Just pirate or I guess spoof your user agent, but just pirate instead: Don't give Amazon money.
Yep, I paid for a movie and they hit me with this, so they're never getting another dime from me. What brain dead morons are responsible for restrictions like this? Is it really that hard to see what the only possible outcome is?
Jellyfin streams all my shit at whatever resolution I went out of my way to download.
whatever resolution I went out of my way to download.
Addon Radarr, Sonarr, and Ombi and you won't even have to do that.
Users make requests via Ombi, those get sent to Radarr/Sonarr to search for and download. Most stuff is ready to watch ~15min after requesting, with no interaction from the servers admin needed. (optionally, requests can require approval before downloading, that's disabled for the users I trust)
YouTube purchases also don't work beyond 480p on any desktop except for Mac Safari. These companies are fucking insane.
And if you purchased movies from Sony instead, they will just remove them all from your account.
Guys, relax. Cancel your amazon and Netflix subscription and download streamio and use it with torrentio or real-debrid add-in.
Would you mind elaborating on what stremio is?
It's an app that can integrate with a lot of streaming services(officially) and has a built-in torrent client(that does nothing). (You know, all of this so that they can be accessible on all platforms, etc. torrenting isn't viewed kindly by platform makers) With the help of third party plugins (such as Torrentio) stremio now has access to systems where you can integrate with torrent sources so that when you browse for your movie, you can also see torrent sources and with the help of the built in torrent client, you can also stream them. Stremio has casting support and apps for all devices, even TV. It makes it really easy to watch movies easier and in better quality than any streaming service. It also keeps track where you last were in your movie so you can resume, the same thing for shows, also has many other useful extensions that streaming services don't support, such as Trakt.tv integration, or browsing curated lists of movies and shows from anywhere, as well as integrating with other sources outside of torrents such as providers holding archived materials.
That's your own post that you made at the same time you made this comment. You wouldn't be shilling now, would you?
If he is so what? Does it work?
Truly the only right answer
Louis Rossman has done a couple videos about this and I tend to agree - Paying customers get a worse experience.
You use the official apps and real accounts and you are still subject to artificial bandwidth restrictions. You use the official YouTube app on your smart TV and you get 10+ midroll ads at unnatural places during a 12 minute video. You "own" purchased content in one platform and it can still be taken away from you or made inaccessible when a service gets collapsed into another platform or rebranded etc. I'm not going to re-buy the same fucking movie I already owned on one streaming platform and have already owned on 2 different formats of physical release.
Curating your own digital copies, regardless of how you obtain them, is the only way to guarantee quality and availability anymore.
I’m not going to re-buy the same fucking movie I already owned on one streaming platform and have already owned on 2 different formats of physical release.
This is the thing that really pisses me off.
It's like I'm not paying for the content itself, I'm paying for the media the content is on, over and over again.
Teenager-me bought a few Marvel movies through Google Movies. It was a terrible experience and I never touched them again. Iirc I later ripped them from DVD from our local library for the better viewing experience (unsupported devices).
Agreed
It doesn't matter how much DRM you put into the service. someone can just spin up a Virtual Machine and install chrome, windows in it and then record the stream from the host system.
I wonder if a user agent switcher would be enough to fool them, or if they're actually using an exclusive library or something.
In-browser DRM usually uses a library called Widevine, which is a closed-source library created by Google that's usually only used on Windows or MacOS.
On Linux, you can use Google Chrome to get Widevine working. You can also extract the library from Google Chrome to use it with Chromium (e.g. see https://github.com/proprietary/chromium-widevine). The version of Chromium shipped with Linux distros doesn't include it since you need a license and permission from Google to distribute it. Lots of Linux users would also (understandably) really not want to run a DRM binary on their system. It's intentionally obfuscated to try and prevent people from breaking it.
I don't know what other Linux browsers do - I haven't used Linux desktop for a while (going to switch back soon though). On other OSes, browsers like Firefox and Brave prompt you the first time you try to watch DRM'd content, asking if you'd like to download the plugin. I assume they license it from Google.
Also as far as I know, Widevine doesn't allow the same security/compliance levels on Linux as it does on Windows and MacOS, as the OS is less locked down. This could mean that a 4K video streaming service works fine on Windows but won't allow you to stream in 4K on Linux. Isn't DRM great???
i wouldn't count it as impossible for really cool and well-meaning businesses like the amazon fun factory to somehow detect and ban/restrict use on VMs
Sure, but the thing is: only a single person needs to break it temporarily in some way and this person can then leak the DRM free copy for everyone to consume.
