
DRM enabled Google to have an open source browser still under its control - phowat
https://boingboing.net/2019/05/29/hoarding-software-freedom.html
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est31
A majority of websites doesn't use the EME DRM. It's Netflix and some other
streaming portals. Any Chrome fork would work with almost all web sites beyond
those few.

And with the new edge, there even will be a Chrome fork that supports EME DRM
as well, and most likely it will support higher resolutions than Chrome itself
as it's using OS built in DRM mechanisms that the studios love.

DRM is not the source of Google's control over Chrome. They use a different
mechanism: manpower. They have an insane amount of developers working on
Chrome, constantly changing it. Any smaller project forking Chrome and
changing some major part won't be able to keep up with the changes unless they
upstream. And ultimately, Google employees have control over what gets
upstreamed and which contribution gets rejected.

~~~
coretx
Are you aware of Widevine being Alphabet/Google property?

~~~
est31
Yes, Google owns Widevine. But if they really wanted to hurt browsers that
don't have EME, they'd deploy DRM to all youtube videos, including the free
ones and maybe even offer other DRM types like DRM'd text and DRM'd
photographs and use them in their web services.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>But if they really wanted to hurt browsers that don't have EME, they'd deploy
DRM to all youtube videos,

Can they just add DRM to content they do not own? They could likely work
something out, but the problems may outweigh the benefit they would gain.

~~~
fenwick67
Google certainly owns the right to transmit Youtube videos to users however
they see fit.

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jrockway
I think the blame needs to be directed at the video streaming companies, not
at Google. Can you go to Netflix and just download a .mp4 of their latest
show? Nope. That's on them, not Google. If Netflix cared about a cross-browser
experience or open standards, the tools are available to them.

With that in mind, they should really hire someone that has access to Usenet
or a private Bittorrent tracker. All of Netflix's shows are available for free
in 4k there. Google sold them DRM that doesn't actually work. Netflix paid
their employees millions of dollars to have meetings and develop code to work
with the idea in mind that Google's magic beans would save their content from
piracy. It didn't work, though.

You should be mad at Netflix. Netflix should be mad at Google. But everyone
just carries on like everything is great. It's weird.

~~~
jedberg
This is wrong on so many levels. First off, everyone at Netflix knew that DRM
wouldn't stop piracy. They knew what Bittorrent was after all. Google didn't
sell Netflix anything. Netflix _does_ care about cross browser experience. But
you know who doesn't?

The content owners. They wouldn't sign contracts without DRM, because for some
reason _they_ think DRM works. Or at least it stops the causal pirates. The
ones who would just do a Save As...

And before anyone goes down the "well why isn't Netflix's originals DRM free?"
road, for one, Netflix doesn't make those, other studios make them and then
sell it to Netflix exclusively, so once again, it's up to the movie studios as
to what goes into their contracts. And secondly, even for the stuff Netflix
makes itself, the entire streaming infrastructure is set up for DRM. It would
actually be really complicated to offer just a couple of items DRM free, with
lots of if/then code branches.

Disclaimer: I worked at Netflix but this is all my own opinion, not the
company's.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"They wouldn't sign contracts without DRM, because for some reason they think
DRM works"

DRM absolutely works, just like the 'war on drugs' actually works.

If Netflix allowed mp4's of content to be downloaded, and there were 'no DRM'
in the world, there'd be an explosion of 'piracy' (or pick a nicer word). 'Not
paying for anything' would be absolutely normative. Netflix would not have a
business model, neither would the creators who make stuff for Netflix. Just as
if opioids were freely available, your mother who just had jaw surgery and
took '3 pills' might want a few more, and a few more, and a few more ... and
most of your little cousins at Uni would experiment, and probably one of them
would become addicted to the 'Heroin Cola' or 'Heroin Cigarettes' or 'Heroin
Vape' or 'Heroin Cookies' that are available every corner store and advertised
heavily. Everyone, at some time in their lives would be victim to opioids,
it'd cause problems. So they are illegal, and controlled, and you need a
prescription in some cases, and the availability is very narrow for most
people, they don't have ready access, the legal consequences are rough, and so
'most people' never bother.

The game of 'DRM' (and hard drugs) is not to 'stop all' so-called piracy, it's
to keep a limit on it.

This is a game of Supply and Demand, not a game of absolutes.

As it stands, in 2019 - if you want to watch films, you pretty much have to
pay HBO, Netflix, Cable, iTunes for most high quality stuff.

'Bit Torrent' for example, is a fairly ugly experiential barrier for
consumers, and it helps prove that DRM works - not the other way around. 'Bit
Torrent' is way beyond most people's material capability, moreover, you kind
of have to really look for stuff, know where to find it, possibly wait forever
for stuff to download, you expose yourself to all sorts of creepy stuff and
spyware - it's a 'bad experience'.

The state of DRM today is that it's not exactly easy or convenient for regular
people to get a copy of the latest Avengers in decent quality - the evidence
for this is easy: because they are paying for it (otherwise they would not).

Of course, the economic realities of that system can't be ignored either: if
there is no money, there is very little content.

Podcasts and a lot of decent music would survive, but anything that required
production wouldn't.

As for Google, Netflix et. al. - they are 'all in on it'. We can't point the
finger at one point in the value chain.

Google does things because entities like Netflix will need it.

Netflix does it because content producers need it.

Content creators need it because they have to pay writers, directors, actors,
set designers, and of course take a big risk every time as most content that's
made flubs.

I understand ideals such as 'freedom of information' etc., this is fine, we
should always be talking about DRM, but the level of cognitive dissonance on
this issue is painful.

