it says "Remember that it's not possible to play films on GNU/Linux, but only on other compatible devices"... ahh what a wild world we live in
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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Why do they do this?
Because without the proper DRM implementation it's trivial to rip it. So they're only letting you rip the low quality version. Which feels really stupid, because people who know how to rip the 4K content exist and are happy to share the results.
On Windows Microsoft/Nvidia/AMD sign their graphics drivers, which guarantees the DRM that the content isn't recorded on the system.
Disclaimer: The following is my understanding from reading things here and there. I'm a layman on this topic, so please don't quote me.
On Linux drivers aren't designed to prevent users from recording on their system, so the DRM doesn't play high quality content. Also, because drivers aren't directly provided and signed by MS/NV/AMD, there'd be no way to prevent users from patching the graphics drivers to allow recording again.
That is, if DRM support was implemented in the driver, which it won't, because there's no interest and the current distribution model makes it near impossible.
tl;dr
DRM is (always?) closed-source, else it could be easily circumvented. The Linux driver/desktop stack isn't designed to prevent users from accessing content played on their own device, so rightsholders disallow playing high quality content on Linux.
PS: I've noticed on Amazon or Netflix some shows are higher quality than others on Linux. I guess this might be due to rightsholders requiring different Widevine levels for the same quality.
I have a question:
Can you not use OBS on DRM content? Or a capture card? I know those may lose some quality, but aren't these ways good enough/working?
A regular capture card will adhere to the HDMI DRM HDCP, which means it'll only record a black screen. As you guessed, there're capture cards which either don't implement HDCP (unlikely for major brands), or which have been hacked and can be flashed with custom firmware.
I've read OBS on Windows also only records a black screen, at least with hardware encoding enabled (NVENC, AMF, Quicksync also implement DRM as part of the driver). Software encoding might work.
As always with content: If it's on your device, it can be copied.
PS: Now I remember Crunchyroll also uses Widevine, but I've seen it streamed over Discord. So either Widevine L3 doesn't prevent recording, or it doesn't work in Firefox, or Discord doesn't use hardware encoding on Windows (unlikely), or something in my comment is wrong information -> Disclaimer, I'm just repeating from memory what I've read.