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HD Monitor Causes DRM Issues with Netflix
Jeremiah Cornelius points us to Davis Freeberg's blog, where he discusses his "nightmare scenario" of losing access to his DRM-protected purchases by upgrading his PC monitor.
"When I called them they confirmed my worst fears. In order to access the Watch Now service, I had to give Microsoft's DRM sniffing program access to all of the files on my hard drive. If the software found any non-Netflix video files, it would revoke my rights to the content and invalidate the DRM. This means that I would lose all the movies that I've purchased from Amazon's Unbox, just to troubleshoot the issue. Because my computer allows me to send an unrestricted HDTV feed to my monitor, Hollywood has decided to revoke my ability to stream 480 resolution video files from Netflix. In order to fix my problem, Netflix recommended that I downgrade to a lower res VGA setup."
Yet another reason to pirate all the content you want.
Looks like I'll be cancelling my Netflix account for awhile then. Once again, it proves that companies make it easier to just pirate stuff than it is to try and legally pay for it.
A Microsoft problem? No. The feature is implemented correctly. If the monitor does not have the authorization chip that the new drivers in Vista are set to check for (thus closing the analog hole), the DRM will not play. Because VGA is older, the content will play on that. It's a feature of Windows Media, that might be fixed if Microsoft does not implement the monitor check in Silverlight which they are switching to. Since they want to support Macs, and Apple isn't that stupid, hopefully they won't be able to.
--Sam
That doesn't work because watermarks are incredibly easy to get around. Simple signal processing techniques will eliminate most watermarks without noticeably affecting the output. In many cases you can just add your own watermark over the top and either destroy the existing watermark or no-one knows which one is the original watermark.
Pretty much all watermarking research assumes that an attacker does not know how the watermarking technique works and does not intelligently attack the watermark. That assumption is hopelessly unrealistic. It's 100% security by obscurity.
And you're neatly sidestepping the issue altogether. Nice trick, that. The issue is that switching to a "free" (however one defines that, which is a discussion unto itself) OS will not solve the problem at all. All that will happen is you'll have to pirate your videos, which is the same damn solution that you'd have to go to under Windows... so the OS change has netted you no benefit whatsoever with respect to this DRM issue.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
You Free(TM) OS fanboys are all fucking idiots.
The original poster proposed using a Free(TM) OS as a method of fighting DRM.
The next poster correctly pointed out that using a Free(TM) OS has absolutely nothing to do with the issue.
Then you idiots keep railing about how using a Free(TM) OS will somehow solve the DRM problem - completely ignoring (and seemingly ignorant of) the fact that DRM can be implemented in ANY operating system with or without cooperation from the authors of the OS.
The issue is DRM and protected content, not operating systems. You can choose not to purchase and consume protected content weather or not you run a Free(TM) OS or not.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
And this is the problem with most DRM schemes. They do nothing to solve the real problems of pirated media, and instead put all kinds of shackles on the people who actually pay good money for their music, movies, and software; in the process making pirated media superior to bought media.
This ad space for rent.
It strikes me that we sit here on /. and say, "Nyah, nyah, no DRM, icky-ick," and in passing realize that we're not in the target market, and any so-called boycotts we attempt to do will be meaningless.
But there is another side to it...
This guy is an early-adopter, and he's just been screwed. The next tier of customers frequently don't jump until they've gotten a warm fuzzy feeling from the early adopters. This guy's friends and acquaintances aren't going to get that feeling, and hold off a bit longer.
Originally one of the scary things about DRM was that most of it was going to be turned off - at first. My sinister presumption was that that would let the early adopters have their day - and make their recommendations. By the time they started turning the DRM on they would hopefully have significant market penetration, and assuming they were careful with their staging of turning it on, they'd likely get away with it.
If this is any sign, that plan hasn't come to pass.
This is Good News.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Yes they should have said stuff it to the studios. Microsoft controls over 90% of the desktops on the planet. For once they could have used their monopoly position to some good.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Umm, the issue is DRM content AND operating systems. Vista added all sorts of "features" whose only point is to restrict the way that videos can be played back and make overly restrictive digital rights restrictions easier. DRM "could" be implemented under Linux, but there is not pervasive rights restrictions throught libraries, the kernel, and the X server as there are rights restrictions in Vista through libraries, kernel, and video system. A "protected video path" type setup under Linux would simply not be very possible, and if someone tried it, the source is available so it can be circumvented trivially.
The primary reason for free software being a good antidote to DRM is that I am voting with my wallet. Buying or staying with XP "instead" of Vista doesn't send Microsoft the message -- they may want you to get Vista, but you are still sending money Microsoft's way. OSX is also a big DRM supporter. So, by not purchasing OSX or Windows it sends the message to Apple & Microsoft that I will not spend money with DRM supporters.
This is a reason why piracy is becoming such a problem.
Not only is it cheaper to download it off the net some where (pick your favorite source) the people who rip the content rip out the drm which makes it just easier to use. No worries about licenses , no worries about 2 services destroying each other, no worries about changing hardware and having to repurchase half your library because one service uses it and the other doesn't.
These companies just don't realize that drm is draconian. Multi Os platforms and easy to use video content that will play any where is what the future should hold. instead they try ad put a strangle hold on the content and tell us we can only use it on windows , and maybe if your lucky a mac. Basically telling me what OS and what hardware I should run by placing system requirements on the content , meanwhile on a Linux or Solaris box, I don't need anywhere near those resources to watch a downloaded movie.
