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DRM Hell (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Amazon Prime, like many services, is a DRM hell. It won't go to over 480p on Firefox on Linux at my end. However, instead of a rant, I am interested in why this is happening. Say, I rented the same film from YouTube Movies(Yes, such a service exists) and the quality can toggle all the upto 1080p but the same title on Prime Video is stuck at 480p. Is it because both services use two DIFFERENT kinds of DRM?

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

I think they're using Widevine DRM. And with DRM they can enforce whatever arbitrary policies they like. They set special restrictions for Linux. I think Amazon set 480p as max, Netflix 720p and YouTube 4k or sth like that. AFAIK it has little to do with technology. It's just a number that the specific company sets in their configuration.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (5 children)

But... Why? Why would they get different restrictions on the basis of operating system?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's whether the OS has hardware to make the platform "trusted." Android does by default with Widevine, Windows does by default with TPM and Widevine, Linux does not by default.

"Trusted" here of course means, trusted by the company, not by the user. If it's a trusted platform, it has a cryptographic key exchange space that the user does not have access to. This prevents a spoofed DRM certificate or other interception of the HD stream, which in theory prevents a stream from leaking.

"In theory" of course, because every piece of content is ripped and available DRM-free as soon as it's released.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Thank you for this clear, helpful answer

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