How Much Data Plan Bandwidth Is Wasted By DRM?

Bennett Haselton writes: "If you watch a movie or TV show (legally) on your mobile device while away from your home network, it's usually by streaming it on a data plan. This consumes an enormous amount of a scarce resource (data bundled with your cell phone provider's data plan), most of it unnecessarily, since many of those users could have downloaded the movie in advance on their home broadband connection — if it weren't for pointless DRM restrictions." Read on for the rest of Bennett's thoughts.

T-Mobile may not have great coverage — on our way to the Olympic National Park, my T-Mobile phone stopped working a long time before my friend's Verizon phone did — but I switched two weeks ago because the $80/month plan came with unlimited data, and I thought it would be convenient to watch Netflix streaming content and queued shows on Hulu from anywhere in the city. Since then I've been using data at about 10 times the rate that I did when I was capped at 2GB/month on Verizon.

But there was never any good reason that any of that data had to be downloaded over my data plan at all. I always know in advance what I'm going to be watching on Hulu, and almost always what I'm going to be watching on Netflix, which means if the apps would let me, I would rather download and queue up those movies and shows over my home broadband connection, and then watch the locally saved copies on the go. Hulu and Netflix would make at least the same profit off of me as they do now — I would still be watching Hulu's mandated advertisements before each show, and I would still be paying my monthly Netflix subscription. The difference is that I wouldn't be wasting a limited resource by downloading the content over my data plan. Even if my plan comes with unlimited data, that's not without costs, since one of the reasons I had to upgrade to unlimited data (and give up the broader Verizon coverage in the process) is that I can't download this content in advance at home. Otherwise, Verizon's sub-2GB data cap would have been fine with me.

Unfortunately, Hulu and Netflix apps both make it impossible to save their content locally, presumably due to a misguided attempt at DRM. ("DRM" is often used to refer to static content which has been encrypted in a way to make it difficult to copy; I'm using it more broadly here to include the practice of streaming content in a way which makes it difficult for users to save the content to a local file.)

(It has been pointed out, for example by Timothy Geigner on Techdirt, that data plan bandwidth may not truly be a "scarce resource" at all, and providers impose the data caps just to extract more money from users. The irony, though, is that even if the "scarcity" of cell phone plan data is not real, the streaming of content still constitutes waste of a precious resource, because users waste resources dealing with the data cap — prioritizing which content to download, or figuring out how to download the content illegally at home so they can save it as a local file. Or, they may simply decide to go without having the content on the go because they don't have enough data on their data plan — this counts as a deadweight economic loss caused by the DRM as well.)

You might think that the apps do not allow locally saved copies because the copyright owners prohibit it, but the Google Play app, for example, does allow you to download a saved copy of any content that you have rented or purchased from the Google Play store. (If you "rent" a movie or TV show episode from the Google Play store, you can still save it locally, but some predetermined time after you start watching the content, the content will "expire" and the file will be deleted.) So there is precedent for a non-fly-by-night company allowing you to save a local copy of content that you have paid for the right to access. So why not Hulu and Netflix?

I fear it may be that either the copyright holders, or the lawyers at Hulu and Netflix themselves, have been led to believe that locally saved content is easier to pirate, and neither of them want to be pegged as responsible for enabling piracy. This is fallacious for a couple of reasons: (a) If it's that easy, why hasn't it happened on a large scale with movies from Google Play, which can be saved locally? (b) Streaming content is just as easy to pirate, by, as a last resort, holding up a video camera to a screen playing the movie. (Yes, most users would not bother, but for piracy to occur, only one user in the entire world has to go to the trouble of doing this, and once it's done, an unprotected copy will be freely available on peer-to-peer networks for as long as people have any interest in the movie at all.) Which leads to: (c) Any user technically savvy enough to figure out how to pirate streamed content, is obviously going to be savvy enough to simply download the same content from p2p networks. In other words, forcing users to stream content instead of watching it from locally saved copies, gains the copyright holders and the app makers exactly nothing.

If I had to save content locally in the Hulu app before watching it, of course I'd have to watch ads before the content started playing, just as I do with the streaming version. In that scenario, if I had the time, I could probably try to find a black-market application that would watch the saved content without the ads, but like probably 90% of users, I probably wouldn't bother. And if I did want to make the effort, I'd just BitTorrent a copy of the movie or TV show instead, instead of trying to defeat copy protection on the local saved file.

I have no idea how much data plan bandwidth is used every day on content that users would have preferred downloading at home in advance, but it seems like a non-trivial percentage. Most Hulu and Netflix viewing is of movies or TV shows that you knew in advance you would want to watch, and could have saved. On the other hand, this wouldn't be true of random browsing of YouTube videos in the kind of mindset where you just watch a 60-second clip, feel mildly amused, and watch whatever comes up next in the recommendations bar to the right. Ironically, as you read these words, multiple telecommunications companies are drawing up plans to roll out billions of dollars' worth of communications infrastructure to provide more data services to more users — meanwhile, we could vastly increase the utility of the existing infrastructure with just the flick of a switch. (Well, a couple of switches -- convincing the copyright holders, and the Netflix and Hulu legal departments, that locally saved content is not illegal, as Google Play has shown, and could in fact make them more money. Hulu, after all, is making more money off of me now than the used to, since I'm watching more of their shows on the road, and viewing more of their ads.)

With a static download model, I'm sure the overwhelming majority of Hulu and Netflix users would go on paying (and Hulu would probably actually make more money, from the increased ad views). I would even start the day the same way, before even getting out of bed — by taking the phone on the bedside table, loading up a queued Hulu show, and getting the ad out of the way, then pausing just as the real show begins so that later on I can start watching it immediately. Because it just feels good to start the day with a feeling of accomplishment.

Comments

P2P

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM is optional. Always.

Re:P2P

[jandrese]

P2P won't help your goal of using less bandwidth however.

Re:P2P

[geminidomino]

In the context of the wall of text that is the post/summary, yes it will. The argument wasn't that the bandwidth overhead of DRM is huge, it's that you can't pre-download and cache what you want to watch while on the home network and watch it on the go without chewing up your mobile data plan.

P2P lets you do just that.

Re:P2P

[Kaenneth]

less costly bandwidth tho.

Re:P2P

[Dynedain]

And the premise is wrong.

Plenty of content stores allow you to pre-download the content (iTunes comes to mind) and watch at your leisure with or without a data connection. DRM is irrelevant.

The poster is intentionally trying to conflate DRM with Streaming Media.

Re:P2P

[TsuruchiBrian]

You can cache songs on google music.

I agree with Dynedain that the problem isn't that DRM wastes bandwidth, it's that *some* companies have DRM schemes which do not allow caching.

It's not like encrypted data coming over a network is more secure than encrypted data in a file on a hard drive. I have wireshark. I can store the incoming network packets to a file.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

OK yes, that's a more accurate way of putting it.

But that just makes it seem all the more pointless since other companies (e.g. Google Play) have implemented DRM schemes that *do* allow local savings, and it hasn't killed their business or caused the content providers to come after them.

Re:P2P

[Dynedain]

Hulu and Netflix use streaming models. Whether or not they use DRM is irrelevant.

iTunes has both DRM and DRM-free content. They operate a model where you download. Both formats work for offline playback.

Amazon also has pay now, consume later content. Again, with and without DRM.

Spotify, which operates on primarily streaming model, offers content for local download and offline playback. Again, DRM doesn't affect this ability.

Your entire premise and argument is flawed because you equate DRM to Streaming.