That's why DRM is such bullshit. It only ever punishes legitimate users. All others are unaffected.
Seems like there is no legitimate way for you to get that content. I guess youre forced to be a pirate!
That's the case for pretty much all systems that use widevine - you can blame google for it, as they are the one that built the widevine DRM that all streaming services use
I'm in no way a Google fan boy (rather the opposite), but IMHO this is backwards.
We have a (at some levels) shits DRM because of Google providing a semi-secute DRM stack.
If you want to go full DRM, there is no way around a key store, so for most (user) linux installations unachievable.
Without widevine nobody would give a fuck about Linux DRM anyway and Netflix, Amazon and friends would be out of reach for "normal" Linux users.
That said: fuck DRM, fucking cancer.
Not just key store, since you can quite easily use a secure enclave on Linux just as on any other platform.
The key issue is the render stack. On Windows and MacOS, providers can get certain assurances that the parts of the stack that take their decoded DRM'ed content and draw it into a window, get composited with other windows, have various transforms applied, and actually get things out to an HDCP-supporting monitor are all unmodified and (at least to a certain extent) immune to screen captures and other methods of getting the plain un-encrypted media stream. Linux on the desktop almost never provides those assurances. The only ones that really do are ChromeOS and Android--and both of those provide relatively high trust DRM as a result.
DRM doesn't work in practice to prevent piracy, but if you drink that cool-aid and assume for a moment that DRM actually worked, then Linux is basically impossible to provide verified DRM content to with the current landscape in the way that Windows, MacOS, CrOS and Android/iOS do
Yo ho ho, a pirate’s life for me.
This is why even though I pay for prime, I pirate everything. It's amusing to pay for a service that your experience is better pirating than using the service you pay for.
Same. It's nice to pick your own media player and use upscaling as much as you want to
dude uses linux but pays for prime you cant make this shit up
You have no idea how insane i went trying to figure out why clarkson farm was playing at extremely low quality, pixelated 320p on my PC before I realized Amazon just hated Linux.
It's not just Amazon, but any streaming platform that uses Widevine.
320p? I've seen 540p iirc, which was already terrible. Interestingly, a Windows VM made higher resolutions available, but I didn't want to watch a (tearing) slide show either.
At least I don't have to come up with a reason to justify piracy.
Its been some time since i last had prime.
but got the free trial today doing some christmas orders.
Now it just flat out refuses to let me watch video. Demands I enable Widevine content decryption module in my browser, which I don't have.. and isnt available on firefox (at least on linux) according to the mozilla add-on page/search.
edit
had to enable drm in the preferences for the option to even show up, aaaaand with it enabled and widevine installed, its still a blurry low resolution mess. Fucking amazin.
Maybe if you fake your user agent it would think you're on Windows.
Did you mark this as NSFW because Amazon fucks those running Linux?
It's not even really better on Windows. (Nearly) all streaming services restrict resolution to 720p if you watch on a PC, mobile phone or tablet. With the exception of Netflix if you watch with Microsoft Edge or Chrome, I believe.
Netflix plays 4k on my Mac, android and ipad. I don't use prime enough but it does the same I believe.
yeah I don't run into this issue on my mac at work or at home, but i do with every windows and linux machine i try them on. I can do whateevr the fuck i want on my plex server though.....if i could only get my wife to adapt to the plex UI and the ombi requester.....
You're sure Netflix plays 4k on Android? I have Widevine L1 reported in my Android Netflix app (on my rooted Android phone thanks to Magisk and the various spoofing/root-hiding tools). But even at L1 the video is limited to 1080p. I think it may be an app platform limitation, but would love to be proven wrong.
iirc, netflix requires the os's drm and browser for 1080p and higher. safari on apple, chrome on android, edge (plus perhaps newer cpu) on windows. third-party browsers (and linux as there is no native os drm) limited to 720p.
Don‘t GPUs also include hardware for DRM stuff like that?
Yes, still then there are only very limited software configurations that are allowed.
Netflix limits you to 720p even on windows, unless you are using Edge: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 (expand HTML5 browsers and scroll down).
This limitation doesn't apply to all content - it's the worst case scenario if copyright holder really put their foot down.
