Linux 4.17 To Likely Include Intel DRM Driver's HDCP Support

[starshipeleven]

I know we have things like Signal being able to turn off screenshots by default on Android, but I don't know if that's just telling normal screenshot programs not to run, marking some RAM as private(possibly reusing something written for DRM purposes?), or something more robust.

It's probably relatively weak OS-level enforcement, Android "users" are not root, so it's not hard to control their freedom of movement with normal system-level policies. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...ure-in-android

Or at least that's what most do afaik.

Even youtube can be convinced to do your bidding (like screencast high definition content) if you are rooted and install some OS-modification like Xposed framework (currently best way is through Magisk, itself another system that basically takes over the device at the earliest stage possible by patching the initramfs/kernel image, and can thus evade all checks made by apps to ensure that the device is not tampered with and is "safe").

[Mystro256]

Nobody says we have to buy paid media at all. What I would be more concerned about would be if video sharing and social media sites tried to prevent users from allowing other users to download or otherwise capture their files. In activist video this would make it much easier for a takedown demand against a single website combined with the arrest of the orginal poster to kill all availability of an important video (say, one showing Trump pinching someone's ass) as fewer backup copies would exist in third party hands.

I wasn't trying to defend HDCP, nor do I plan to. Content providers, such as social media, video sharing, streaming services, etc, will put whatever restriction they want regardless of HDCP support on the current driver you're running.

HDCP, like all DRM, can be disabled by config, or patched out, but this will not change the restrictions content providers put on their content.

[Luke]

I wasn't trying to defend HDCP, nor do I plan to. Content providers, such as social media, video sharing, streaming services, etc, will put whatever restriction they want regardless of HDCP support on the current driver you're running.

HDCP, like all DRM, can be disabled by config, or patched out, but this will not change the restrictions content providers put on their content.

My whole point was I do not have to use those content providers, and they are not welcome in my life if they act like this.

If any site I use suddenly won't work because they decide they want to make ads mandatory or require DRM, the only change I make is to kick the offending site out of my life, no matter what it is. If Youtube were to start requiring DRM on non-monetized video not flagged for 3ed party content(and thus monetized), I would start a campaign to get the rest of the activist community to stop using Youtube and start using Archive.org. Archive does not handle paid content at all, so they will never have an incentive to put anything behind DRM. They have streaming video that openly offers download too, and Archive is not supported by ads. I made this transition years ago for other reasons and no video of mine after 2011 (and few after 2010) can be found on Youtube unless reposted by a third party as sometimes happens.

Youtube might impose DRM on paid/monetized content, but they would be fools to drive away producers of non-monetized video who are not demanding DRM and maybe don't have DRM supporting hardware. There are plenty of sites that do not engage in "revenue sharing" at all and will be happy to take Youtube's place. As for Youtube videos as a source to pull music from (play it with Audacity running and recording, and pulseaudio monitoring the output), that does not do anything Bittorrent can't do instead. In other words, all of Youtube is expendable. If Youtube is expendable to me as a video maker, every site on the Internet is expendable to me. I would like to see it all go back to self-hosted content on user's local machines, with the cloud providers out of the gatekeeper business as a result.

[Danny3]

It's inert, you are not running it, and unless you turn it on you will not be running it.

Maybe that's the case now, but I'm pretty sure they will turn it on automatically in the future.
I think they won't even bother informing me when that happens so I can notice it and turn it off.
And even if they play nice at first, after a while I'm sure they will remove the turn off feature completely.
I've seen lots of companies starting by playing nice and then went bad and very bad.
I don't think Intel is any different.
Seeing that Intel now requires binary blobs for thing that were open source in the past it's a sign that they are going from Good -> Bad!

Besides, even if the feature will not be running, why it should waste my precious free space on my small SSD?