Re:P2P

[TsuruchiBrian]

I am sure a lot of people think caching files is a security risk. But I don't think this is the reason that some content services don't support caching. I'm assuming a company like Netflix probably has encryption/DRM experts working for them. These people surely know that caching encrypted files pose no additional security risk. I think they just haven't implemented it because they don't think it would be a useful feature.

The memory on my phone is pretty limited. I think I have 16GB of memory and most of that is taken up by apps. One of the reasons I like streaming is because I don't have to consume the flash memory on my phone.

If netflix enabled caching on their mobile app, I suspect they would spend millions of dollars and in the end not many people would use it, and of the people who did, they would get complaints that they could only cache 4 files before they ran out of space.

I think once memory in smartphones increases to the point where this caching feature becomes much more useful to more people, it wil be worth it for Netflix to implement.

Re:P2P

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh...but you missed the part where he redefined DRM to be defined as anything that makes the particular use case that he's complaining about difficult:

I'm using it more broadly here to include the practice of streaming content in a way which makes it difficult for users to save the content to a local file.

If you can redefine popular terms such that you're actually arguing a tautology, it's much easier to convince yourself that your logic is sound.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

That sounds like it could be right, but Google Play must have made the same calculation at some point, and they went with the conclusion that it was worth it to support downloading and pinning. Every time I'm taking a plane trip, I get content from Google Play and nowhere else for exactly that reason.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

I am talking about streaming which is DRMed in a manner that makes it impossible to save the contents as a file. (Normal streams are pretty easy to save as a file.) I probably should have said "DRMed streams" in the article title to make it clearer.

Re:P2P

[TsuruchiBrian]

I think maybe it makes sense for google play because they also do music. Music files are smaller, and so I can see this feature being more useful. Once they have the software infrastructure for caching written, to enable it for video as well was probably trivial.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

Hmm, why would it be more useful for music files? The usefulness of this feature is equal to the difference in convenience between caching the content, and streaming it. The larger the file, the greater the difference in convenience -- which, by that logic, would make it more "convenient" for movies than for music files.

Re:P2P

[Dahamma]

Actually, I agree with him, the premise of your post is mostly wrong.

It actually has almost NOTHING to do with DRM. It's just about policy. And you can say that you are including that "policy" in your definition of DRM, but DRM has a pretty simple definition and the way you acquire the content is not part of it.

All of the downloadable solutions from iTunes, VUDU, Amazon, etc still have DRM. In fact, in many cases it's the same stream that is downloaded as streamed, and the same DRM to decrypt it. Some implementations require an Internet connection to get the license/keys, and some can get it up front for offline playback. But there is NOTHING about the technology that is preventing downloads.

DRM, as in making the content only available when you have paid for it or have an active subscription, is not the problem in this case. Netflix and Hulu's policy not to allow downloads is the problem. If they (and the studios, who are likely mandating the policy) decided to allow downloads of encrypted streams, they'd still prevent 95% of the casual piracy (as in, "ok, I don't subscribe to Netflix any more but hey, I still have all of the content I downloaded forever - good deal for $8!") while providing a great feature to customers.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

Of course you're right that the policy of Hulu and Netflix is the real problem, but the problem is also that it's enforced via DRM which makes it impossible for third parties to write tools that could save the stream to your hard drive. Both the bad policy and the DRM have to exist at the same time for the problem to exist; removing either of those would solve the problem (although fixing their policy would be a better solution).

Re:P2P

[TsuruchiBrian]

I think the convenience of it also depends on how many minutes/hours of content you are actually able to cache on a phone with limited memory. You can cache a lot of music on a phone. You can't cache very much high def video.

If we assumed that you *had* to watch 5 minutes of 4k resolution video on your phone on an airplane, then being able to cache it would probably be very convenient.

I would much rather have 500 minutes of cached music over 5 minutes of cached 4k video on an airplane.

Maybe "convenient" is not the right word. Maybe utility is the right word. There is currently not as much utility in being able to cache high bitrate files on phones with limited memory, but it is certainly convenient to be able to cache large amounts of data if you absolutely need them offline.

Re:P2P

[geminidomino]

I'm not trying to defend DRM, but this is not factually correct. There are a number of modern DRMs (including some of the most widely used) that support caching of content and even off-line use.

None of which are used by the Netflix and Hulu cell phone apps, which is the context being talked about here. If you'd bothered to even read it, you'd see that he even explicitly mentions that Google Play allows exactly this.

Re:P2P

[Dynedain]

You still don't get it.

If they want to, Streaming providers can build ways of allowing offline playback, and still use DRM. Spotfiy does this today.

Instead of complaining about DRM, you should be complaining about Streaming. If my phone can't store a full clip, then whether or not DRM is used has 0 impact on whether or not I stream on each playback or cache it.

Your aggrandizing is not the deep philosophical question you think it is, and there are plenty of examples on how companies have solved your non-issue. Whether or not companies choose to invest and do so is a completely different discussion than "How much bandwidth is wasted by DRM"

Re:P2P

[Dynedain]

It is not DRM that enforces it. In fact, I don't think you understand what DRM is.

If I write a proprietary video player, using a proprietary codec, and I stream you videos that only work in that player, that is not DRM just because I was too lazy to provide you a local caching method.

DRM is not "make it inconvenient for me to use with something else". Digital Rights Management is verifying that playback is appropriately licensed. That's it. A key requirement of any DRM schemes is "make it inconvenient to copy" and "make it inconvenient to play with something else that might allow copying". But that doesn't automatically mean that anything difficult to work with is magically DRM protected.

Your question and argument is that DRM is substantially impacting bandwidth, which is patently untrue.With or without DRM, the volume of streaming traffic will be effectively the same. The vast majority of people do not and will not cache content unless their playback/media management system provides that functionality. Streaming is here to stay because it is convenient. Spotify, iTunes Radio, Pandora, etc are destroying the MP3 market the same way iTunes and Amazon MP3s destroyed the CD market. Because the convenience of instantly playing something unplanned and on demand is more desirable than convenience of carrying around a curated library of personal favorites.

Yes, there will always be room and a need for hybrid approaches for streaming vs. local cache, and the market is experimenting with those business models and technology patterns now. But again, the impact is not driven by DRM, but by how people expect to engage with their media.

Re:P2P

[Dynedain]

Wow, I was going to say almost the same thing (even about his argument being tatological) but you summarized it much more elegantly.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

Like I just said: I'm talking about when companies use streaming AND use DRM to prevent the users from saving the streams as a file.

The companies could ameliorate this by modifying their apps to allow local caching, OR by removing the DRM from the streams so that people could save the streams themselves.

Of course there are examples of companies that have done the former, I cited Google Play as an example.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

It seems you have two separate points here:
1) I was using "DRM" to include Netflix and Hulu streaming content in a way that is encrypted to make copying difficult, but you're saying that's an incorrect usage because the playback does not involve verifying any license rights. OK. Then call the article "How Much Data Plan Bandwidth Is Wasted By Proprietary Encrypted Streaming?" and the rest of the argument still holds.
2) You're saying that streaming is "here to stay", which is obviously true, but the examples that you cited are all music streaming services, where I think people prefer more spontaneity. For TV shows and movies, people more often have some idea in advance of what they're going to watch later, and they would be more likely to cache it on their devices to save on data plan usage, if that was an option.

Re:P2P

[Dynedain]

Congratulations, you just said in 3 sentences what previously it took you 9 paragraphs and a misleading title to do.

You answered your own question, and pointed to several companies doing it in ways that are very public and which are well understood by the /. audience.

You didn't bring any new understanding, and you didn't prompt a meaningful discussion with an open-ended question. You simply ranted for 9 paragraphs about how Streaming and DRM collectively suck because you personally can't pre-download specific content from certain specific services.

