[idle_zealot]

By its very nature DRM of media content makes no sense. How can audio and video be delivered to the user without also allowing the user to save and distribute that content later? At some point, the content must be available in unencrypted form, even if that point is when the content is sent to the display, it can just be captured there.

[throwaway613834]

It could be easy to view but hard to save and distribute. Why can't it? Or do you really think these people have no idea what they're taking about?

[horsawlarway]

Not really. If it's available to view, it's available. Full stop.

There's no way around that. You can't magically change the universe so that content that's viewed can't be captured. It HAS to be converted to analog somewhere. That signal can always be captured and converted back to a digital form that's no longer embedded with DRM.

Best case: you make it marginally more difficult for a mom&pop computer user to copy your content. Anyone with a lick of understanding and 100 dollars to buy some hardware will be able to get it without any problem.

Worst case: you introduce all sorts of unnecessary security holes with poorly written software, that can't be audited (legally speaking), and does absolutely nothing to slow the availability of the content online and for free.

[throwaway613834]

>> It could be easy to view but hard to save and distribute. Why can't it?

> Not really. If it's available to view, it's available. Full stop. Best case: you make it marginally more difficult for a mom&pop computer user to copy your content. Anyone with a lick of understanding and 100 dollars to buy some hardware will be able to get it without any problem.

You literally just agreed with my point though.

[Latty]

The issue you are ignoring is that only one person needs to "save and distribute" it, then the pirated version becomes easier to view than the DRMed version.

The proof in the pudding is that every TV show and film is instantly available online to anyone who can work a BitTorrent client.

[rimliu]

No. Netflix is way easier for me than torrenting. I've never pirated music, but I watched a few of torrented movies. However since the ITMS, Netflix and Amazon video become available in my country I never bothered with torrents. I don't even have torrent client on my computer.

[Latty]

You are missing my point - I agree entirely. Streaming services offer a (mostly) better experience than BitTorrent - but only when they are supported by the device you want, and the DRM doesn't get in the way.

My point was that DRM doesn't stop anyone torrenting the content - it only takes one person to break it, which will happen. It does mean some people won't be able to watch the content legally, which will push them away from the legal option.

The only thing DRM really stops is the "let me give you a copy" friend-to-friend copying, which is the equivalent of sharing a VHS copy back in the day. Is stopping that really worth pushing people away from your legal option?

[throwaway613834]

No, I'm not ignoring those. See my prior comments:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15279688

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15279855

[Latty]

Your first link, there is truth to it, the most obscure and small stuff won't be pirated. Does that matter? I don't think anyone is only looking to defend things that are that obscure. Anything with even a middling number of people interested has it's DRM blasted through very quickly as far as I see.

Your second point, Denouvo is for video games and is a very different ballpark - it turns out storing code to lock things down is a lot easier in an executable vs in a video. DRM is certainly more effective in games (although the evidence is it causes way more problems for legitimate users, and Humble Bundle et al have proven that users prefer legitimate options when they are easy and affordable).

[jamesgeck0]

Hard to save and distribute only lasts until one party figures out how to get the content in an unencumbered format. Even if it was hard/expensive for them to do so, they can distribute it to the world easily.

[throwaway613834]

I recall reading another comment [1] on this submission about some DRM technology being claimed to protect content for some 300 days in practice. To me that sounds like it's working pretty darn well.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15279266

[fghtr]

Consider Intel ME, which has the full control over your device independently on the operating system. If it somehow works together with the DRM module, the DRM will work.

[floatboth]

It kinda does, apparently — but modern movie DRM actually relies on HDCP — sending encrypted video to your monitor and decrypting it there.

[lawnchair_larry]

The problem is that being "hard to save and distribute" means it doesn't work. It has to be more than hard. Piracy release groups enjoy "hard", and you only have to do the hard part once for a given title (or usually, for a given DRM technology). Once you strip it of its protection, you throw it online and anyone can download it. And now that you've broken that particular DRM technology, your results are repeatable and can be automated, making future releases available even more quickly.

Fundamentally, I can read or write to any byte in my computer's memory. That includes whatever is coming out of the piece of code that reads in the protected file and then passes it to the video decoder or the display.

Until we have computers that can read and write bytes in such a way that not even a user with full privileges on their own machine can access them (keeping in mind, this user can control the kernel and even the hypervisor), this can't be made to work.

The people pushing for DRM, in my experience, really do have no idea what they are talking about. They tend to be industry lawyer types. People who do understand DRM are usually aware that what they are implementing can be broken, but their VP told them to do it anyway so they can make a deal with content distributors.

Also, the DMCA forbids circumventing copyright measures, so they like to have that as a legal tool as well. As long as they tried something, they can go after anyone disabling it, using the legal system.

[xvilka]

This is where technologies like TrustZone, Intel ME, Intel SGX, SecureBoot comes - you will have isolated environment, while DRM will be run in another chip or execution level. So you will need either elevate your privilegies via vulnerability, or via hardware reversing techniques. And it is already happening. Computers arent that open anymore, they became walled gardens already.

[floatboth]

Yeah, it is creepy that ME/PSP has full control over modern x86 computers. But that's not about DRM — blame enterprise IT management stuff (Intel AMT).

Apparently ME is somehow used on the DRM path but really it's kinda irrelevant — the whole point of modern movie DRM is that the video frames get decrypted on your display.

[prophesi]

> Why can't it?

They've been trying to accomplish this for many years now, to no avail. This is a nontrivial problem.

[throwaway613834]

>> It could be easy to view but hard to save and distribute. Why can't it?

> They've been trying to accomplish this for many years now, to no avail.

Any evidence that they haven't had any success whatsoever in making it harder to save/distribute?

[wvenable]

It's trivial to get almost any media content you want online for free right now.

[throwaway613834]

I don't think so. See my reply to the sibling comment.

[prophesi]

Sure. Search for a recent videogame on pirate bay, download a youtube-to-mp3 browser extension, get the calibre DeDRM plugin. Or, if you really want to understand my point, download and learn how to use a disassembler.

For the casual law-abiding user, it succeeds in making it harder to save/distribute. For everyone else, it's only a matter of time before the DRM is broken.

[throwaway613834]

First and foremost that depends on the content being popular. For example there's a ~30-minute video I paid for on Amazon Videos that I would love to have a copy of so that I don't need an Amazon account and internet access just to play the video, but I can't. Why? Because of their DRM and the fact that I can't find it anywhere else. (Admittedly I haven't directly searched on piracy sites since I'm not into that sort of thing, but Googling didn't pop anything up even on piracy sites, and I would be surprised if it's actually out there somewhere.) Sad reality is it's not even because I wouldn't pay for it; I already paid for it once and I'd even pay for it again if someone sold a copy. But the DRM is "working" in terms of making it too hard to get a copy.

But even if some content is popular, DRM certainly prevents people like me from saving a copy, since I'm not one to go on piracy sites and the only reason I want a copy is so I don't have to get authorization from someone every time I want to play something I already paid for. It might be a dumb business decision since I'd already pay for it before getting a copy anyway, but maybe they think that still makes business sense even if I'd pay for it. Regardless of that it still seems to be working as intended.

[prophesi]

Just run a screen recorder next time you're online. (Trivial) Problem solved.

[floatboth]

Yeah, DOOM (2016) took four months to crack https://torrentfreak.com/denuvo-removed-from-doom-after-game... — and after the crack, the DRM was removed.

And casual users might be law-abiding in the USA, but not everywhere :)