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

[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

[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

[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]

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

[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.

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

[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.

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: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.

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.

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.

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.

[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: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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

bennet who?

[ailnlv]

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

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.