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Hulu Munging HTML With JS To Protect Content
N!NJA writes "Hulu has started encoding the html that they send to people's browsers, and then decoding it using javascript before rendering it. [...] They then run the character stream through a series of javascript functions to convert it back into plain text before pushing it into your browser using DHTML. That's quite a lot of effort just for fun, so I assume that is to stop screen scrapers from parsing content." I really can't understand all this effort. Boxee displayed the Hulu advertising perfectly. I suspect Alec Baldwin is to blame.
They *want* you to go back to watching regular TV, where the ad revenue is greatest.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
> if they wanted aggregates to link to their content I would think hulu would have provided an API to allow it.
They did. It's called the hypertext transfer protocol.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
Hulu is a joint venture of NBC Universal and Fox Entertainment Group. The Hulu management might not precisely be content providers, but the folks holding the purse are.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Couldn't an enterprising screen-scraper also just run it through the same Javascript code? Hulu is forgetting what I like to call the Fundamental Law of DRM: if you make data possible for users to see /hear, it will be possible for a reasonably enterprising user to copy it.
Sure. Except, crappy as the Javascript "encryption" is, now you're in violation of the DMCA by reverse engineering a copy protection mechanism.
More Twoson than Cupertino
This is modded as funny, but it is rather insightful. The people who make business decisions (or what they think are business decisions) don't necessarily understand the things they are messing with. In this case, they obfuscate because they are worried about people pirating content.
Honestly? Hulu is a great service (if you live in the US) but its not a high priority target for piracy. Why go to the effort of ripping a stream with ads in it when the torrent is already out?
But you're not reverse engineering. They're sending you their code, you're just running it!
Do you really believe that all of this content is going to get less available over time? Note that this would essentially contradict all of history.
Yeah, don't bother making copies of those documents at the Great Library of Alexandria.