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Netflix Wants To Go HTML5, But Not Without DRM
FuzzNugget writes "In a recent blog post, Netflix details their plans to transition from Silverlight to HTML5, but with one caveat: HTML5 needs to include a built-in DRM scheme. With the W3C's proposed Encrypted Media Extensions, this may come to fruition. But what would we sacrificing in openness and the web as we know it? How will developers of open source browsers like Firefox respond to this?"
The great thing about Silverlight is its ability to stream content as your internet line can take it. This means Silverlight will dynamically adjust the video and audio bitrate so that even users on less-than-fast lines can stream Silverlight video content.
That is a clear advantage over Flash and/or HTML5 based video content. Another is the easy integration with other projects when using visual studio. It enables you to rapidly develop new software and code.
This being said, the DRM probably isn't as needed by the Netflix itself but the content providers. It most likely says somewhere in their contracts that Netflix has to use DRM when streaming their content. It's the movie studios that demand it, not Netflix.
... they would transition to providing shows I actually want to watch, and in a timely manner.
You went with Silverlight. Now have fun being stuck with Silverlight. The end.
The Studios That Provide Content for Netflix Want To Go HTML5, But Not Without DRM
FTFY
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
also, anything that can be displayed on my screen can be recorded and saved into a file. it doesn't matter if it's in silverlight, flash or html
The only way DRM can work if if you make the decrypted video uncaptureable. So on any system where the root user can read the frame buffer there is no point. HTML5 DRM will only work on systems that have DRM build in to the OS, which is pretty much the same systems that have silverlight.
The only way i can see it ever getting to linux is if the encrypted stream can be passed to rights managed hardware on a GPU. but then if i have a GPU that can effectively play the encrypted stream, why would i ever worry about decrypting it in the first place, i could dump the network stream to disk, and play back through GPU whenever I wanted.
They want DRM but since that doesn't actually work they'll be wanting secure boot with a signed software stack all the way down. This would require the exclusion of Firefox and others. Somehow I doubt the Encrypted Media Extension would actually allow the plugin to work in an open source browser. If it does, then all it really does is allow a locked down app to be displayed in the web browser and get stuff fed into it from said browser. Why not just give people your locked down app and forget about the browser? The browser can still be told to open links using external apps, so this would still allow people to link to videos and such.
I really don't see the need for adding EME to HTML5. What are the actual use cases that don't have simple solutions without it?
Just a side note: to use current Netflix on Linux, guys uses wine + firefox + moonlight. And it works pretty fine. See more here, a working ppa with all the solution working: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2084592 This is a good point about current Linux distros status: if you don't want port your application, no problem, we can simulate your environment. Ok, not FOSS solution, but at least works.
"But what would we sacrificing in openness and the web as we know it?"
Let's recap. The proposal for opened and standardized DRM method in HTML is just a bunch of callback and methods so a media content can say it has a protection and then the web browser can look up in its plugin repository if a DRM plugin can decrypt the content. The HTML part is 100% open and standardized. The actual DRM encryption and keys are not. Which is the point of any DRM scheme.
So adding DRM support into HTML, as media play/pause/method already did, won't make the Web more closed or more proprietary. The opposite is true.
Currently, media owner that choose to use protection for their content must rely on proprietary technologies. With a standard DRM framework (ie for distributing and handling protected content, not the part of decrypting it), at least, we could have much more openness on this kind of content.
Now, adding DRM to HTML does NOT change the web. Should an actor decide to use those DRMs features, you are totally free to NOT use their services. But the thing for sure is that we will have much more actors ready to use standard and open functionality to distribute their content in a protected way.
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I know it's blasphemy to say so, especially on Slashdot, but I have zero problem with Netflix using DRM. Why? It's a rental service. I have not purchased these videos. I do not own them. Therefore I have no expectation of any sort of rights to do what I want with them. So, as while I'm totally against it for things like iTunes or a BluRay. It completely makes sense to me that Netflix needs some sort of mechanism, even if it only keep 99% of people from keeping a local copy.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
I know that people are generally opposed to DRM - shoot, I am one of them, because half the time, it doesn't work right, but if the system works.... I bought an eInk reader a few months back, and actually tried buying books through them, but the books would only stay authorized for a few days - to get them to work again, I had to delete both the book and the sql database off the tablett and resync. CD checks on games are always a bitch, and internet-verification games - shoot, I almost always download cracks for them, even though I legally own them.
But when DRM works fine - IE, I stick a DVD in my player and it plays, or I stick a Blu-Ray in and it plays, I am fine. Oh, upconverting only works over HDMI? No problem, I haven't run component in years (well, except for the XBox as I have one of the early models). What does annoy me is when you get a Blu-Ray that won't play on certain players (ie non-PS3s) until you apply some firmware update (actually, may have the issues with non-patched PS3s as well, but I normally keep it updated to stream Netflix).
