

With these restrictions, we're looking for technological solution to bring our VOD content to the Android, and if it could be possible, to desktop Linux (at least Ubuntu). I've found Google DRM system: http://www.widevine.com/drm.html. Does anyone here has expertise in working with it? Can we use IIS to stream content encoded with this Widewine DRM? Please give your advice, maybe the Flash-based solution would be better, at least AdobeAIR still works on Android?

Media sales via the Android Market in general, more like it.

Close. Google have officially joined the dark side.

They bought a DRM company called Widevine, which handles the digital restrictions on Blockbuster, Netflix et al.

It looks like the original purchase was for their move into internet TV, but collateral damage has ensured that sadly, Android is now Defective by Design Those of us who enjoy using and modifying our own property will have to part ways with the official Android releases. I'm looking forward to seeing some nice Linux distros on Arm tablets.
http://www.osnews.com/story/24099/Google_buy_DRM_firm_Widevine_Solution_to_HTML5_Video_Adoption_