It's very expensive, and very risky to make such content, and frankly, there
are very few making huge money from it. If we want that stuff, we have to pay
for it. There's no way around that.

Edit: I worked with the music industry in developing a content delivery system
(it didn't work out). Yes, it was shocking the level naivte and lack of
understanding going on there, which is partly why we dropped the project.
There were (and continue to be) some really difficult things about that
industry that made it ready for destruction (among other things). Specifically
how the unions have worked out their 'rev-share' agreements with respect to
minimum revenue per song, etc.. Instead of % rev-share, they have hard
minimums like 15-25 cents for certain entities (i.e. writers/composers - this
was 10 years ago I fail to remember the group). This poses some ugly realities
on price points, but also 'bundling' of music. I suggest that the 'real market
value' of most songs, even in a 'fully DRM'd world' is much less than $1.
Because of those 'ancient' pacts written by the Moses's of Music Industry,
which nobody seems to have enough leverage to influence - it's nary impossible
to sell or distribute music cheaply back in the day. If the labels, writers,
composers, performers had of 'adapted their model' it's possible they may not
have been wiped out, granted, as I noted below, music is different than video.

We have to look at Google's decision in the context of the entire value chain:
points of consumption, distributors, producers, and the various creators etc..

~~~
sonnyblarney
.responding to jedberg

1) "Look at Portugal"

Ahh, yes, the Portugal example.

I'm sorry but _selling drugs is illegal_ in Portugal.

Do you think that you can import a ton of heroin willy nilly and 'it's call
cool'?

The 'example of Portugal' continues to prove my point!

Portugal has taken some nice steps towards how to handle addicts etc, but
fundamentally - Portugal continues it's 'war on drugs' with a slightly
different tool set.

By the way: weed is still illegal in Portugal.

2) Music.

The music industry as we know it almost vanished, and it's taken on a
completely different form.

The same has not happened in video content production.

Madonna (and others) abandoned trying to make money from sales, and they moved
to 'touring' instead - because of privacy.

Do you see Brad Pitt at your local theatre 'because he can't make money in
film or TV'?

No.

So 'DRM' is working in video, the industry is alive - the obvious reasons have
to do with the nature of how we consume music, vs. how we consume video.

And it's not a happy story for content-creators in music. 'Making a living' in
music is really hard, and they've been pushed into all sorts of commercial
activities.

Thankfully - music production is not hugely expensive. A 'great album' can
theoretically be made very cheaply - so we'll continue to get great music.

'Avengers' will cost $300M to make there is no way around it.

The level of cognitive dissonance on this issue is stupefying.

Again - I understand that there's elements of issues of freedom, and there are
also many studio execs who are deluded, some are greedy - but there are real
factors at play here that cannot be denied.

~~~
repolfx
Thankyou for making these arguments. Anti-DRM groupthink in geek communities
has always been one of the more grating aspects of the software world. Video
game producers have detailed data on how DRM protects their sales - they can
literally see their sales curve tank the moment a crack comes out, and they
can see the sales return to normal when the cracks are patched. Movie studios
have similar data. They also know that protections will be broken and then
repaired, but it's a simple financial calculation - is the impact on sales
greater than the cost of developing and repairing the DRM? Yes? Then they do
it. And who can blame them, they're just being rational economic actors.

~~~
sonnyblarney
It becomes apparent the moment one is on the 'other side of the equation'.

You make an app, stuff gets stolen, you feel very legitimately aggrieved, and
then the logic starts to add up more clearly.

I think the true 'market clearing price' for a lot of content is much less
than what Hollywood thinks. Especially films in the theatre, but by enlarge,
everyone making such content is taking a big risk. I think many directors and
producers should earn more than baseball players who earn _ridiculous_ amounts
of money.

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notaboutdave
Google's massive browser market share has opened the door to some ugly things.
I can't help but shake my head whenever I come across a "Chrome only" SaaS
startup.

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mark_l_watson
I may have the minority opinion here, but I don’t even think DRM should be in
web browsers, rather, use vendor provided apps to consume Netflix, Google Play
Movies, Hulu, etc.

On mobile, I prefer using web versions of services and not using apps. I make
an exception when consuming content that I pay for.

The web should be free and unencumbered.

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cracauer
Always surprised how few people realize this. Yes, on a random OS with no
binary builds by Google I can have the Chromium browser. It does not have the
ability to watch Netflix, though. To get that you need to run a Linux binary
chrome in a Linux API translator.

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cracauer
The other large binary blob in the non-opensource builds, apart from DRM, is
the wifi network detection module.

It will look at what wifi networks are close to you, and Google finds out your
physical location that way without your computer having a GPS chip or a
cellphone network chip (Google has the full database of the center of gravity
for every wifi network from the streetview cars, so the information of which
network is how strong for your computer allows location by something like +-
10 meters).

~~~
millstone
This is concerning; do you have any reference or sources?

~~~
cracauer
Using wifi networks around a device is Google's standard, low-power way to
determine a device's location. In a cellphone it is used so that you don't
have to fire up the power-hungry GPS chip.

Since they built the entire infrastructure and database of wifi access points
and locations (by scanning from the streetview vehicles and syncing with GPS)
they also use it for the desktop browsers.

Which if you legitimately need the location of a "desktop" (which here
includes Laptops) would be a nice way to go. It's just a bit of an unclear
situation with regards to consent, especially informed consent.

(this is not to be confused with Chrome's private API
chrome.networkingPrivate, which is used by the device owner to be able to pick
and configure wifi networks without leaving Chrome)

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skybrian
Although it's limited, there is still a chance of competition. This prevents
pure open source browsers, but it doesn't prevent a large software company
from forking Chromium and adding DRM themselves (as Microsoft is doing).

