The DRM doesn’t really make pirating any more inconvenient for the (pirate) consumers (they get e.g. an MKV file without any of it). If there was no DRM on the legal platforms, it would be easier for pirates to release new stuff, but just marginally so.
If there was no DRM, ordinary viewers would still choose Netflix over torrents, and perhaps some more tech-savvy users would choose it as well (since many do want to support film makers, but are opposed to DRM). It would still be as hard to create a “pirate Netflix” as it is now, because of legal threats and because it’s tricky to monetize it.
DRM literally serves no purpose outside of some corporate politics bullshit.
No, with DRM, you can't make and sell a player that allows to skip ads, ignore regional limitations, etc. If you do, your key is revoked.
Pirating high-res videos already requires special hardware to remove HDCP. It's cheap now because HDCP is notoriously weak. A future standard may start needing a $500 device, or even a $5000 one.
Is it still relevant nowadays? I thought most people just went to online streaming, and you don’t need DRM to enforce all that stuff there.
> Pirating high-res videos already requires special hardware to remove HDCP.
That is true, and a new standard might make it harder for a few years, but:
1. The switch won’t happen overnight, which means pirates would still use HDCP while working on the new one.
2. It’s possible to make piracy prohibitively expensive, but the standard would have to be really really complex. Like, “putting hidden watermarks with display serial number on the stream and revoking keys just for that display” kind of complex. I don’t think it’s feasible.
If there was no DRM, ordinary viewers would still choose Netflix over torrents, and perhaps some more tech-savvy users would choose it as well (since many do want to support film makers, but are opposed to DRM). It would still be as hard to create a “pirate Netflix” as it is now, because of legal threats and because it’s tricky to monetize it.
DRM literally serves no purpose outside of some corporate politics bullshit.