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The best YouTube downloaders, and how Google silenced the press

(windowsread.me)
439 points Leftium | 2 comments | 19 Sep 25 12:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.5s | source
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nitwit005 ◴[19 Sep 25 21:40 UTC] No.45306994[source]▶
This seems to be starting with the assumption that it's possible to prevent people from downloading the videos. That is a false assumption. You can, after all, just play the video and record it. Even if the entire machine playing the content is flawlessly locked down, you can just record the output.

The efforts at DRM done by companies like Netflix is done because the companies that licensed the content demand it. That doesn't mean the DRM works. You can find torrents of all those shows.

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1. varenc ◴[20 Sep 25 00:22 UTC] No.45308443[source]▶
DRM isn't perfect of course, but it largely works.

Unlike with Youtube videos, you can't just freely pull something off GitHub and crack Widevine level 1 DRM. The tools and extracted secret keys that release groups use to pirate 4K content are protected and not generally available.

This doesn't matter if you want to find something popular enough for a release group to drop in a torrent, but if you have personal access to some bespoke or very obscure content the DRM largely prevents you from downloading it. (especially at level 1, used for 4K, which requires that only a separate hardware video decoder can access the keys)

tl;dr; DRM works in the sense it changes it from 1/100 people can download something (YouTube) to ~1/100000.

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2. estimator7292 ◴[20 Sep 25 13:27 UTC] No.45313200[source]▶
No, it really is not that complicated at all.

You can just go online and grab software to bypass any and all DRM.

It's called OBS.

All DRM content must be rendered into meatspace at some point and there is literally no possible way to prevent this. Record your screen, record your system audio. It's pretty trivial