But it should work fine with the Netflix app in the microsoft store. Not that this makes it any better.
I gave up on prime video long ago for this bullshit, they're also not the only streaming to serve crap quality on linux.
We really get much better content, quality, experience, and for a cheaper price just by navigating high seas these days.
And yet their servers are using Linux to host a subpar experience for Linux clients.
Hey Amazon, use Windows and MacOS servers (lolz) instead for HD/UHD stream hosting!
Does Apple even make servers? I've seen plenty of *NIX servers but it's usually RHEL or whatever Solaris/SunOS got Frankenstein'ed into.
Apple had server hardware more than a decade ago. It wasn't really popular altough some institutions with mainly Apple devices did use it.
And there was a macOS Server app which enabled some "server" features, altough the important ones like file sharing are now directly integrated in the OS.
🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
User agent spoofing ftw
This doesn't change the fact that they are blocking us, sadly.
Oh yeah of course it doesn't. But that's our way to fight back
Piracy is your friend
At this point they're just begging us to go high seas
With a yo-ho-ho !
Time to sail the high seas!
idk why but i thought this would be amazon sending you a picture of goatse
"It's the same picture"
And this kind of shenanigans are why I don't use any kind of paid streaming service... This and the crap that Sony pulled on buyers of content. Fuck 'em.
bflix dot tee oh
fmovies dot tea oooh
join the open seas my friend
Ah, pirate streaming, the only way to stream HD fan- AI upscaled Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. A project that a fan did because Paramount (Disney?) said that it wouldn’t be profitable to do, so they were going to let it languish in SD forever.
I feel weird every time seeing such news - they make those rules as if they hold me by the balls, only I haven't ever used Netflix, and why would they go in the direction opposite of attracting me?
🏴☠️
Repeat after me OP: Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
Just like Netflix!
Fuck em all i ain't paying shit
Easy fix for that, just spoof your browser fingerprint + use anti DPI
and if you still feel paranoid, install GhostNET & activate itjust spoof your browser fingerprint
That won't help if your platform or browser doesn't support Widevine. It's possible Amazon only support the Widevine implementation on Windows and MacOS, and no amount of browser spoofing is going to help you if your browser just doesn't have the right closed-source binary DRM blob.
Yup. The better solution is to vote with your wallet and sail the high seas 🏴☠️
This restriction is meant to protect high definition content from being ripped by pirates. Open systems don't offer the same DRM guarantees as the locked ones.
Ironically means that everything I watch on my Linux machine will definitely be pirated.
Which is bullshit because DRM doesn't effectively prevent ripping (source: you can find pirated hd content). So it's literally only harmful to the customer.
I'll give you a quick demo of how DRM is literally useless at protecting content:
- You need:
- Services often use widevine as DRM provider, so using the Nvidia machine visit this test page and make sure DRM is working
- Normally the DRM api ensure that the decrypted content of that video can never in any form get out of a special GPU buffer, not even the browser can access it
- enable sunshine on the machine
- Connect from the second machine to the using moonlight and notice that the video is not being shared. DRM seems to be working correctly.
- Now disable sunshine and enable Nvidia gamestream from GeForce experience, and set it up to share the whole desktop
- connect from the second machine to the first using moonlight
- now the video is being shared to the second machine, and DRM is circumvented. There is literally nothing preventing you from recording the screen on the second machine
Now, this is a terrible way of ripping content, it causes at least one reencoding, which reduces quality (a lot of people won't even notice it), but it is a stupidly simple working demo of DRM circumvention.
Btw, that procedure is not the result of some study, reverse engineering, or any clever stuff. I was literally playing a game in streaming and I went "hmm, I wonder what would happen if I streamed widevine" and it just worked.
it is a stupidly simple working demo of DRM circumvention
A much more simpler method is to just use Streamfab. No need for nVidia, a second PC etc.
What do you know, I have that kind of setup. I kinda want to try that now. I ain't gonna subscribe to Netflix just to test this for myself tho.
At this point they don't deserve your money.
What happens if you change the useragent? It stops working at all?
No, changing the user agent doesn't change anything. I believe it's the Widevine DRM level or rather the lack of support for L1. The whole point of DRM is to make it not easily circumventable, so the best solution is piracy.
I do keep seeing the argument that you can vote with your wallet but I mentioned this in another thread I think a week ago.