Tips:
  Tailor your questions to your audience. If you know the answer already, the /. users probably already do as well. When that happens, rewrite your question to be open-ended!
  If your goal is to encourage discussion, ask the question, and then step back to let your audience answer it.
  Use the right terms, don't redefine them to mean something else just so it supports your argument.

Overall, you would have gotten a lot less flack if your post was:

What's the future of digital media delivery?
With recent focus on streaming media services, customers are caught in the battle between content producers and network provider data/bandwidth caps. Will more streaming services build in local caching like Spotify or Google Play? Will we see the end of DRM-protected content like iTunes? Will DRM become enshrined in cross-service standards like HTML proposals? Does anyone manage this problem well and make money at? Is the idea of personal content libraries dead? Is streaming a sustainable business model?

Everything you said in your original post would have been brought up and compared in the discussion threads and /.ers would be appreciative of the discussion instead of badmouthing your writing abilities and your non-argument.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

The new understanding is that there's not much awareness of discussion of how much bandwidth is wasted in this way. Can you point to a single article anywhere, prior to this one, pointing out how much data plan bandwidth is wasted every day by proprietary streaming that can't be cached locally?

Of course I'm going to provide an answer if I think I have one, not just pose the question and then stop. What would be the point of that? If people have other answers, or reasons why they think my answer is wrong, that's what the comments are for.

Re:P2P

[Dynedain]

1) The argument doesn't hold just because you swap the terms. Instead, the article should be titled "Why doesn't Netflix allow local caching of streamed content like Google Play?". Your entire argument is that there are business decisions at play, which has absolutely nothing to do with the technical delivery methods or hot-button issues like DRM and data caps. And the fact that this is driven by business decisions is the blatantly obvious answer that anyone in this community would give. So what is the value to the Slashdot community in your long post vs. an open-ended question?

2) I used Music because it's a clearer example of sequential changes in business models being driven by user behaviors rather than DRM or business decisions. Video digital distribution effectively happened later (bandwidth feasibility) and so the various models of distribution are being tested and offered simultaneously, and content providers are trying to learn from the Music example.

Your approach to this whole story makes it look like you're abusing your editorial privileges to pat yourself of the back for proving how smart you are. I'm sure this is unintentional, and you truly meant to inspire discussion. But the format and content of your message is insulting to your community who are here to engage, not to simply listen. (did you pay attention to the community vs. audience discussion in the beta shitshow?). John Katz has been mentioned elsewhere on this topic. As an editor he did the same thing back in the early 2000's, and the Slashdot community universally loathed him for it.

I said this elsewhere, but I'll repeat it here. If you ask us a question, let us answer it. Ask good questions, that are designed to draw out discussion, and we'll like you for it. Ask the obvious, and then proceed to give us the answer in sermon form before we get a word in edgewise, and you'll continue down the John Katz road.

Re:P2P

[Dynedain]

If your question truly is "how much bandwidth is wasted", you didn't try to answer it. Instead you immediately veered off into a different argument about DRM = Streaming = BAD = Business Decisions.

If you want an answer, total up the estimates of YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu traffic and divide it by the estimated number of unique views (instead of repeat views).

Compare with the data rates of download-only services and make a case for whether or not instant availability is worth the sacrifice.

Do that, and this probably would have been the discussion you had hoped it to be.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

I meant "how much" as in "too much", not in an attempt to pin down a precise number. As in, if someone asks, "How many kids have gotten sick because of Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccine activism?", they're probably not looking for an exact number, just calling attention to the problem.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

I like questions which appear to have an obvious answer but where the obvious answer is wrong, and masks a deeper and more interesting problem. The trouble with posing questions like that is that everybody starts shouting out the obvious "answer" and facepalming when you don't agree with them.

Of course these decisions are "business-driven decisions". Well, duh. That's the obvious answer, and it's not wrong, but it just raises more questions.

Here's the question with the non-obvious answer: Why have market forces, which are supposed to lead to approximately optimal outcomes, resulted in such a clearly non-optimal outcome in this case, with so much data plan bandwidth being wasted? In other words, if many users would like to have the option to cache content locally (so that they can watch it on the go without using up their data plan), and if it's legal for content providers to do that (e.g. Google Play), then why haven't competitive forces led to either Netflix or Hulu to offer that? Which assumption does not hold -- that users don't want to be able to watch movies on the go without using up too much data, or that market forces don't work effectively on the companies in question?

Re:P2P

[Dynedain]

That would have been a much better question.

My short hypothesis to this new question is that Netflix and Hulu are tied to a business model that requires focuses on ease of use. If you've used either of their apps, they are very simplistic, especially compared to an interface like iTunes which tries to do it all. Netflix and Hulu both focus on doing one thing in the digital distribution space, and doing it well.

In fact, it's quite telling that Apple, the undisputed king of focusing on user experience, has such a challenge in iTunes. Making a myriad of conflicting user scenarios straightforward and non-daunting is a very difficult task. Once are talking about offline storage, you open up your platform to be impacted by a lot of things that are outside your control. The most obvious ones being available space, library management, and available resource management. Imagine having to replicate all but the sharing functionality of DropBox, and do it within your simple media browsing and playback app. The result is going to be something akin to the monstrosity of iTunes.

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

OK. For future reference any time I'm raising a question of "What a shitshow this situation is" the implied "interesting" question is "Why hasn't the market led to a more optimal outcome here?"

For example, that was the subtext of an article I wrote about a Stratosphere phone that I hated:
http://mobile-beta.slashdot.or...
If the phone had been a dud in the marketplace, I wouldn't have bothered. But since it shipped millions of units, I thought the interesting question was how the marketplace doesn't lead to better outcomes in terms of usability (and then went on to a proposed answer, and a proposed solution).

Re:P2P

[Dynedain]

There are many other questions, specific to the situation at hand, but that general one is a good abstracted start that you can use to generate the questions that this community will thrive on.

But separate your answer from your question. Generally speaking the Slashdot users want to engage, and when you present something as a fully answered question akin to a thesis or whitepaper, it turns off this crowd. In that scenario you will only get contrarian responses at best.

Use the medium and the community for its strengths, rather than a comments section for an otherwise push-technology like the typical news website.

But again, consider your goals for the discussion, and structure your message to drive the kinds of responses you want. By this I mean the formatting, the voice the length, and the style rather than the content of your argument. In a technical analogy I'd point to the underlying SQL structure of a database query and response, rather than the specific field names requested (your argument) or data returned (responses).

Re:P2P

[bennetthaselton]

OK. There's always an implied "Can you think of a reason why my answer is wrong?" or "Can you think of a better answer?" in all of my arguments, but maybe I can make that more explicit. But in the notorious Fifth Amendment article, I stressed very clearly, I want you to tell me your answer to this question, and most people still missed the point.

I do think however that if someone has an answer to my question, they should post it whether or not I have included my own answer to the same question. Surely it would be irrational for me not to supply an answer that I think is right, and surely it would be irrational for someone else not to post their answer just because I'd already supplied one.

Re:P2P

[Dahamma]

He did read the post, and in fact has made about a dozen good comments on it in this thread.

It's not about DRM, since the DRM is perfectly capable of supporting downloaded content. It's about specific Netflix and Hulu business policy. The every title is "HOW MUCH BANDWIDTH WASTED BY DRM?", which basically makes the entire post a misguided argument against DRM (and like the OP I'm not really trying to defend it, but I dislike inaccurate information posted as fact and logical fallacies and more than DRM :) The whole post is a rant against the usual powderpuff slashdot topic of DRM, with the critical flaw that, even though there are a number of valid arguments against it, this wasn't one of them.

Anyway, the real answer to that question would be "almost none" beyond a simple license/key download, which is probably max a couple kilobytes.

