'Why Can't We Screenshot Frames From DRM-Protected Video on Apple Devices?' (daringfireball.net) 82
Apple users noticed a change in 2023, "when streaming platforms like Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and the Criterion Channel imposed a quiet embargo on the screenshot," noted the film blog Screen Slate:
At first, there were workarounds: users could continue to screenshot by using the browser Brave or by downloading extensions or third-party tools like Fireshot. But gradually, the digital-rights-management tech adapted and became more sophisticated. Today, it is nearly impossible to take a screenshot from the most popular streaming services, at least not on a Macintosh computer. The shift occurred without remark or notice to subscribers, and there's no clear explanation as to why or what spurred the change...
For PC users, this story takes a different, and happier, turn. With the use of Snipping Tool — a utility exclusive to Microsoft Windows, users are free to screen grab content from all streaming platforms. This seems like a pointed oversight, a choice on the part of streamers to exclude Mac users (though they make up a tiny fraction of the market) because of their assumed cultural class.
"I'm not entirely sure what the technical answer to this is," tech blogger John Gruber wrote this weekend, "but on MacOS, it seemingly involves the GPU and video decoding hardware..." These DRM blackouts on Apple devices (you can't capture screenshots from DRM video on iPhones or iPads either) are enabled through the deep integration between the OS and the hardware, thus enabling the blackouts to be imposed at the hardware level. And I don't think the streaming services opt into this screenshot prohibition other than by "protecting" their video with DRM in the first place. If a video is DRM-protected, you can't screenshot it; if it's not, you can.
On the Mac, it used to be the case that DRM video was blacked-out from screen capture in Safari, but not in Chrome (or the dozens of various Chromium-derived browsers). But at some point a few years back, you stopped being able to capture screenshots from DRM videos in Chrome, too -- by default. But in Chrome's Settings page, under System, if you disable "Use graphics acceleration when available" and relaunch Chrome, boom, you can screenshot everything in a Chrome window, including DRM video...
What I don't understand is why Apple bothered supporting this in the first place for hardware-accelerated video (which is all video on iOS platforms -- there is no workaround like using Chrome with hardware acceleration disabled on iPhone or iPad). No one is going to create bootleg copies of DRM-protected video one screenshotted still frame at a time -- and even if they tried, they'd be capturing only the images, not the sound. And it's not like this "feature" in MacOS and iOS has put an end to bootlegging DRM-protected video content.
Gruber's conclusion? "This 'feature' accomplishes nothing of value for anyone, including the streaming services, but imposes a massive (and for most people, confusing and frustrating) hindrance on honest people simply trying to easily capture high-quality (as opposed to, say, using their damn phone to take a photograph of their reflective laptop display) screenshots of the shows and movies they're watching."
For PC users, this story takes a different, and happier, turn. With the use of Snipping Tool — a utility exclusive to Microsoft Windows, users are free to screen grab content from all streaming platforms. This seems like a pointed oversight, a choice on the part of streamers to exclude Mac users (though they make up a tiny fraction of the market) because of their assumed cultural class.
"I'm not entirely sure what the technical answer to this is," tech blogger John Gruber wrote this weekend, "but on MacOS, it seemingly involves the GPU and video decoding hardware..." These DRM blackouts on Apple devices (you can't capture screenshots from DRM video on iPhones or iPads either) are enabled through the deep integration between the OS and the hardware, thus enabling the blackouts to be imposed at the hardware level. And I don't think the streaming services opt into this screenshot prohibition other than by "protecting" their video with DRM in the first place. If a video is DRM-protected, you can't screenshot it; if it's not, you can.
On the Mac, it used to be the case that DRM video was blacked-out from screen capture in Safari, but not in Chrome (or the dozens of various Chromium-derived browsers). But at some point a few years back, you stopped being able to capture screenshots from DRM videos in Chrome, too -- by default. But in Chrome's Settings page, under System, if you disable "Use graphics acceleration when available" and relaunch Chrome, boom, you can screenshot everything in a Chrome window, including DRM video...
What I don't understand is why Apple bothered supporting this in the first place for hardware-accelerated video (which is all video on iOS platforms -- there is no workaround like using Chrome with hardware acceleration disabled on iPhone or iPad). No one is going to create bootleg copies of DRM-protected video one screenshotted still frame at a time -- and even if they tried, they'd be capturing only the images, not the sound. And it's not like this "feature" in MacOS and iOS has put an end to bootlegging DRM-protected video content.