I think voting with your wallet doesn't quite work here because you're not going to a competitor, you're simply opting out. What happens is then they don't see your platform of choice as the issue. All secretly gathered data points like your platform of choice often present a survivorship bias in the usage data.
With that being said, piracy has always been "... An issue of service not price" (GabeN) and I wholly support piracy as the alternative. I just don't think these services like Amazon are going to ever get the memo.
I do have a weird Tin Foil hat feeling that they're losing something Linux platform that's more than support or DRM. What if it's harder to monitor your usage on Linux platforms and they think that they can encourage you to leave the platform by forcing you to see lower quality so they can get those usage metrics back? (Again, tinfoil hat hypothesis)
I'm pretty sure people grabbing the HD streams don't care about that restriction, because they know how to circumvent it.
But normal viewers who don't have time to deep dive into TOS are getting scammed subscribing to HD tier plans.
We need some mad genius to crack Widevine and make a plugin that works for Linux.
It's going to have to be restricted-source, but hey, honestly we need to break Google's stranglehold anyways.
What bother when you can get all the shows from torrents?
The King and his men stole the queen from her bed And bound her in her bones The seas be ours and by the powers Where we will, we'll roam
Yo, ho, haul together Hoist the colors high Heave-ho, thieves and beggars Never shall we die
does spoofing user agent fix this?
More than just that was required for 4k netflix, when it worked. Last I heard they came up with additional DRM bullshit. I would expect Amazon to at least attempt the same thing
Drms need to be installed and enabled on the browser. Drms like widevine and others.
If the drms aren't enabled and installed on the browser, and able to communicate to the service it's "safe", spoofing the user agent won't do anything.
Why wouldn't it?
so in my country (I’m European, specifically Romanian) we have this streaming service called SkyShowtime. guess what? its DRM is so bad that SkyShowtime just won’t work beyond being on the website. it won’t play anything to you.
that is because either Peacock or Paramount+ are also DRM-blocked, because all there is to it is Peacock and Paramount+ with the Commonwealth Sky and Showtime brands that NBCUniversal and Paramount are respectively owning, and they combined it together and sell it to countries with lesser purchasing power parity, such as Romania.
Yep, it's pretty bad, that's why me and my friends share all the subscriptions and use all the deals, it's not worth it if I'm paying more than 5RON for any service like this. When Netflix started to do their bullshit, we cancelled, not fucking worth it. We still all also use stremio.
Peacock won't even work on Linux and it drives me crazy. I sail frequently, but my friends and I do a podcast where we watch old pro wrestling. WWE moved all their content over to Peacock. A lot of that old Mid South or Mid Atlantic wrestling isn't on the high seas, so... Somebody has to screen share through my log in when we record. It's just so dumb like just let me watch what I pay for.
Would you mind sharing the podcast? I'd be interested in listening!
mastodon.social/@kayfnfabe that's our mastodon. We just do watch alongs for wrestling lol but we're pretty funny and we have a pretty good time. Thanks for the interest!
My understanding is that there's some DRM stuff that can't really be implemented in open source stuff. Not sure how accurate that is, or which sites use it, but I guess it's a technical reason. Still very scummy and annoying how poorly they treat paying customers.
If it's open source it's under the user's control, so it's almost impossible for a company to guarantee DRM is actually implemented instead of the device just claiming to implement it, decrypting the stream and not actually implementing any restrictions.
The whole point of DRM is to take control away from the end user so their device does what a company wants instead of what the device's owner wants. If the user has control, you can't have DRM.
I wonder if you can install their android app using WayDroid and then run 1080p/4k streams.
Prolly not worth the effort considering they're treating linux users like shit, they don't deserve our money.
most likely not, the app probably doesnt run at all
interesting - is chromeOS not carrying the modified glibc that allows higher widevine compliance since it moved to running its chrome as a separate process from the windowing system?
I know that Amazon says that, but I regularly watch stuff in full HD (1080p) on linux in Brave.
How?
I open the browser, I go to amazon.de, I select a movie. If I have to buy it, amazon gives this funny popup two or three times that informs me that high resolution streaming is not supported on my platform (can't remember the exact text) which I confirm "yes, I still want to buy it", and then the player happily streams in full hd (1080p) which is my native resolution. I guess that prompt just checks the user agent string, but the player is happy if it has libwidewine.
I'm assuming this is widevine related?
What about using User Agent Switcher?