Re:P2P

[greenfruitsalad]

wtf? how can you concentrate on anything other than this piece of information: "because the $80/month plan came with unlimited data"

i didn't even know tariffs could cost that much; especially in the land of the cheap. in some european markets it's normal to pay 10-15 Euro for unlimited data on a 1 month rolling contract and even less if you sign up for longer. and i do mean unlimited. my provider simply throttles the download speed to 512Kbps after 10GB.

How much more is wasted by advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see a penny of that money either.

Re:How much more is wasted by advertising

[Kardos]

In theory, you see less cost for the product with the application of advertising. In practise, hahahahaha.

Re:How much more is wasted by advertising

[Opportunist]

But at least it's fairly easy to avoid wasting bandwidth on that.

Re:How much more is wasted by advertising

[Dahamma]

How much are *you* paying for your Slashdot account, then? Mine is pretty cheap...

Re:How much more is wasted by advertising

[rogoshen1]

I'm too young to remember this from firsthand experience -- but initially wasn't cable tv ad free? (Since you know, you're paying for access in the first place.. thus negating the need for commercials)

Advertising does nothing but insult the intelligence of the viewer, and try to separate said viewer from their money -- all for shit that they don't need :(

Re:How much more is wasted by advertising

[Some_Llama]

"I'm too young to remember this from firsthand experience -- but initially wasn't cable tv ad free?"

yes it was, except for the network stations that came over cable, but then ads appeared there too in the auspice of "defraying the overall bill for cable" even though the cable rates keep getting higher while the channels you got decreased. then they added crappy channels to keep the "packages" the same size but still decrease the actual content you wanted. I have direct TV and about 30% of the channels that come with my "package" are infomercial channels with no actual programming other than commercials.

i dread the day they can read or broadcast to our minds because you won't get a moment's peace except for "THIS MOMENT OF PEACE BROUGHT TO YOU BY SNACKY CAKES!!!, ENJOY SNACKY CAKES............I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THAT MOMENT OF PEACE BROUGHT TO YOU BY SNACKY CAKES!!!"

Here's the real waste:

[Anonymous Coward]

Without DRM, the Internet providers could proxy more popular streams, quite reducing the backbone traffic.

Re:Here's the real waste:

[jellomizer]

Without DRM, most of the content providers will not provide legal content for you to download.

The key problem with digital streaming media, is that there is no physicality. So the core values of supply and demand gets out of whack. As we can get a near infinite supply thus reducing the price to 0. However the cost to make such material is much more. What DRM does is set an artificial limit on supply, thus keeping the cost high.
While it is easy to jump to this as being yet an other example how companies are screwing us over. But in short these companies will not be able to operate if they give away their product at a loss. Unless you really want you tax money going towards movie makers, and if the feds start paying for the movies, there is just a quick step to make sure propaganda gets sent across.

Re:Here's the real waste:

[Iamthecheese]

The only problem is that the market doesn't fit the billing practices. The only solution is to change billing practices to fit the market.

1. Be trustworthy.
2. Charge a fee upfront to produce content.
3. Use the collected money to produce. Publish via multicast and peer-to-peer. No DRM, no bullshit. Everyone gets to see it whether or not they paid.
4. Only produce when enough people have paid enough for the next feature.

If there aren't enough people paying in then it's not worth it to make.

Re:Here's the real waste:

[BronsCon]

Yes! I have a fixed entertainment budget, more or less, and something like this would enable me to give more of that to the music and movie industries. I sure wouldn't mind being able to encourage the production of things I like and discourage the production of things I don't by throwing money where I want it *BEFORE* the fact, taking the wind out of the sails of the "we lost money because of piracy" set (by showing that they simply didn't *make* money due to lack of interest).

Re:Here's the real waste:

[vipw]

not relevant. DRM infested streaming media is still cacheable. The same data is sent to everyone -- no one uses per session encryption because it's an even more pointless waste of money. Only the decryption keys are delivered by the DRM system.

Re:Here's the real waste:

[Sloppy]

No, no, no. This is just plain incorrect.

Copyright does what you're describing. Before anyone ever heard of DRM, we already had hundreds of years of experience with copyright doing the job. Nearly every corporate "content provider" you've heard of, built their fortune and become the big name that you recognize today, through sales or rentals of non-DRM content. (Netflix being a notable exception.)

DRM has nothing to do with arts-patron taxes, "giving away at a loss" or content-providers' revenue. (Uhr.. except so far as it decreases their revenue, the same way that telling customers "fuck you" decreases revenue in any industry.) If you want to prevent an arts tax and also support a society with many creators, you should be against DRM, not for it. DRM only keeps people out (both supply and demand).

Re:Here's the real waste:

[Dynedain]

DRM is a tool for ensuring copyright is respected.

In this case the parent is pretty clearly arguing copyright alone is insufficient because digital distribution has made supply and demand an ineffective tools for managing copyright.

DRM brings back the ability for publishers to use supply and demand economics by enforcing copyrights.

Re:Here's the real waste:

[TheP4st]

Without DRM, most of the content providers will not provide legal content for you to download.

DRM schemes that cripple content as badly as the Hulu and Netflix are counter productive when close to 100% of the content that is available for streaming can with a minimum of effort be obtained via torrent sites without the any of the restrictions imposed by DRM. I can only see two reasons why DRM such as theirs are implemented:
1. What I just wrote make too much sense for the MAAFIA to comprehend.
2. The MAAFIA acknowledge what I wrote as correct but want to be able to point fingers and screaming [infantile rolling on the floor tantrum]"Evil pirates, we give them legal options on-line but they still steal our content. Hang them all!"[/infantile rolling on the floor tantrum]

Re:Here's the real waste:

[david_thornley]

That doesn't work. Can I specify the book marketplace without loss of generality?

Under it, I have to trust the author not only to produce the story that is promised, but trust that I'll like it. I can only make the decision to buy a book long before I actually get the thing. I can't make the decision after I read the reviews or talk to a friend about it. Therefore, I get less for my money. (You can argue that I get more because there's much more in the public domain, but that's irrelevant to me as a purchaser. I'm not really a patron of the arts; I'm just happy to pay for what I enjoy and know that much of that money goes to the artist (when it does, anyway). Anything I actually pay money for is worth less under this model because I get it later and with less assurance that I'll like it.) This means that total money going into the book field decreases.

Authors, under this model, will not get any money from their first book, because who's going to pay for something by an unknown person with no track record for trustworthiness and no known quality? It will take several books for them to establish a track record, and they'll earn little from them. They will have no chance of having a book become far more popular than expected and making a lot of money from that. They will be competing for fewer dollars.

So, net, it's going to be far harder to break into writing books. They'll be even less lucrative than they are now. There won't be the possibility of striking it big. There won't be even the possibility of making it big on the first book, like J.K. Rowling.

Now, writing stories is fun, if you like that sort of thing. Rewriting and polishing stories is, in general, not as much fun. Most authors need an editor, who isn't having nearly as much fun. Somebody has to consistency-check the book (make sure a minor character's name is constant between uses, for example), and evaluate the likelihood of being sued for libel, which will probably end a new author's career. The idea that creators will create ignores the considerable quality gap between initial creation and polished work.

I can't see how this proposal would work anywhere near as well as what we already have, flawed as it is. If it's the only possible solution, the world will be poorer for it.

But streaming is easy!

[nullchar]

Yes, downloading videos in advance over a wired or local wireless network does save you precious mobile bandwidth when you view the content later.

But, streaming is easy. The consumer does not have to pre-decide what they want to watch if they stream. They're not sure if they want to watch a TED talk or the final Colbert Report while "roaming".

