Wayland's Weston Gets Option To Enable HDCP Support Per-Output

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Wayland's Weston Gets Option To Enable HDCP Support Per-Output

An Intel open-source developer contributed support to Wayland's reference Weston compositor for enabling HDCP support on a per-output basis using a new allow_hdcp option...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Wayland-Weston-allow_hdcp

[tildearrow]

Who would want to do this though? HDCP (and DRM in general) is a disaster to humanity that hasn't solved anything at all.

[Britoid]

Who would want to do this though? HDCP (and DRM in general) is a disaster to humanity that hasn't solved anything at all.

People who want to watch HDCP protected content and don't care it exists.

[pracedru]

This is a road directly towards a world, where people will not own the content they pay for.
Also a world where content like news, music and movies can be "corrected" without the people having a way to prove it. (memory hole)
Not very pleasant to think about. But it's probably unavoidable.

[Guest]

People who want to watch HDCP protected content and don't care it exists.

That's not going to happen on Linux distros. Media copyright owners/publishers/distributors only approve high fidelity playback on those devices where the user has no control over the OS or the software performing the playback. This work is only useful for ChromeOS, Android, and other Linux based, locked down, custom OS used on consumer devices.

[cl333r]

This is a road directly towards a world, where people will not own the content they pay for.

Afaik this is true for a long time already, you don't own the movie you're watching on Netflix or buying on DVD or BluRay, you simply buy the right to watch it.
The same is true about Window$ or iOS - when you buy it you really get a copy still owned by Microsoft which grants you the right to use it, not only that, Microsoft defines restrictions and reserves the right to change them any time it wants.

[pracedru]

Afaik this is true for a long time already, you don't own the movie you're watching on Netflix or buying on DVD or BluRay, you simply buy the right to watch it.
The same is true about Window$ or iOS - when you buy it you really get a copy still owned by Microsoft which grants you the right to use it, not only that, Microsoft defines restrictions and reserves the right to change them any time it wants.

RIght, but if you buy a movie or music on DVD/CD, no one can change it.

[josh_walrath]

This is a road directly towards a world, where people will not own the content they pay for.
Also a world where content like news, music and movies can be "corrected" without the people having a way to prove it. (memory hole)
Not very pleasant to think about. But it's probably unavoidable.

Since nobody buys (or should buy) physical media anymore, this is already mostly true today. It's interesting that music kind of escaped the clutches of DRM; you can easily buy that digitally without it. But not so for books, movies, shows, or games. 🤔 But, even there, the convenience of not having to own the music is still salient. Most people seem to choose to stream instead of buying. iTunes is turning into a Spotify-esque subscription service soon. Pay eternally, own nothing, and enjoy everything, all without needing hundreds of GBs in your phone. Tempting Faustian bargain.

But don't worry. There's an eternal silver lining here, which is that simple, "passive" media like music and video is ultimately unprotectable. All of it is simple plaintext enjoyed as it's laid bare, which means it can be shared once decrypted, which means you'll always be able to pirate it: https://rarbg.to/torrents

For complex media like software, though, especially with always-online-components, we're fscked. 😂 Also gonna be hard to emulate it in the future.

[starshipeleven]

RIght, but if you buy a movie or music on DVD/CD, no one can change it.

That's just an unfortunate limitation of the media they could not get around in the pre-internet era, and one of the main reasons every content provider is trying to push digital distribution and streaming instead.

[starshipeleven]

Who would want to do this though? HDCP (and DRM in general) is a disaster to humanity that hasn't solved anything at all.

HDCP is a joke, not a "disaster to humanity".