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Comment by shmerl | Hacker News Reader

> If you're watching streamed video, the DRM is completely transparent. I don't see how that is a degradation in service.

It is crippling usability in several ways:

1. DRM is usually not portable (or not ported at least). I.e. most probably it's tied to certain devices / operating systems / applications and etc. For the end user it translates to "you can't watch it on the device / operating system / application of your choice".

2. DRM prevents backups. If the service goes bust or you lose connectivity - you have no access to your data.

3. DRM poses a security / privacy threat. Being transparent doesn't make it any better - it only makes it worse (think of a hidden camera).

All those are clearly examples of degraded usability no matter how "transparent" some DRM is.

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Regarding your first point, hasn't this always been the case even before DRM? For example, one cannot directly interpret the magnetic fluctuations encoded onto a cassette tape - a tape player is needed to transduce the signal. DRM just takes this a step further by introducing cryptography and obfuscation into the decoding process.

I don't think backups are relevant to DRM-laden streaming video, given that it's someone else's data that you happen to be observing.

I'm not sure what you mean by a security and privacy threat. Surely it is no more of a threat than visiting potentially untrusted websites, or using closed-source or unverified open-source binaries, in the first place?

> Regarding your first point, hasn't this always been the case even before DRM?

It's not the case for any normal standard portable format (video, audio, etc.). They can be accessed on any platform. DRM prevents that limiting your options where and how to use it. If you take tapes analogy, you can play your tape in any player. Imagine a tape which is only playable in Sony player or whatever. It's clearly a defective product in my view.

> I don't think backups are relevant to DRM-laden streaming video, given that it's someone else's data that you happen to be observing.

That's exactly the point. It means usability is reduced if anything goes wrong with the service or you can't connect to it or whatever other similar reason.

> I'm not sure what you mean by a security and privacy threat.

Since DRM is based on distrusting the user (assuming all of them are potential criminals by default), symmetrical treatment for it from the user's side should be "always potential malware by default". Here is a good example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit

Since DRM is always a black box / closed code, it adds to the reasons to never trust it.

I don't think DRM really prevents anyone from watching video. There are plenty of alternative options. For example, for popular films, one option would be not to use the streaming video service but instead purchase a DVD. Another alternative is to use a platform that supports the desired DRM-laden streaming video service. A more difficult approach would be to reverse engineer the DRM software and reimplement it for the chosen unsupported platform. So it's not ultimately limiting, at most it's a small inconvenience.

The same arguments apply to the issue of backups. It would be highly unusual for the only copy of a media product to be only accessible via a DRM-encumbered streaming video service.

I do see your point on the lack of trust though. In this case, hopefully Mozilla's sandboxing approach would go some way towards mitigating that. And the inevitable disassembly of whatever closed-source binary they release.

> I do see your point on the lack of trust though.

If you put that in perspective of recent privacy / mass surveillance issues, DRM is a perfect ground for various agencies to put their effort it. After all, DRM is already by design intended to spy on users and control what they do, plus DRM is massively deployed because many consumers accept it without second thought.

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