With Google Play, I can "pin" a show on wifi and watch it later, assuming I want to watch it later. It's still DRM protected. The bandwidth savvy consumer would like to download more content and play it back at any time, but do those consumers even exist as the majority anymore?

Re:But streaming is easy!

[gstoddart]

But, streaming is easy. The consumer does not have to pre-decide what they want to watch if they stream.

And expensive if you're being charged for the download.

Which means there is a good chance there are companies who are:

1) getting paid when you 'purchase' it
2) getting paid extortion fees to not throttle the bandwidth from the company that streams it
3) getting paid by the consumer every time they watch it.

The bandwidth savvy consumer would like to download more content and play it back at any time, but do those consumers even exist as the majority anymore?

If they aren't, they should be. When I 'buy' a digital copy of a movie, what I want is the ability to keep it local on my device, watch it whenever I want (including times when I have no connectivity), and not have to ask their permission every time I watch it.

That's what I have in iTunes. When I get a digital copy, it's stored offline in my computer, I can sync it to any device using iTunes, and I can play it back wherever I like.

And, if I can't have that, I will continue to rip my large collection of actual DVDs, and play them when I want. And I will refuse to give companies any money towards a digital copy which I pay for once, stream, pay for the bandwidth of streaming, and then if I ever want to do it again have to go through the whole process.

When streaming bandwidth is infinitely cheap, maybe. But as long as there are situations in which I want to be able to watch content completely offline -- in a plane, in a car, on the beach, at the cottage, in the doctor's office waiting room -- the notion of streaming it every time is absurd.

Re:But streaming is easy!

[Anonymous Coward]

iTunes is nice, provided you use Windows, OS X, or an iDevice. However, it is worthless if one wants to leave those environments. Want to watch on an Android tablet? Apple's DRM says no.

Re:But streaming is easy!

[sjames]

There's no need for them to be an actual majority. Besides that, they could show others how to do it.

Re:But streaming is easy!

[gstoddart]

iTunes is nice, provided you use Windows, OS X, or an iDevice. However, it is worthless if one wants to leave those environments. Want to watch on an Android tablet? Apple's DRM says no.

Yup, and it sucks. Which is why I own both an Android tablet, and an Apple tablet+iPods.

But I'm limiting this rant to streaming vs non-streaming and how DRM affects that.

Re:But streaming is easy!

[MozeeToby]

Yes, but the consumer could give Hulu permission to save, say 2 hours of content locally, and let Hulu guess what content the user will want later (with the option for the user request specific shows). If I watch 2 episodes of Futurama on the bus to work every day it won't take long for Hulu to figure that out and grab it over Wifi when available, falling back to 4g if it's guessed wrong or I do something unexpected. I won't be perfect but the worst case would be what we have now and the best case would be almost no mobile data usage.

Re:But streaming is easy!

[fermion]

You are paying for streaming. It is not necessarily the DRM. On Hulu it is the need to stream a bit, then make sure the user experience is interrupted for at the least the possibility of commercials. On Netflix, it is so that they can keep the price lower by not competing with people the people who are willing to pay for rental of purchase to keep a local copy.

If bandwidth cost is an issue, then perhaps the solution is to rent or purchase the content. Maybe if aero is avaible in your market, this might be an option. I don't know if they allow buffering of a whole show. Rent or purchase may be competitive depending on the data costs.

Re:But streaming is easy!

[nullchar]

They are potentially using more of their bandwidth that way -- by sending streams that may not be watched. It may cost Hulu more to show you the latest episode vs and older show. Still, you could "pin" a few shows in advance which would get them more overall views as they know some users cannot always stream.

They also cannot count the show watches nor ad views that way... I suppose they can pre-send the ads with the content to your cache, and then send your ad-watch/skip data back when you re-connect. But if you cannot "click" the ad, some advertisers may refuse to participate.

Re:But streaming is easy!

[BronsCon]

The bandwidth savvy consumer would like to download more content and play it back at any time, but do those consumers even exist as the majority anymore?

They do, but there's a lot of overlap between them and the "i do it this way because it's more convenient" set. If there were a simple (for the lay person) way to say "I'm gonna want to watch these at some point over the next week" and have the media transferred to your device, you'd see people doing it.

Re:But streaming is easy!

[Darinbob]

Streaming on demand is a waste of bandwidth compared to streaming to a file and then watching that. Netflix is archaic and clumsy compared to a real DVR. Ie, there's no way to pause and then step frame by frame through a scene (ie, to catch those easter eggs some shows put in, or see what assembly language the terminator uses).

However one reason Netflix doesn't allow this is that they want to keep the customers as a subscriber, and they rely on a users inability to watch everything at once to limit their usage. Otherwise you get a one month sub, download 90 days worth of viewing material, then unsubscribe. For netflix it's more of a problem as they don't have current content so there's no reason to keep subscribing, whereas for hulu people may want to keep paying to get the recent content that only lasts for five weeks or so.

Overall the content providers just don't like the whole idea period. They insist on the DRM. They make sure that a movie rental is distinctly time limited (even on directv they changed so that a pay per view lasted only 24 hours otherwise they'd have lost access to the movies). One of the main reasons the industry uses HDMI instead of alternatives is because it supports end to end encryption and authentication, bluray and players are chock full of DRM. The greatest fear in Hollywood is that someone may be able to make a digitally accurate copy of a movie.

I had been waiting for an internet-DVR system. Maybe plex is sort of it except that it seems only useful for not quite legal stuff (how else do you get media content on your computer for it to play, unless you're just uploading your own purchased dvds to hard drive?).

Re:But streaming is easy!

[marka63]

You just do time limited downloads. 1 week rental $A. 2 weeks rental $A + $B. 4 weeks rental $A + $B +$C.

The cable company here has 48hr on demand. After 48hrs you have to pony up to watch it again but within that
48 hours you can watch it as many times as you like.

Re:But streaming is easy!

[gonnagetya]

The bandwidth savvy consumer would like to download more content and play it back at any time, but do those consumers even exist as the majority anymore?

I'm one of the those aforementioned types of consumer, and I'm quite willing to admit I'm in the minority in wanting DRM-free, offline files under my control. Most people want streaming, and that's fine.

The problem is that it's one thing to be in the minority but still being service. It's another thing to not having a fucking option at ALL! No-one is willing to sell me a DRM-free, offline format of The Avengers for example... short of me buying a Blu-ray disc (and a suitable reader since I have none) and ripping it myself (which might be an illegal form of media shifting, I'd have to check what my country's position on this is). It's all about the streaming these days. Google Play has a "buy" option for certain titles but said purchases are always at the cost of the physical media versions anyway and come with restrictive DRM, so there's no advantage.

I'd be OK with being in the minority if I could still get what I wanted. But I can't. It's unfortunate that torrent sites seem to offer me exactly what I want though...

Re:But streaming is easy!

[TheP4st]

Yay! Just what I want! Clippy predicting what content I want to view next.

Re:Overhead *should* be small.

[Richy_T]

Processing power for decryption may be up though. But might be assisted by onboard chips. And video processing is not exactly lightweight itself.

The steps involved in setting up a Netflix stream have been fairly well documented somewhere. Unfortunately, this doesn't give you enough information to actually decode the stream on unsupported devices but it will give you an idea of what's actually going on.

More dick sucking

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is who is doing whom? Is it Haselton sucking off Soulskill ? Is Soulskill sucking off Haselton? Or, are they sucking each other off?

Re:Overhead *should* be small.

[mr_mischief]

He's talking about being able to shift the download to his unlimited transfer plan and download it once rather than streaming it repeatedly on a limited transfer wireless plan. The overhead of the actual DRM is small. The overhead caused in actual practice of forcing an active stream to happen for each viewing on each device can work out to be huge in some situations.

