<story><title>I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me</title><url>https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/google-widevine-blocked-my-browser/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>profmonocle</author><text>The saddest part is it doesn&amp;#x27;t even seem to &lt;i&gt;accomplish&lt;/i&gt; anything. What would-be pirates are actually being foiled by this? Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime use EME, but all their exclusive content is still readily available on torrent sites. Does it raise the difficulty bar? It&amp;#x27;s hard to imagine anyone who knows how to rip video from their browser doesn&amp;#x27;t know how to torrent something.</text></item><item><author>Daiz</author><text>Boy howdy, this is one subject where I loathe saying &amp;quot;I told you so&amp;quot;, but... I sure told you so.[1]&lt;p&gt;HTML DRM is antithetical to the Open Web itself. It was built on a sham of &amp;quot;plugin-free&amp;quot; media playback, but all we did was change Flash and Silverlight for a whole range of closed black boxes, which in turn are effectively all controlled by Big Media (&lt;i&gt;to make it crystal clear: EME was built with third-party decryption modules in mind, and Big Media was obviously never going to support any sort of decryption modules that they couldn&amp;#x27;t control, so even if your custom browser supports EME it&amp;#x27;s completely useless without a Big Media-approved decryption module&lt;/i&gt;). And make no mistake: Requiring permission from Big Media to essentially build a fully-fledged browser is a 100% intended and expected outcome of HTML DRM as conceived. Big Media would love nothing more than to turn the entirety of the Open Web into Closed Web that they control, and with HTML DRM they&amp;#x27;ve certainly achieved a great step toward doing so, to the detriment of public at wide. I&amp;#x27;m sure they&amp;#x27;re positively salivating about the thought of eventually reaching The Right to Read![2]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=7747142&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=7747142&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gnu.org&amp;#x2F;philosophy&amp;#x2F;right-to-read.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gnu.org&amp;#x2F;philosophy&amp;#x2F;right-to-read.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>antoinevg</author><text>DRM technologies are often sold to the public &amp;amp; content providers as an anti-piracy measure but that has never been the intent.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s _always_ been about control on the creation and manufacture of playback platforms and&amp;#x2F;or devices.</text></comment>
<story><title>I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me</title><url>https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/google-widevine-blocked-my-browser/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>profmonocle</author><text>The saddest part is it doesn&amp;#x27;t even seem to &lt;i&gt;accomplish&lt;/i&gt; anything. What would-be pirates are actually being foiled by this? Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime use EME, but all their exclusive content is still readily available on torrent sites. Does it raise the difficulty bar? It&amp;#x27;s hard to imagine anyone who knows how to rip video from their browser doesn&amp;#x27;t know how to torrent something.</text></item><item><author>Daiz</author><text>Boy howdy, this is one subject where I loathe saying &amp;quot;I told you so&amp;quot;, but... I sure told you so.[1]&lt;p&gt;HTML DRM is antithetical to the Open Web itself. It was built on a sham of &amp;quot;plugin-free&amp;quot; media playback, but all we did was change Flash and Silverlight for a whole range of closed black boxes, which in turn are effectively all controlled by Big Media (&lt;i&gt;to make it crystal clear: EME was built with third-party decryption modules in mind, and Big Media was obviously never going to support any sort of decryption modules that they couldn&amp;#x27;t control, so even if your custom browser supports EME it&amp;#x27;s completely useless without a Big Media-approved decryption module&lt;/i&gt;). And make no mistake: Requiring permission from Big Media to essentially build a fully-fledged browser is a 100% intended and expected outcome of HTML DRM as conceived. Big Media would love nothing more than to turn the entirety of the Open Web into Closed Web that they control, and with HTML DRM they&amp;#x27;ve certainly achieved a great step toward doing so, to the detriment of public at wide. I&amp;#x27;m sure they&amp;#x27;re positively salivating about the thought of eventually reaching The Right to Read![2]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=7747142&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=7747142&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gnu.org&amp;#x2F;philosophy&amp;#x2F;right-to-read.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gnu.org&amp;#x2F;philosophy&amp;#x2F;right-to-read.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ndnxhs</author><text>It almost seams entirely to please management. The local TV stations use eme and yet youtube-dl still works fine on them.</text></comment>