DRM Frustrates Yet Another Paying Customer

Blogger and photographer Thomas Hawk writes about his frustration getting Netflix's Watch Instantly to work:

In fact I can't even get Netflix "Watch Now" to work on my Vista Media Center PC at all. The reason why I can't Netflix's "Watch Now" to work on my Vista Media Center PC?

Yep, you guessed it. DRM. Digital Rights Management. Screwed over by DRM yet again.

Here I am, a law abiding good consumer, paying Netflix for my content, and once again I'm treated like a criminal and not allowed to play legally purchased content on my PC.

Here's his exchange with Netflix customer support:

He told me that my problem likely had to do with something called COPP (certified output protection protocol) or HDCP (he wasn't sure that this was but looked it up and told me that it was High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection). Sounds like fancy names for plain old DRM if you ask me.

He said that the error code that I'd been getting was showing up in other cases as well for some "odd reason," adding "we're not actually sure why these videocards are doing this."

He said I could try a few new things. He recommended that I check with my video card maker to see if there was a more updated driver. He also recommended that I reset the resolution on my monitor to below 1200x800 (presently it's set at 1920x1200 which he said could be a problem). He also said that instead of using the DVI cable that I'm using that I might want to try a VGA cable. And finally he added that I might need to hook up a second monitor to my PC and run it in dual monitor mode.

You can read his tale of frustration with DRM on his blog.

Comments

[Mike]

At least it's supposed to work for him. What about Mac users?

At least the DRM Apple uses works for both Mac and PC.

[bing]

I dunno, why don't you call up Steve Jobs and cry to him about it?

[MikeHunt]

What a surprise! Microsoft DRM (and DRM in general) sucks. Who'd a thunk it? Yet another anti-consumer product from the good monopolists from Redmond. Yet more crappy technology from an evil company.

[Wade Menard]

@Mike: Netflix is just waiting for Microsoft at this point.

How do you guys propose a rental service without DRM? Honor system?

[Frank]

@Wade: Netflix's entire business right now is effectively "a rental service without DRM". Almost every physical DVD they rent can be copied and some customers do so. This hasn't significantly affected Netflix's or the studios' business. DRM is not a requirement for a profitable business, it's an attempt by the studios to stall changes to the industry which they fear.

[Wade Menard]

Ignoring the fact that you would have to be breaking the DVD/BD's DRM to do that, you are trying to compare Watch Now to something that is rights managed as well (it's a rental). The fair use copy argument goes out the window when you only have temporary access to the copy.

I agree that if you are being sold something (music, video, software, etc) that it should be DRM free (of the variety that prevents reasonable personal use). But that simply does not work for rentals. You are paying for limited access to something (either for x hours/days or as long as you are paying up each month).

Your argument would have merit if we were paying x dollars per title (or bundle of titles) to own whatever we download off Netflix.

[Hunter McDaniel]

Wade, the problem is that unless the DRM can be made transparent it's just not worth it. MS DRM wastes a lot of energy guarding against phantom threats, and causing real compatiblity headaches in the bargain.

Why should I or any other legitimate user waste our time dealing with issues like COPP? And the COPP aspect is especially stupid, since it's main purpose is to restrict playback of High Definition material - which WatchNow doesn't come close to even at the max bitrate.

Frankly, I think just SSL encoding the download and encrypting it on the hard drive should be enough protection. A pirate could break that, sure, but he could break DVD protection even easier.

Because hunter, COPP is not just high def stuff. It is also present in analog video conections. COPP keeps you from putting the movies through a dvd recorder or vcr. that is all it does.

[~D]

COPP is a universal standard that interacts with the graphics card THEN the drm folder on your computer, so blame the graphics card if it's not working properly, alot of the time the reason it doesn't work is because major graphics card companies won't update the software to work properly (IE: NVidia) Which btw I love the company but for well over 8+months the Drivers don't properly work for S-Video, if you run a straight S-Video cable from your computer to a TV (And not have something like a VGA/DVI monitor in there) you will NOT be able to play protected content, period. Lets not yell at Microsoft and Netflix over this, cuz honestly for once, this isn't a case were the DRM is actually screwed up, what is happening is because the graphics card drivers on your computer aren't being able to tell whats going on they in turn Break the DRM on your system, if people start putting pressure on the Graphics card company to support ALL aspects of their hardware this issue wouldn't be so prevalent.

~D

[~D]

COPP is a universal standard that interacts with the graphics card THEN the drm folder on your computer, so blame the graphics card if it's not working properly, alot of the time the reason it doesn't work is because major graphics card companies won't update the software to work properly (IE: NVidia) Which btw I love the company but for well over 8+months the Drivers don't properly work for S-Video, if you run a straight S-Video cable from your computer to a TV (And not have something like a VGA/DVI monitor in there) you will NOT be able to play protected content, period. Lets not yell at Microsoft and Netflix over this, cuz honestly for once, this isn't a case were the DRM is actually screwed up, what is happening is because the graphics card drivers on your computer aren't being able to tell whats going on they in turn Break the DRM on your system, if people start putting pressure on the Graphics card company to support ALL aspects of their hardware this issue wouldn't be so prevalent.

~D

[Jason The Saj]

This may in fact be more a hardware problem than Netflix issue.

There was a mandate to specify that reduced quality output of video if it is output without using an HDMI cable/port (as HDMI spec has DRM handling). Of course, since very few computers have HDMI (most use the older DVI) this does not bode well for us users.

Hey it could be worse. I spent $400 on a Panasonic digital camcorder advertised as an MPEG4 camcorder. It wasn't, it was MPEG4 compression wrapped up in a proprietary Microsoft DRM format called ASE. It was supposed to be supported by Windows Media Player but was never fully supported.

The result - no one could watch any of the videos. And without the plug-in, I couldn't even watch my own videos.

I was annoyed, I was ripped off, it was false advertising. Oh...guess what.

I will never directly buy a Panasonic product again. They refused to address the issue at all. All they needed to do was let me remove the DRM restrictions on my home videos. (Really, why the **** does anyone need DRM for their home movies???)

But hey, they screwed me. The only response I have is to never spend my $$$ with them again.

[Gir]

While it can be argued this isn't a NetFlix issue, I think it's wrong to blame this on the hardware. Trusted hardware chains and disabled output is something that should never have been allowed to see the light of day.

If you're a start-up or low-cost hardware manufacturer, making sure your cards are "trusted" is an undo burden (can you say anti-competitive).

If you're a consumer, making sure all your hardware is trusted is more than an undo burden - it's an outright nightmare. More likely than not you'll end up throwing away perfectly good hardware so you can replace it with "trusted" hardware at a higher price.

I would imagine that, in time, someone (probably in the European Union) is going to get fed up and take this to the courts.

[jimofoz]

No offense to anyone (except to those who are guilty), but all this talk of standards, DVIs, cables, video cards is really immaterial to me. I shouldn't have to worry, or even think about all that stuff. I should just be able to pay my money, click a button and watch my show. That's all I need and all I want.