BENNETT!!!

[AmiMoJo]

Damn you Bennett, another wall of text bullshit article that is both fucking obvious and tl;dr at the same time. Please stop posting this tripe.

Re:BENNETT!!!

[PhilHibbs]

If you don't have the ability to read, don't ask people to stop writing.

Re:BENNETT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Bennett is actually a chatbot from the 90s that has evolved to the point where it can write overly-long news articles about things no one cares about.

Re:BENNETT!!!

[kruach aum]

This is what I do too. When life gives you lemons, read the troll posts.

Re:BENNETT!!!

[SleazyRidr]

We're asking people to stop writing things that have already been written many times. Why this drivel gets it's own article instead of just being a comment to another more relevant article is beyond me.

Re:BENNETT!!!

[msobkow]

I'd still appreciate knowing who the submitter is from the front page so I don't have to bother clicking into the article to see it's more of Bennett's verbal diarhhea. :(

No, I didn't read the article. Let the fucktard post COMMENTS to articles like everyone else instead of trying to force his ill-thought "ideas" on the Slashdot world as a "summary" that is often longer than the article cited in the first place!

Bennett is an ass. And the people who approve his tripe are apparently kissing his ass for some god-awful unknown reason.

Why I won't use Ultraviolet ...

[gstoddart]

Because instead of downloading it to my device and keeping it there, it insists that every time I use it it calls home to ask permission. Which means, AFAIK, I could not watch an Ultraviolet movie on a plane. It also means they get to collect information from me when I watch the movie ... which I'm sure they love, but I'm not doing. If I play a CD the producer of it doesn't get to know when or how many times, because it's none of their damned business.

I'm also not willing to sign up with every #*%^% studio in order for the privilege of downloading a movie. Which, right now, first you sign up with Ultraviolet, and then you need to personally register your copy with the film studio. Yeah, no, not happening.

Companies make their DRM crap onerous to use, less useful, and more expensive. The alternative is to either not consume the product at all, or to work around their DRM crap. Which, of course, through years of bribing politicians is as serious a crime as if I'd robbed a bank with a gun.

I have a sneaking suspicion that DRM costs consumers billions of dollars every year, all to protect the profits and business model of the content companies.

DRM has always been crap.

Re:Why I won't use Ultraviolet ...

[rotaryexpress]

All of the above, plus "You can only watch this movie on a Windows PC".

I don't own a single Windows PC.

DRM sucks. Hard.

Re:Why I won't use Ultraviolet ...

[antdude]

Has anyone figured out howto remove these annoying DRMs from UV, Amazon, Apple, etc. yet?

Re:Overhead *should* be small.

[Richy_T]

Oh, he's talking about the ability to pre-download. A reasonable estimate is probably somewhere in the region of 1GB/hour. It's always annoyed me that Netflix doesn't allow you to pre-download or even buffer on a local network. I often know I'm going to want to watch something in advance but sitll I have to put up with that stupid spinning circle. It would take the wind out of Verizon and Comcast's sails too. Heck, with a bittorrent like protocol, I could even be buffering for others locally. I'm no fan of DRM but it seems it's often being implemented in a dumb manner.

How Much Slashdot Bandwidth Is Wasted By BH?

[Anonymous Coward]

BH = Bennett Haselton

Maybe I should write an article about it?

Re:How Much Slashdot Bandwidth Is Wasted By BH?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem with BH isn't bandwidth, it's brain cells. Remember how slashdot used to have lots of intelligent posts by knowledgeable people, and now it's just a bunch of blathering morons? It's not that the smart people have left slashdot, it's just that every time you read a BH post, a small part of your brain just gives up and dies. After years of this shit, we've all devolved to the intelligence level of brain damaged monkey.

I buy a crap ton of movies

[ADRA]

And every time I see a card for Ultraviolet or Apple digital copies, I throw the crap in the garbage. Until the day I can go to 'insert distributor here' and download a clean copy of the original movie, I'd rather just use DVD rippers or torrents to get a digital copy of the movies I 'own'.

Re:I buy a crap ton of movies

[ArcadeMan]

Couldn't you sell the codes for those digital copies?

Re:I buy a crap ton of movies

[schnell]

I would agree that Ultraviolet is execrable and worthless. But why iTunes? I find their "digital copy" element quite useful. I can download the HD version to a PC (better quality than I can get from ripping a DVD) and then sync it to an iDevice for watching on the go whenever I want. Alternatively, even if I don't download a local copy, I can also use iTunes to stream the video if I'm too lazy to go get my DVD or BluRay that I bought it with.

Plus, as another commenter suggested, you can sell that download code. Why on earth would you just pitch it?

DVD's are just as easy.

[khasim]

He is complaining about getting large files (movies) sent to his viewing device (phone).

If only there were some way to pre-download those files.

Such as DVD's. And play them on a hand held DVD player. And DVD's do not count against your 3G data allowance for the month.

Another useless article by Bennett Haselton.

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[ArcadeMan]

Hand-held DVD players? What is this, the middle ages?

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[CRCulver]

Such as DVD's. And play them on a hand held DVD player. And DVD's do not count against your 3G data allowance for the month.

In this day and age, it's seen as unnecessary and a burden to carry around a music player like an iPod or a separate point-and-shoot digital camera, because people recognize that as basically a computer in their pocket, the smartphone they already have should do it all. You really think that people want to cart around a portable DVD player too?

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[khasim]

You really think that people want to cart around a portable DVD player too?

That wasn't the question. He's complaining about not being able to pre-download large files.

Once you get past the "why can't I pre-download this" there isn't an issue with using your phone or tablet or whatever to watch movies.

But if Bennett Haselton is going to focus on pre-downloading then yes, I do expect him to use a portable DVD player.

DRM is not about pre-downloading.

DRM is about never owning what you paid for.

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[gstoddart]

If only there were some way to pre-download those files.

Such as DVD's.

Or the iTunes Digital Copy.

I will download the video exactly once. It then lives on my computer, and I can copy it onto my iPod or iPad.

Love or hate Apple, with iTunes they did manage to strike the balance between having some DRM, and actually having it be a usable system.

It also comes with the added benefit you can watch it when you have no network connectivity. And, for me, being able to watch movies on a plane (or other such places) is one of the key selling points.

It seems like the movie studios are going for the model which has the most nuisance, restrictions, and additional costs for the users. Which is why I don't use any of the systems they came up with.

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[khasim]

Or the iTunes Digital Copy.

I will download the video exactly once. It then lives on my computer, and I can copy it onto my iPod or iPad.

That is convenient but I think it is still the wrong question.

Eventually, the first download-only (no DVD) will be released by a studio. Then a second. The studios want download-only because then they control everything. You will never own anything from them again.

Then the studios demand further restrictions from the hardware manufacturers. Abandon old format A and include new format B.

Sure, you can repurchase all your A content and they'll even give you a discount on the B versions. But they will set the A price at whatever they want. What choice will you have? Stay with your old electronics and disable the updates?

No matter how convenient they make it it is still about removing your ownership of what you've paid for.

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[Darinbob]

Except that places aren't renting those much anymore (some still do though but the numbers are shrinking). If you buy then it's a complete waste of money for watching the movie or tv show only once.

When I first got a dvr with my satellite it saved me money on rentals (probably a year or two before it paid for itself though) and was much easier to use than the vhs or dvd player.

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[Darinbob]

Smart phone is not good for watching video, the screen is far too small for comfortable viewing.

