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Firefox 38 Arrives With DRM Required To Watch Netflix
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from VentureBeat: Mozilla today launched Firefox 38 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Notable additions to the browser include Digital Rights Management (DRM) tech for playing protected content in the HTML5 video tag on Windows, Ruby annotation support, and improved user interfaces on Android. Firefox 38 for the desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play.
Note that there is a separate download for Firefox 38 without the DRM support. Our anonymous reader adds links to the release notes for desktop and Android.
I think you meant Digital Restrictions Management. It's a sad day for Mozilla, the w3c, the web as a whole, and open culture. At least there's still the iceweasel fork that doesn't come with this shit.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
At least there's still the iceweasel fork that doesn't come with this shit.
The DRM isn't a closed source part of *firefox*. It's a separate external plugin (like flash, etc.) that runs sandboxed (like chrome) and that can be
disabled and/or removed like any other plugins (or you can download a version of the installer that doesn't even pack the DRM module).
You don't need to go as far as Iceweasel.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Is there an explanation of how this works ? At the end of the rendering pipeline shouldn't there be an unencrypted frame for display, and couldn't somebody it just grab it from there ?
02 The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.
not when you bundle digital restrictions management with your browser and only offer the truly open one as an 'option'
04 Individuals security and privacy on the Internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.
quit enabling googles malware system, and stop enabling targeted ads by default.
05 Individuals must have the ability to shape the Internet and their own experiences on it.
thats the direct antithesis of DRM. same goes for point 06 on interoperability.
07 Free and open source software promotes the development of the Internet as a public resource.
but DRM does not.
08 Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability and trust.
I dont remember hearing a goddamn thing about you adding DRM or targeted ads before you just decided to do it.
Good people go to bed earlier.
rather than fixing bugs
For some users, "I can't watch Netflix, your browser is broken !" is an important bug enough.
At least providing a way to install an optional 3rd party plugin to handle DRM, *and* provide a sandbox that restricts the plugin to only decrypt the encrypted data stream it receives (no file-system access. no network access) isn't such a bad idea given the insistance of end user to access restricted content.
It's not as if Firefox itself has become closed source.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
No, no, you're missing some steps:
1) The studios (Fox, Paramount, Sony, etc.) tell Netflix that without DRM, Netflix is going to have its own original series to stream AND THAT'S ALL.
2) Netflix decides it might be wise to include D-R-M unless they want to go B-A-N-K-R-U-P-T.
3) The major browser companies all adopt DRM too, since no one wants to be the one browser that doesn't work with Netflix
4) You, the user, streams movies from your browser.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Still, it would've been better to leave the DRM where it belongs, in plugins to be installed by each user who wants to have their rights managed.
Which is exactly how the standard works - except now the plug-in interface is standardized. So much nerdwhine over nothing with the HTML5 DRM stuff. Feel free to grab the "can't watch Netflix" version if it makes you happy. Not needing Silverlight (or Flash, or some other exploit delivery engine) makes me happy.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Still, it would've been better to leave the DRM where it belongs, in plugins to be installed by each user who wants to have their rights managed.
That's exactly the case right now.
Firefox only provides a sandbox into which the 3rd party CDM plugin will be run.
Encrypted stream goes in.
Decrypted stream goes out.
Nothing else is authorised for this plugin.
It's more or less the same situation as Flash (it's not firefox itself that is playing the flash content), except with a much better and way much more restrictive sandbox.
They are merely providing 1 installer packing 1 CDM by adobe inside for end user convenience.
But there's even an installer with only the mozilla code, without 3rd party pluging if you want.
Yep this should be an easy crack, with most of the source code being available. Firefox 38 will also be known as Netflix Video Ripper 1.0!
Actually not. Firefox doesn't handle decryption it self. Only provides the sandbox into which to run it.
To rip Netflix, you'll need to go the other way around:
- creat your own video downloader, that simply harness any of the 3rd party CDM plugins compatible with Netflix (Firefox use a CDM by adobe, Google Chrome uses another by Widevine).
- as Firefox basically restricts their to only function as a decryption filter, you need to provide code that feeds the data into the plugin, and code that package the decrypted stream into a MKV.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Previously, there was some hesitation to use this crap thanks to this lack of standardization. Now, thanks to this idiotic move by Mozilla this type of DRM will be used, and if you think it only apply to Netflix - or only apply to video - you haven't been paying attention.
Now that it is possible to for businesses to claim that "almost all of our potential customers support DRM", it will be used in many places. Remember the pages that show an image of text instead of just putting the text in the page? Well, get ready for the video equivalent the first time someone gets paranoid because browsers have a save-as feature. Besides, once DRM for one type of content is in place, the other industries will cry "equal access".
All of you who are "ok" with this, or are thinking only of convenience - your selfish view of the world is a big part of why this is happening. You should be fighting this, if you give a damn about having an free an open internet in the future. Unfortunately, you're probably going to mod me down and go back to cheering about how you get to watch movies in your browser, and I hope you enjoy fighting the far more difficult battles in the future, because you didn't stop this crap when it was still small.
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
I hope you enjoy fighting the far more difficult battles in the future, because you didn't stop this crap when it was still small.
The majority of internet traffic is DRMd video streams - has been for years. A standards committee has no power to tell the vendors what to do; instead their job is to write down what the big vendors are already doing, so that everyone else can interoperate.
Use the right tool for the job, man. If you want non-DRMd video, you're supposed to use a torrent client, not a web browser. Not every tool has to solve every problem, you know - let each be good for its purpose instead.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Why is their not room for both the open and closed cultures?
Assuming s/their/there/:
Because the concentrated non-free media use their vast financial resources to lobby governments to make existence harder for free culture.
Big media uses copyright to squelch competition. It has successfully lobbied for successive extensions of the term of copyright, which reduces the chance that a work will enter the public domain while it remains culturally significant. It uses copyright claims to squelch comment on its works and "similarity" claims under copyright to interfere even with creation of original works, as you have no way of telling whether the song you wrote infringes the copyright of some other existing song out there.
Big media uses its massive selling power to convince viewers to purchase player devices designed to play only works created by sufficiently large commercial enterprises, giving it a captive audience. These include such as video game consoles (with their code signing), Blu-ray Disc players (with the requirement of an AACS license for BDMV), home Internet service plans (with their bans on running a home server, enforced through carrier-grade NAT or TOS disconnection), and AM and FM radio receivers (governed by scarce exclusive licenses to transmit). Furthermore, there exists only a finite amount of electromagnetic spectrum. Case in point: People commuting to and from work who are unwilling to pay for expensive cellular data plan have only AM and FM radio as means of discovering new music. When was the last time, for example, that you heard free recordings of free music on radio? (Here, by "free" I mean distributed under a license conforming to the Definition of Free Cultural Works.)
Big media even controls elections. All major U.S. television news outlets share a corporate parent with a major movie studio: CBS is Paramount, ABC is Disney, NBC is Universal, CNN is Warner Bros., and Fox is (duh) Last Century Fox. This gives them enormous power over name recognition, both in campaign contributions and in "in-kind" donations of name recognition through news coverage. It also helps them control what issues voters feel are important to them, as they tend not to report on threats to the existence of free culture unless it's something extraordinarily high-profile like Wikipedia's PROTECTIP protest blackout of 2012.