Save Netflix Streaming Movies and DRM

This blog has a tutorial on how to save a Netflix streaming movie, rip it of its DRM, and than play it anywhere you want. Kinda nice 'eh? This tutorial is not for the faint of heart, and will take a tiny bit of time, but it's great if you want to watch the video on your iPod or other device.

Check out the tutorial here!

As far as I know this is not illegal, as demonstrated under the fair use policy.

For those that don't know, DRM stands for digital rights management. What it has been in the past, is a way for publishers to restrict access to and encrypt their media files. Whether this be Music, Movies, or Games it has hindered the productivity of the medium you paid for, and left you helpless.

For example, Apple has a system called "Fair Play" in which they essentially block you from your own content. They encrypt your own content, and only allow it to be played back on one authorized device. So in a sense, you don't even FULL have your content, you NEED Apple to be able to access the very thing you paid for. They DO offer drm-free tracks, but even making these available for unsuspecting customers is a tragedy.

Walmart's DRM Server is being disabled. This sucks for many non-tech savvy users who will not go through the "loops" to get the DRM removed. Some probably simply won't hear of it or even know how to do it.

On average, some of the largest servers on the net are still down about 30 minutes out of the whole year, which is 99.999 % reliability. However, 30 minutes during the year is a long time to be unable to access the content you paid for, huh?

In a sense, it's almost like one doesn't even "own" the content. You are paying full price to essentially "rent" the media.

While I don't necessarily condone piracy, it makes it very difficult to pay for your media when many of the available options are so restrictive. Physical books are a good example of a good way to get information and entertainment though, because they have NO DRM. It's called the "eye-hole" meaning, no matter what they do you can always "retype" the information and for the most part, scan the pages if YOU wanted to create a .pdf copy for your netbook. Now this is totally legal, however, companies do not want you doing this so they enforce DRM. For voice and video, there are similar holes, known as analog holes, where the user can visually record (using another camera) or record using a microphone (such as with a voice recorder). Ultimately, there is no protection against that type of media.