I have considered jailbreaking the PS3, though, to play region-locked discs. Luckily, many Blu-Rays are region-free, or are available in the US, but I have come across a few region B locked discs that don't have US releases.
Had to replace an HDMI cable a few months ago because it was having handshake issues. Granted, HDMI cables are only a couple of bucks, but the only issue I had with this cable was that it would loose sync for about half-a-second every 30 minutes or so, didn't really even notice, until I moved and plugged that cable up to my Blu-Ray player instead of to the cable-box, and in my new area, then realizing that my new cable company DRMed everything, even free OTA channels.
Netflix is currently the only streaming video app that seems to work on my rooted Android tablet (Time Warner Cable, Hulu, and Ultraviolet in Flixster won't work on rooted devices), not sure what streaming methodology they are using on Android, but willing to bet its not silverlight. As long as I can still use it on my tablett, I am fine.
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, so I am fine with DRM IF IT WORKS and is WELL IMPLEMENTED. I understand protecting your stuff, and I am a collector, so like to have Physical media in my hands anyways. But if I have authorization errors, handshake issues, and my legal media just doesn't work, I will break your DRM or pirate the product. I tried playing your game, but if you don't play nice....
So, as long as the HTML5 DRM works, I am fine with it.
I know it's blasphemy to say so, especially on Slashdot,
Pretty much yeah.
but I have zero problem with Netflix using DRM
Curious.
It's a rental service. I have not purchased these videos. I do not own them. Therefore I have no expectation of any sort of rights to do what I want with them.
What so? You can (or used to be able to) rent DVDs and do whatever the hell you liked with them within the bounds of copyright law. Making something a rental does not magically make it different.
even if it only keep 99% of people from keeping a local copy.
Says the man with a good internet connection.
I find it much better to download a high quality local copy and then watch that, then delete it (e.g. on iPlayer). That's also a perfectly reasonable way to use such a service, especially as with that I'm not held to ransom by my crappy internet connection.
And can you rent a copy, put it on your phone (no not stream to the phone) as a downloaded copy so you can watch it with no cell service?
You may support defective by design software because it happens to suppor the small subset of things that you happen to do with it, but do not pretend that is is reasonable or lets people do all the reasonable things they want.
There is no technical difference between a reasonable copy for reasonable purposes and an illegal copy for nefarious ones. That is why DRM is always, without exception, bad.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Netflix is facing some hard choices. With Microsoft abandoning Silverlight on its own sites, the writing is on the wall. I say, let Netflix demand anything it pleases, and ignore all such demands. Eventually, Netflix will have to switch from Silverlight to something, and HTML5 is the obvious choice. If Netflix can't get DRM in the standard, they'll still have to find a way to keep streaming using existing standards.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
I'm not a fan of DRM. If I purchase and download a video or audio file, I don't want some stupid protection scheme preventing me from playing it on arbitrary devices. I want to transcode it and watch it on my smart phone. I want to watch it on a Linux box.
But Netflix is a SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE. By paying a monthly fee, I get access to unlimited streaming content, with the tradeoff that I can't just suck content down to my computer and hoard it. So when I choose to end my subscription, access to the unlimited streaming ends. This is a perfectly reasonable business model. It's analogous to renting a DVD vs. buying one. If I buy one, I should be able to rip it. If I rent one, it's unethical for me to rip it. The DRM scheme is orthogonal to this moral dilemma. So as far as Netflix is concerned, the DRM is something I don't even need to know about it, as long as I'm able to reliably stream content I've paid for access to.
People complain about the patent protection on H.264 for content they want to download. But I believe the FSF has even pointed out how this is irrelevant for subscription streaming services. You're paying a subscription fee, and a small portion of this is paid to the patent holder to give you and your provider use of the technology. Keep in mind that patents aren't evil; they're just heavily abused. And use of patented technology in a streaming service isn't abusive (at least not in the case of Netflix).
In other words what we want isn't "no DRM." What we want is control over media we've rightfully paid for. Most of us aren't pirates. We just want our money's worth. What that means, in many cases, is a requirement for "no DRM." When you're using a subscripion service, failure to access the content you've paid for is an IT problem, not an abuse of DRM. (The fact that Netflix isn't yet available for Linux is a side issue. That's a gap in platform support, not a DRM problem.)
Oh, and one other point: Supporting DRM is WAY MORE of a pain for Netflix than it is for the user. For most users (except those on unsupported platforms), Netflix "just works." Netflix engineers have to wrestle with this stupid impediment in order to do what they really want to do, which is to stream content. But they can't get that content without satifying the content providers who demand the use of DRM. If you really want to pick on someone, go after the content companies.
