[kmeisthax]

Under DMCA 1201 technical protection measures automatically get legal protection against this sort of thing. There's actually two layers of protection:

1. You can't deprotect the content for a purpose that would violate copyright law (this is the "DMCA exception" process you hear about every 3 years)

2. You can't provide tools that deprotect the content for any purpose

Both provisions give DRM the force of law, though the latter poses specific risks for anyone who merely wants to run DRM content within it's protected bounds. There are loads of well-reasoned exceptions to DMCA 1201, but they're very restrictive and special-cased. You'd never be able to get away with just releasing a Widevine-compatible plugin, even if it did all the validation and security in exactly the same way as Widevine. This means that, practically speaking, the only legal way to actually play Widevine-protected content is to license Widevine and comply with the inevitable litany of restrictions they place upon you for access to that plugin.

[ddalex]

> the only legal way to actually play Widevine-protected content is to license Widevine

or re-implement a Widevine-compatible plugin outside the US where DMCA doesn't apply

of course, say goodbye to ever setting foot on US soil again

[tyingq]

I don't know if it's technically feasible, but a DeCSS type release would be fun to watch from the outside as everyone scrambles to close the barn door.