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[CRCulver]

You might think that, but you can observe people watching television shows or movies on their smartphones in any commuter transport in the developed world. Apparently it doesn't bother millions of people.

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[Darinbob]

They're probably 20somethings with perfect eyes. Wait until they get old and start chasing kids off their lawns.

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[DocHoncho]

It's really not that bad, considering most TV shows aren't really going to suffer that much by the loss of visual detail. Besides, if you can't see that well in the first place, isn't it all just blurry blobs on a big screen TV too?

Sorry Grandad, I'll get off your lawn now...

Re:DVD's are just as easy.

[Princeofcups]

They're probably 20somethings with perfect eyes. Wait until they get old and start chasing kids off their lawns.

Nope. Most are around 40.

Re:Overhead *should* be small.

[petermgreen]

It's not the direct overhead of the DRM, it's the way the drm is structured forcing the user to do things less efficiently. If the drm system only allows streaming then you have to push the data over whatever network you have at the time and place you want to watch and if you want to watch it more than once you have to push the data multiple times.

Without drm you can just download it once on the most economical connection you have available.

Wasted?

[ArcadeMan]

It's not wasted, quite the opposite! It's very profitable!

Signed,
cellphone companies.

THANK YOU!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! Thank you! The lead-in sentence: "read on for the rest of Bennett's thoughts" is exactly what we need when BH's blog posts go up on /. Keep doing that, so we can ID these.

Re:Overhead *should* be small.

[Kaenneth]

The DRM doesn't have to encrypt every bit to be effective.

if the audio track + a strip of the green color channel in the middle of the image were all that was encrypted, no one would want to watch it without those portions, but it would use a fraction of the time to decrypt.

Download and never watch

[watermark]

Wouldn't it cost Hulu/Netflix more bandwidth to allow this (and therefore more money in infrastructure)? Many users are going to download movies and never watch them, causing them lost bandwidth and possibly lost ad revenue. With a streaming model if you decide you don't like the movie, you just stop streaming. If you had downloaded the movie, the bandwidth required to give you that part of the movie you didn't watch is "wasted".

Re:Just download it from the bay...

[neminem]

Alternatively, often you can also download it (still just as quasi-legally, of course) from the original source. For instance, Whedon's new movie, that everyone was complaining about not being able to download. Guess what? I totally downloaded it. I paid 5 bucks to "rent" it, then I immediately went and ripped it from the stream to disk with one of those free browser plugins. Now I can watch it on the plane like I wanted to! And I even got to still give Whedon my 5 bucks (which I honestly wish I could do more often for shows I like, actually give money to the people who made the show. I have no desire to pay ridiculously too much money for the dvd box sets, and know that almost none of that money is actually going to get into the hands of anyone who had a direct part in the making of the thing.)

could be cheaper bandwidth

[Chirs]

The servers for streaming video need to have good network connections because the buffers generally aren't very big.

For pre-downloads they could use servers with crappier network links because they're not latency sensitive. Heck, you could do bittorrent-style peer-to-peer sharing of encrypted movies from other subscribers (maybe make it optional and give subscribers a credit for how much they upload to others).

Re:could be cheaper bandwidth

[number17]

if you say I want to download and watch a movie in 4, 8, or 16 hours they could QOS

I'd love to see a major vendor like Netflix put in a choice like that. It doesn't actually have to work, just collect data on people's behaviour. My bet is everybody selects "Download it now dammit!".

Segmented format

[Anonymous Coward]

There are at least four variants of chunked video streaming already (strobe, smoothstreaming, mpegdash, hls), where each chunk is available in different bitrates, and you only download a few seconds of the movie you need. If the average viewcount is below 1.0, you actually save bandwidth over downloading the whole movie in the highest quality.

Re:Overhead *should* be small.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

Since digital restrictions management is a way for other people to control our computing, even a small amount of overhead is unacceptable, since DRM itself is unacceptable.

Netflix should background download

[swb]

Background downloading seems like the answer to Netflix bandwidth woes. Just background download the users streaming queue to disk at a snail's pace, like 256k or 512k. Within a month most people would have their streaming queue local and could watch anything on it without any streaming needing to take place. Maybe even throw in some downloads based on predictions of what you might add in the future or the kinds of movies you are prone to ad-hoc streaming.

The only streaming that would need to happen would be ad-hoc choices and some of them might already be local (sort of like Tivo Suggestions).

For most people with high speed internet, a 256k background stream would hardly be a noticeable drag on their connection and I'm sure a big part of the whole bandwidth "issue" is peak demand -- everyone trying to stream between 5 PM and Midnight. A low-speed background download would be less of a problem.

Do content providers actually object to this, or is it just not implemented because the DRM isn't good enough? You can download most "rentals" for offline viewing.

I suppose the biggest obstacle is how many devices don't have any local storage, enough local storage or are mobile onto networks where you would likely never want to background download a lot of content.

Amazon has Unbox

[Marrow]

You can download TV episodes and movies to your computer or Kindle with amazon Unbox and walk away untethered and watch them. It still uses DRM to lock the content to the device, but you only have to download it once.

Re:Amazon has Unbox

[DaveV1.0]

Let me answer for Bennett:

But, but, I can't do it on MY PHONE!!! WAH! Wah! Give me what I want or your an evil meanie!

well

[Charliemopps]

I would have read this submission, but I'm already half way through a 3000 page Novel at home and I don't need another one.

Slashdot going down the pan, yet again

[danknight48]

How Much Data Plan Bandwidth Is Wasted By DRM?
I was at least expecting an answer to this with some details. Maybe 0.1% of total file size = drm?
After all, this is "news for nerds", not "blogs for boredom"

But nope, we get a blog from some guy called Bennett with no actual technical answers to his own questions.
Rabbit on, rabbit on at the expense of this community Bennett.

Re:Slashdot going down the pan, yet again

[OneAhead]

Well, the point of DRM wasting bandwidth is largely valid, but given the absence of actual data, it should not merit more than one sentence. I think Bennett Haselton would get a lot more goodwill from this community if he were to, you know, START HIS OWN PRIVATE BLOG and submit his stories to /. through the normal channels. If his ramblings are worth reading, they get upvoted and make the front page; if not, he saves himself the pain of getting flamed to hell. And even if the editors were to post his stories despite being downvoted, at least it won't be as big an insult if they're links to a 3rd party blog than if they're presented as "slashdot editorials". Useless stories slipping through the editorial process are an almost-daily occurrence so most would write it down to inattention, whereas willfully posting mediocre blog posts as "editorials" is a slap in the face of the community.

idk

[Entropy98]

I'm not sure it has much to do with DRM. If the stream is protected by DRM it will still be protected if it's saved locally. Obviously streaming makes it harder but it's very possible and Netflix shows like House of Cards on thepiratebay show it is being done.

I think one of the reasons for the absence of the feature is simplicity. When people ask me how to get movies for free I always recommend bittorrent, but most think that is too cumbersome, they just want to pick a movie and click play. If Netflix was to add the option they'd have to use a more complicated UI. They'd have people calling up complaining "It's not working" when they run out of storage, a lot of the non technical people I know still think RAM and storage are the same thing. I'd guess that the majority of Netflix users are non technical, stream from home, and not enough would use the feature to justify the development costs and complicating the UI.

Android

[hAckz0r]

Load up an Android VM on your PC and sent/Fipps/share the video output to your WiFi connected TV

Why?

[seebs]

Seriously, just... Why?

Why should we read on for Bennett's "thoughts"? He's a twit. Why do you guys keep posting this garbage? Someone teach him how to use a blog, since what he's got here isn't "news", it isn't "stuff that matters", it's "some guy writing badly about things he doesn't really think through".

Re:Why?

