[Thaxll]

"I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me"

Title is very missleading, your web browser works and google does not block you, it's all about DRM.

"For the last 2 years I’ve been working on a web browser that now cannot be completed because Google, the creators of the open source browser Chrome, won’t allow DRM in an open source project."

This is crap, you should probably have known that before starting the project? As a dev it should be some common sense that you can't just playback 4k video from Netflix with a built-in Browser.

[zucker42]

> Title is very missleading, your web browser works and google does not block you, it's all about DRM.

Google, Microsoft, and Apple effectively control access to DRM. They are acting as a cartel to prevent competitors. So, yeah perhaps it would be best to add Microsoft and Apple to the list of offenders, along with the MPA, and heck even Congress (which criminalized breaking DRM even for otherwise legal purposes). But I'd hardly call the title very misleading.

Regarding your second point, it's understandable that he focused on the functionality before the licensing, because Widevine would probably have been even less supportive if he had a working product. Honestly I don't understand your complaint; someone had to make a browser and get screwed over, otherwise the defenders of Google et. al would argue that Widevine could be licensed by competing browsers.

And anyways, these minute arguments completely ignore the overarching point that DRM subverts the premise of the web and prevents disruption and competitive.

[eecks]

> As a dev it should be some common sense that you can't just playback 4k video from Netflix with a built-in Browser.

why not?

[btilly]

Because if you can playback 4k video from Netflix with a browser under your control, then you can playback 4k video to a file and thereby create a cracked copy that can be pirated.

DRM is built on a self-contradictory premise that tremendous amounts of effort are going into making work. Namely, if we save content in a special format, then we can make it impossible for it to be used except as we decide.

However they then put that software on hardware controlled by people whose interests are not necessarily aligned with that goal. And once there, that software can be changed. That hardware may be an emulation that can also be changed. And so on and so forth.

To make the fiction appear to work, they need to find every way that they can to avoid escape. They add detection code that tries to identify running under emulation and blocks it. They obfuscate their software in every way that they can. They only place their software in other software that they trust. They embed various checks that nothing looks suspicious.

And even so, they are doomed to fail. See https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/10/google-mending-another-c... for example. But they just need to make it hard enough to bypass the encryption that it is hard to get pirated copies. And make the penalties for trying to do so to discourage a pirate scene. And this they have done.

[Aerroon]

>Because if you can playback 4k video from Netflix with a browser under your control, then you can playback 4k video to a file and thereby create a cracked copy that can be pirated.

Can't you just record the screen to do this? Or split the signal in the cable or have the screen itself send the data on to another device. At the very least you can always just physically record the screen itself.

At the end of the day, you have to ask whether this is worth it. Does it actually help sales to offset the costs?

[btilly]

Why yes, you can. And so there is pressure on every single hardware vendor to do fancy handshakes to guarantee that it is only going to authorized places that will do authorized things with it. Exactly to make the bypass that you're describing harder to do.

Occasionally this creates a problem that people notice. For example see https://www.macworld.com/article/3116414/oops-you-cant-play-... for one of them.

At the end of the day, you have to ask whether this is worth it. Does it actually help sales to offset the costs?

Actually it doesn't matter what your belief is on that. In the end, Netflix believes that it does. And as long as they are where you buy the content that you want, that means you have to play by their rules. No matter how stupid you think that they are being.

[waterhouse]

> Netflix believes that it does.

Or they believe that their media partners, who license the media to Netflix, believe that it does. Or perhaps those media partners are members of the MPAA, which wants to take a hard-line stance and never do anything that looks like backing down, even if their own technical advisors say it's getting silly.

But, yes, whatever Netflix's reasons, those who buy from them will do so under Netflix's terms.

[Aerroon]

>Actually it doesn't matter what your belief is on that. In the end, Netflix believes that it does. And as long as they are where you buy the content that you want, that means you have to play by their rules. No matter how stupid you think that they are being.

I meant that Netflix and co have to ask this. Because it's pretty obvious that none of the direct anti-piracy measures have worked. What has worked is making content more accessible and providing other incentives to users for getting the media legitimately. I think Netflix itself is that type of advancement, but I guess they're looking to get more "marketshare".

[coryfklein]

Users will balk if you call your application a web browser and it doesn't stream video from most of the major video providers.

[Thaxll]

There is a big difference between playing some mp4 / webm on a website and Netflix, if every random dev could implement a DRM for Netflix most likely DRM would be useless.

[nicolas_t]

To be fair, given that anything that hits any streaming service is ripped and available to pirating within an hour, DRM has proven to be useless. It doesn't stop pirates at all but it does annoy actual paying customers.

[NeekGerd]

The article being from 2019, I highly doubt that DRM was such a common issue in 2017, so much that you had to anticipate for it.

4k wasn't that common either. For the reference, at the time, I believe Netflix was even using Silverlight.

And Google is the blocking entity here, because they are in charge of delivering licenses for Widevine, which is specifically what you need to play DRMed content.

Not so misleading IMO.

[Gunax]

The thing about titles is that they often give a summary. Of course it does not tell the whole story--but I don't think it's misleading nor do I think it's crap.

[Tepix]

DRM that Google controls

[Thaxll]

You're free to open a website that directly stream some mpeg ts without encryption, Google is not to blame, the people that actually want that are the publisher. Youtube does not use DRM fyi.

[missblit]

Parts of youtube use widevine (I think mainly for movie / TV rentals and the like)

[Mindwipe]

Netflix issues several types of DRM license, not just Widevine, Google's marketshare here is fairly modest.