[ulrikrasmussen]

While this is great and very usable, especially for people with limited data plans, I can't help but feel disappointed that simple offline caching of content is still considered a major feature in 2016. Without DRM, this would be a no-brainer.

[greg7gkb]

Who would license content to a company without any DRM protection?

[izacus]

Your question implies that there's any practical use for that DRM in streaming services. There's not and it does nothing useful but annoy users.

Anyone with ounce of motivation can easily bypass and extract the media content, so the only thing DRM does is piss of paying users which can't watch content on flaky connections, flights, travel and alternative operating systems.

Meanwhile on torrent sites you find Netflix digital dumps in matter of minutes after release.

[JeremyBanks]

Anyone with ounce of motivation can easily bypass and extract the media content

This is obviously untrue. For at least 95% of Netflix users this is inconceivably difficult. Peek out your bubble and you may also notice that torrent use is massively declining in popularity because they're a horrible user experience.

[jrnichols]

> you may also notice that torrent use is massively declining in popularity because they're a horrible user experience.

The people that use Popcorn Time/etc would disagree. That has been a fantastic experience, so it's natural that the MPAA would go after it tooth & nail.

[eridius]

DRM also provides more legal protections to the content providers when someone breaks it.

[fastball]

Not true.

An important use for DRM in regards to streaming services is to prevent people on shared networks from getting access to the data. For instance, if I was in a college dorm with dorm-wide wifi, and I was watching my de-DRM'd Netflix, anyone on the dorm intranet could snoop my packets and get the data being transmitted to me by Netflix, for free.

That is nigh on impossible to do when the content is encrypted with DRM.

[izacus]

Never in my times of working for content provider / transport was that even remotely the reason for DRM.

It was always passing the legal buck ("It wasn't us that let those evil evil pirates steal your series, we did all we could, look at that DRM software certificate!").

Snooping packets in dorm rooms? No.

[rudolf0]

Not to mention that even if it were an issue, TLS would be a much easier and cheaper solution.

[ulrikrasmussen]

To be fair, simple end-to-end encryption of non-DRM'd material would accomplish the same.

[Spivak]

What? You're just talking about TLS. This has absolutely nothing to do with client-side DRM modules.

[serge2k]

TLS solves that problem.

[ulrikrasmussen]

I appreciate the legal reasons for DRM. My point was just that it keeps being an obstacle for technical innovation, however simple, which is depressing.

[ClashTheBunny]

Aren't most music services DRM free these days? iTunes, Amazon, Pandora...

[maxerickson]

A no-brainer except for the $10/month streaming part.

[Dylan16807]

A streaming service is perfectly viable without DRM, especially if downloading is speed limited after a while. If you want to make copies at playback speed, well, you could do that with DRM too and it hasn't made the system collapse.

[andrewstuart2]

Without DRM, it's super viable because P2P is a piece of cake, and Netflix would only have to seed and host less-frequently-used content.

[Dylan16807]

I don't think DRM stops them from doing P2P. Limited upload speeds are a much bigger issue. Plus people finding it icky to be an uploader on something they already paid for.

[zrm]

BitTorrent solved the limited upload speed problem. Split the data into chunks and download from multiple users at once. Even that is only necessary if a user doesn't have enough upload bandwidth for a stream, which for 1080p is ~5Mbps.

And the second problem has a simple solution. Give the customer a tiny discount for uploading. Anyone with an unmetered connection sees it as free money even if it's only pennies/month, and it works fine even if some customers turn it off because the discount-accepting customers can upload more than they download.

[maxerickson]

Which DRM free streaming service has the most customers?

(let's say they have to be at least sort of like Netflix, with minimal advertising and comedy/drama shows)

[Dylan16807]

I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove. There are only a few big studios, and they all happen to be wrapped up in inertia and paranoia. But that's just how the dice came out, it's not because DRM provides actual value. If they wanted to perform a realistic market assessment we could be DRM-free in a snap.

[maxerickson]

The point is that 'viable' means something. Overcoming inertia and paranoia is providing actual value.

[Dylan16807]

The business model is viable in terms of the studios deciding to sanction it. So not treating the studios as black boxes.

[izacus]

None, because currently it's not possible to get non-DRMed content from provider for various reasons - legal and dumb ones.

[problems]

Does it need to be legal? $10/mo for usenet and it just gives you what you want, DRM free, often in better quality than other services offer too.

I used to be able to use Netflix alone fairly well, but the fracturing of online services is making me lean more and more on automated piracy tools like Sonarr. If I were going to pay $10/mo to a dozen services I'd go back to cable.