HTML is a markup language that attempts to be cross platform and presentation agnostic, whereas DRM is all about controlling the user experience.
1) DRM is not an actual type of media content, it's just a way of regulating access in time and space: It's like the bad old days when HTML designers were forcing us to browse their websites EXACTLY in 800x600 on a particular browser. Here you're supposed to have EXACTLY the right credentials from EXACTLY the right secure enviromnent. This is just as stupid. Today most people browse the web from a phone where even desktop style drop down menus from 5 years ago are a pain.
2) DRM in HTML kills web pages: Documents and web pages are timeless. Any web page that exists today, if it is archived, can be displayed 10 years from now. But in 10 years, the DRM content will be impossible to read because either the authentication servers are gone, or your credentials no longer work, or the product has been discontinued, etc. Either way, a web page becomes corrupted for reading. Documents are archivable. Digital rights are not.
3) DRM makes the Internet brittle: If you have DRM on lots of web pages, when it goes stale it's going to be like 404's without Google's page cache. Is that the web we want?
4) DRM support has no business being part of HTML: The HTML standard is already a very complex language. Anyone who wants to implement a web browser or HTML parser has to support a lot of things. There's no reason why DRM should be supported as well, just to have a standards compliant HTML parsing system.
5) The end result of 4) is that programmers and companies who must support HTML documents, as it gets more complex, won't implement the full standard, just the tiny bits they actually need. Then we'll be back in the 90s with incompatible browsers and parsers everywhere.
6) DRM breaks transparency. For example, think about what it takes to implement a spam filter that parses HTML pages as in 4). With DRM content locking away parts of an HTML document, this breaks the security model. A random spam filter is obviously not going to have account access to view/scan whatever the content is, so either it lets it through (hello spammers/phishers) or it blocks it without trying (hello user complaints).
7) If companies like Netflix want DRM, they should put it where it already belongs, at the server in the authentication part of the HTTP protocol. HTML is a document format for content, digital rights aren't content.
8) Alternatively, Netflix can build a DRM plugin and require its users to use it. Oh but wait, with all the different browsers we're now using, that would be painful to support everywhere, right? Much better to ask the WHOLE WORLD to support DRM and keep it up to date, so that Netflix doesn't need to do anything! Wrong. DRM is sufficiently niche that those companies that want to use it should implement it themselves, and support it themselves. It's common sense.
9) DRM is a business model, not a content markup. And as business models go, it's quite expensive to implement, since a single breach in the chain invalidates it and we all know that some hackers crack those chains just for fun. So it's natural that Netflix doesn't want to pay for it, and prefers to externalise the cost to the Internet at large. We shouldn't let it.
10) I'm starting to repeat myself, so I'll stop now. Just say no to DRM in HTML.
Sorry if I somehow misread your sentiment though...
Well, yes you did and it would seem somewhat intentionally, because my post wasn't "DRM is bad because it's DRM", but "DRM is bad because it prevents perfectly legetimate use since it is impossible to destinguish between legetimate use and illegetimate use".
And I provided some examples, which you ignored.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Silverlight is going to be discontinued and more and more devices are released that don't support it. I'd call that "something wrong with it".
I wonder if Netflix really understands its own benefit to its customers.
1. Anyone can get any show they want from 'illegal' areas like torrents or various streaming websites.
In short, if I actually wanted to get illegal content, I, like everyone else out there can already do it.
The reason we go with Netflex is because it is very convenient to not have to sit around searching torrents, encoding/decoding video files, dealing with crappy hosting websites, dealing with suspicious malware, hacking around with javascript ...
Netflix is cheap enough to get paid for convenience.
It is the convenience we are paying for with Netflix.
So what exactly is NetFlix trying to prevent us from doing with DRM? I have no idea. If we want to go through all that trouble, we'd be torrenting anyways.
You method of control is pretty simple netflix. Track users and what they are watching. If you see too many people using the same account from different countries or whatever, then you know someone is sharing the account. I'm assuming they can do this in HTML5... or maybe I'm mistaken.
But DRM? You have no need for it NetFlix.
Right now Amazon is an extreme heavyweight in retail and multimedia fields, a little like Walmart, Apple (for the later), etc.
These companies have a lot of leverage. For a while, Netflix on the other hand, wasn't doing well at all, losing a lot of content providers under its wings...they ended up on the beggar role, to some extent. If Amazon says "Play by our rules or get out", a lot of companies will play by their rule. If Netflix says "play by our rules or get out", well, we saw what happened. They get out.