Draconian restrictions were also used at the fall of the roman empire. I think we (the US) is really shooting ourselves in the foot with these restrictions.
And Yes I have seen these errors on my wifes Vista computer. God how I'd love to strip out vista and install ubuntu or fedora for her. Im tired of cleaning out windows systems !
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
That part is not true.
At least on a Free(TM) OS, more Free than Linux currently is, it would not be possible to implement effective DRM, because the user would effectively have control over everything the application has access to. This means that, for instance, you could always run it in a virtual machine, record all traffic in and out of it (including to the pseudo random number generator library), and do a replay attack on it.
That's the more brute-force attack. The fact is, a rootkit should be much easier on Linux. Given the default policy of no root access and the sheer variety of kernels out there, there's simply far less that an app can be sure of about its environment, which makes it much more difficult to tell if that environment is "real" or "trusted". Most games which have been ported to Linux did not bother to port any of the CD-based copy protection, probably because they realized how insanely simple it would be for Linux people to implement an undetectable Daemontools.
With at least the major proprietary OSes, you'll first have to crack the DRM that's built-in to the OS -- convince it that it really is running on bare metal, or convince it to let you do that messing-with-the-IO trick.
So it doesn't completely solve the problem, but I do believe a free system is a lot more hostile, in practice and also in culture, to DRM.
I'm fully aware that Linux itself can have binary kernel modules, at which point, there's really no technological difference. But the cultural difference is important. Anyone switching to Linux is also going to be acutely aware of DRM, partly because things without DRM will work for them, and things with DRM won't (at least for now).
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Bad situation, definitely...
And before I say this and everyone mods me for flamebait, i'm just echoing what I think is right...
STOP BUYING DRM PROTECTED MEDIA. Problem solved. Read a book, peruse Slashdot, talk to your wife... i dunno, but giving the hollywood pigs their chow will not bring about any change.
mod away, sry.
No words of wisedom here.
Ironic 'taint it matey?
:-)
Honestly though, there is little to no competition to a fully "pirate" setup.
* XBMC on old Xbox with component video cables (720p max, but that's what my LCD is
* LAMP media server, exports *everything* on simple usr/pwd shares
* movies transcoded from my library
* MP3's transcoded from my library
* BBC shows and other public broadcasting shows I like
No real reason I couldn't add an RSS feed to TPB and autograb shows other than WGHB and BBC stuff (or movies etc.)
According to the **AA my copies of my music/movies are not proper and thus "pirate" etc. and it blows absolutely every other option I've tried out of the water. In theory I could add a myth back-end server and capture off the air/cable with a DVB card or a hauppage + cable box setup, but honestly there is no need.
XBMC is even better than myth in my opinion, and both of them kick the pants off of XP-MCE.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
This should not be called DRM.
This should be called illegal restraint of trade and monopoly abuse.
It should be also dealt with accordingly.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
To some degree you're right. But in some ways, you've got it backward.
DRM has managed to make "pirates" out of people. Sharing music through various means has been a part of human culture since the dawn of time. We sing to each other, play for each other, perform for each other. By natural extension, we loaned or copied sheet music to to each other, we loaned or copied player piano tracks to each other, we loaned or copied records and tapes to each other, and now more recently, we share and copy MP3s to each other.
The industry has taken a human social behavior and have criminalized it for their own profits adding "force of law" to their business model.
This stuff has gotten out of hand long ago and it is taking far too long to set things straight. The best answer is to restore copyright durations to their original time frame. There's no need to extend it to over 100 years as we seem to have it now. In fact, under present law, there is very high risk of losing the public domain entirely as well as losing access to artistic works in the future! Consider the issues we have seen with document formats and the push to get them into open standard formats. The purpose? To avoid having important and public information being lost due to the format no longer being supported while remaining secret. Right now, we're collecting our music in digital formats that are locked away by both technology and law where neither accounts for an "end" of the duration of copyright. It accounts for nothing about what happens when the works are no longer covered under copyright. The works are lost!
Yes, the fall of the Roman Empire can be traced directly to restrictive DRM schemes imposed by the media of the day ;) So restrictive were they that it was often easier to just pirate the town criers announcements by listening to friends repeat what he had to say then trying to listen to him directly.
Sorry for the sarcasm, I largely agree with what you had to say up until this. It might have been better to say that corruption played a part in the downfall of Rome -- corruption triggered by people with financial interests to protect. That actually sounds kind of familiar.... :(
And Yes I have seen these errors on my wifes Vista computer. God how I'd love to strip out vista and install ubuntu or fedora for her. Im tired of cleaning out windows systems !What's stopping you? Ironically enough my girlfriend (the artist) is less locked into Windows then I am (the IT person). She needs a PC to be able to surf the web (Firefox), do document production for her graduate courses (Open Office) and read e-mail (any number of free clients). She didn't even notice when I switched her to Firefox and isn't really locked into anything that requires Windows.
I'm screwed, because I need MS Abscess^WAccess for work and the ability to join my PC to our Active Directory. Even on a personal level I'm more locked in then she is, because I'm into gaming and keep all of my finances in Quicken.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.