[DaveV1.0]

Twit? Is that a nice way of saying he is an over-entitled, piece of shit whiner with delusions of grandeur that are being fed by the likes of Slashdot editors who keep letting him use Slashdot as her personal blog? If so, it is a much nicer way of saying what I think.

Re:Why?

[RyoShin]

I'll be honest, I came here not to read his "article" but to read all the posts complaining/slamming him. So perhaps Slashdot is counting on ad revenue from that (except that my Karma gets rid of ads...)

Re:Overhead *should* be small.

[kesuki]

in linux any screen grab program can capture streams if you 'trust' the third party repository that hosts the software that convinces netflix it's streaming to a windows machine -- as long as you are using the open source driver to your gpu/apu whatever. in windows the driver enters a secure mode so you get a pink screen instead of the video, at least on ati it does.

the url you mentioned or one of them is here http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easily-enable-silverlight-watch-netflix-linux/

Effecitvely none

[Megane]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Just enough extra bandwidth to transmit the keys.
* DRM uses up CPU, not bandwidth.
* BH articles use up bandwidth.

Back in the old days we could filter Jon Katz articles. Is there some way we can black hole BH articles?

None.

[BitZtream]

Not sure what shitty 'DRM' you're dealing with, but all the DRM crap I have I download at home and put on my device and then it just plays whenever I want it.

If you're too stupid (yes, Bennett Haselton is fucking stupid) to not know the difference between streaming services and others, its your own fucking fault.

For fucks sake, have you never used iTunes or anything like it? Works FINE without a network connection once the initial authorization is done and that includes pulling copies off the network share where I saved them too the first time I downloaded.

Bennett, you're a fucking moron in every way.

I always appreciate a logical and well reasoned

[Marrow]

reply. It so elevates the level of discourse. Don't you agree?

Re:No

[CronoCloud]

but the Internet culture will never abandon piracy.

Not Internet culture as a whole, but "Second and Third world internet culture and their Scandinavian 'pirate party' enablers"

  If you guys want good content, either pay for it, or make it yourself. We could have DRM free if it wasn't for .po, .ru, .hu, .ro, .fi, .se, .br, .th etc etc.

PlayLater?

[JonahsDad]

Until they get big enough and are sued by everyone suing Aereo, http://www.playlater.tv/ does what you're asking for.

Records Netflix and Hulu, adding information stating that your account was used to do the recording (so that if something shows up on P2P, you'll get implicated fairly quickly). For movies/shows my kids watch repeatedly, I've found it nicer to just save a copy on my NAS and then stream it to the TV via Plex. The kids know exactly how to do this and typically check Plex before going to Netflix.

bennet who?

[ailnlv]

who the f*** is bennet haselton and why does slashdot keep posting his opinion pieces?

Re:bennet who?

[Guest316]

The latest Jon Katz?

DRM prevents "network shifting"

[Sloppy]

You didn't read it, but that's forgivable considering this poster's windiness.

He's not really asking about how much bandwidth, but which bandwidth. Many people today have two ISPs:

1) a cord of some kind that goes into your house. This ISP's data is effectively unlimited, or if there's a cap, it's relatively high (a few hundred gigabytes per month).

2) a radio mostly used by handheld computers. This ISP's data is limited because everyone is using the same airwaves, and using even a single gigabyte in a month, might be considered extravagant and wasteful. But most importantly: it costs more per byte than the other ISP.

Customers of the second type of ISP use terminology like "data plan." Customers of the first ISP consider "data plan" to be funny talk. And yet many of us have a foot in both worlds.

The idea is that with conventional video files, you can download it whenever you want, using whatever ISP you want. If you want to watch the video on your handheld (e.g. while commuting on subway) then you copy it over wifi or even sneakernet to the handheld. On the other hand, with DRMed streams, you can only use the whatever ISP you're able to connect to at the time you play the media. Considering that the point of handhelds is that they're most useful when you're not at home, that typically means it's going to be your radio ISP, the more expensive one. With DRMed streams, there's no time-shifting (or "network-shifting"). With conventional files, there is. So one tech costs more than the others, independent of how many bytes are involved.

Thank you

[SleazyRidr]

Thank you for expanding on this comment from a few days ago, or either of these from a couple of months back.

Also, congratulations on realising that the content companies aren't really providing a good service to us. Do as the rest of us do and stick to torrents until they do. the music industry has learned its lesson and is now selling DRM-free files, the movie industry will catch up eventually.

Re:No

[CronoCloud]

Content makers didn't start trying to distribute content online till AFTER said TLD's above (and others) were already pirating stuff left and right.

Heck back in the Commodore and Atari days, most of the big pirate groups which became "scenester demo groups" were based out of Europe, not the US. Didn't you ever wonder why that was the case?

It's because Anglophones and Japanese are wiling to pay for IP/Content in ways that Germans, Swedes, Finns, Russians, Poles, etc etc are not.

Heck, some of those J2ME/cell phone/Android/Indie devs in Scandinavia were formed by Ex-pirates wanting to actually make money of their skills. Course they found out that their own people didn't want to pay, so they make their money off of Americans and turn a blind eye to the rest of the world stealing their stuff.

Guess where Mojang makes their money? The US, UK, and Canada. It's anglophones paying for the development of software that the rest of the planet steals....stop that.

Haven't you ever wondered why the Linux LUG scene is more active in Europe (seems every little pisscutter EU town has a LUG that meets in a bar). Because the EU is full of people who don't want to pay for software so the free as in beer means more to them than the free as in freedom. As long as people outside the Anglophone countries and Japan have the cheap attitude towards software, software development in those countries will lag behind the US and the good coders from those countries will keep emigrating to the US.

No, you're trying to stream when you shouldn't.

[Anonymous Freak]

Amazon and iTunes both allow DRM-laden *DOWNLOADED* movies. No, it's not "unlimited watch for a monthly price," but it's not DRM's fault. You're picking a completely different delivery mechanism.

Title is retarded.

[sootman]

Answer: NONE. A downloaded video from iTunes will be about the same size as the file you get when you rip a dvd or bluray disc. You can pick comparable dimensions, codecs, and bitrates and you'll pretty much get the same picture and sound quality.

Now, if certain providers won't let you download content and make you stream it over and over, that's an issue, but the amount of data used by the DRM itself is not.

The new Roland Piquepaille

[aczisny]

Bennett Haselton is the new Roland Piquepaille. As if once wasn't enough.

Summed up pretty well in this line

[rebelwarlock]

"I have no idea how much data plan bandwidth is used every day on content that users would have preferred downloading at home in advance, but it seems like a non-trivial percentage."

You have no idea. So why the fuck are you wasting everyone's time?

Re:No DRM + multicast

[Ottibus]

You know, there's a technology, at least as old as IP networks, that's multicast. If you couple it with a nice lack of DRM, you can reduce the required bandwith.

Even if you could build a workable internet-wide multicast streaming solution it would still not reduce the bandwidth to your phone. The same number of packets come over the air to your device whether they are multicast or unicast. The benefits of unicast are in the network infrastructure not the transmitters or receivers and, so far, these benefits have not been seen to outweigh the disadvantages.

Ob

[Hognoxious]

Less than Bennet Haselton's articles, that's for sure.

Re:Overhead *should* be small.

[Richy_T]

No, the page I was thinking of was more a technical description of how the keys were retrieved and the source for the encrypted stream was found. More of a traffic analysis. Interesting if that's your kind of thing.

Then don't do it?

[RockDoctor]

If you don't like the data usage ... don't do it.

Back when I had a smart phone, I'd typically use between 1 and 2 % of my monthly data allocation on my phone. I'd use more on my tablet, because I'd got a keyboard for that.