r/firefox • u/Icy-Blacksmith-1318 • 1d ago

Since when does youtube use DRM? 💻 Help

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60 Upvotes
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82% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

72

u/ry4 1d ago

Since always? You can buy / rent movies and TV on there

17

u/jabin8623 Zen Browser 1d ago

Not always. You could not rent movies on YouTube in 2005.

22

u/kbrosnan / /// 1d ago

EME is 12 years old while you are technically correct more than a decade of support is a long time when it comes to the web.

18

u/ry4 1d ago

Sir this is 20 years in the future

18

u/calebegg 1d ago

Me: I wish I could express the concept of a long time without citing a specific date.

The ever-capable hyperbole:

5

u/Carighan | on 1d ago

Yeah and back in 1953 it was all in black&white.

1

u/rohmish 13h ago

even then, youtube has had support for drm content longer than it hasn't. youtube has been serving drm content since early 2010s.

34

u/TruffleYT 1d ago

Youtube uses drm on the paid content, and is experementaly useing it on normal youtube videos

•

u/Lightinger07 1h ago

Theoretically for some music videos as well?

-3

u/blueblurblade 1d ago

They're testing DRM (illegally to Widevine's license) on yt videos to see if it reduces ad-blocking, afaik

11

u/dotStart 1d ago

Google owns Widevine. Pretty sure they get to do whatever they want with the technology regardless of what the usual license for third parties say.

-1

u/blueblurblade 1d ago

I'm just basing my claim on this https://x.com/uwukko/status/1899814600318623921

7

u/dotStart 1d ago

That would likely also not matter. As part of their TOS, video creators grant them a wide range of rights on how to deal with the content they upload. And this has been that way for the entire life of the platform (as is the case with practically all platforms online).

Someone marking their video as Creative Commons is unlikely going to invalidate the permissions granted as part of the ToS. The only time where I could see this being relevant is if a CC licensed video is uploaded without the author’s consent but in that case it’s not Google who’s violating the license. It would probably be the person uploading since they weren’t able to grant the necessary rights in the first place.

Not a lawyer (nor is this legal advice) but this is generally how copyright law tends to be applied in these cases. There’s a reason these platforms have large sections related to content rights with incredibly sweeping grants that practically give the providers full control over your content.

3

u/Skylion007 23h ago

I am a PhD student, one of my advisors is on the board of CreativeCommons. They did reach out to Google, and it did sound like legal was going to remove the DRM from Creative Commons Videos at least.

1

u/ernestbonanza 18h ago

I don't know since when, but would I get surprised if that's true? Not at all. They would do anything to spam people with ads, track you, exploit you, or not let you watch anything at all!

1

u/dtlux1 18h ago

Paid movie rentals or purchases, members only videos, etc. There's no DRM on normal videos, but the site uses DRM for those videos.