Gruber's conclusion? "This 'feature' accomplishes nothing of value for anyone, including the streaming services, but imposes a massive (and for most people, confusing and frustrating) hindrance on honest people simply trying to easily capture high-quality (as opposed to, say, using their damn phone to take a photograph of their reflective laptop display) screenshots of the shows and movies they're watching."
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Dropbox.
More what they didn't do than what they did (Score:4, Interesting)
When you use accelerated video, you have to move to grabbing the final framebuffer directly instead of the one that doesn't have the video composited on top of it. GPUs normally allow you to do this. Apple's GPU driver might not permit it at all. This is why disabling video acceleration in Chrome allowed you to screenshot videos played there. Apple is presumably always using GPU acceleration and may even be processing the DRM itself on the GPU.
This is abusive to the user and it prevents you from exercising your fair use rights, and it's also probably intentional. But Apple also didn't have to go out of their way to accomplish it. All they had to do was not go out of their way to enable you to exercise your rights, in the name of 1) simplicity and 2) protection of the interests of others who are not you.
As TFS says, Microsoft does problematic things around DRM as well, and will only continue to ratchet that up over time. If you want to get away from this kind of crap, you have only FOSS options to choose from.
Re:More what they didn't do than what they did (Score:5, Informative)
When you use accelerated video, you have to move to grabbing the final framebuffer directly instead of the one that doesn't have the video composited on top of it. GPUs normally allow you to do this. Apple's GPU driver might not permit it at all.
I'll test this with a movie off my Kodi server on my iPad.
Seems like screen captures work just fine [imgur.com], provided your content is from the high seas (and in the case of my randomly chosen content, also set on the high seas). So, we've learned two things here:
#1 Apple is doing this on purpose only to DRMed content.
#2 Leonardo DiCaprio used to be a twink.
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Your test content doesn't have any DRM
That was the whole point. You'd implied previously that Apple might not allow any screen shots of hardware-accelerated video. I took that screen shot while the video was playing, and I know that app uses hardware playback because software rendering chews through the battery like nobody's business.
So, the capability is absolutely there. Apple is specifically just not allowing it for DRM content.
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Does it matter? Your premise was that this was potentially unintentional result of hardware acceleration. If it's blocked for one hardware accelerated form of content and not the other then it's not the result of hardware acceleration.
Re: More what they didn't do than what they did (Score:4, Insightful)
No we do care about the reasons, you're just moving the goalposts around. You're saying one then and then pretending you said another. The reason you postulated: hardware acceleration is clearly not the reason.
Re: More what they didn't do than what they did (Score:1)
You haven't shown that at all, you've only shown that you don't know how the system works.
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The question is, does the driver prevent grabbing the final frame buffer does the hardware not allow a way to get with DMA.
Unless I am mistaken Apple does not package their 'GPU' in a non-integrated part so it seems possible there might be some restrictions, not necessarily put there to block or prevent anything but because it simplified the design, and they don't need flexibility because they don't have to work with anyone else's parts.
Re:More what they didn't do than what they did (Score:5, Informative)
According to Apple's FairPlay developer documentation [apple.com], once decrypted the content is passed through the same decoder as if you were playing back non-DRM content. The difference is that with DRM content a HDCP flag is set, which is likely what Apple is checking for, and if it is present, the screen capture function returns a big ol' picture of nothing.
Re:More what they didn't do than what they did (Score:4, Funny)
Ah... the Evil bit [ietf.org].
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Eh, it just makes the process slightly less convenient. You can still capture the video signal on the way to the monitor, and no matter *what* DRM they invent, you'll always be able to take a photo of the screen.
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This is abusive to the user and it prevents you from exercising your fair use rights, and it's also probably intentional. But Apple also didn't have to go out of their way to accomplish it. All they had to do was not go out of their way to enable you to exercise your rights, in the name of 1) simplicity and 2) protection of the interests of others who are not you.
It's DRM. It's exactly what DRM is supposed to do, manage your digital rights in a way that the copyright holder wants. Complain about DRM. Don't buy products with DRM. But don't complain about Apple implementing it.
Seems on-brand for Apple (Score:5, Informative)
Remember how back in the day if you transferred your music to an iPod there was no functionality built into iTunes to send the music files back to your computer? That ended up biting some people in the ass when they mistakenly believed the iPod doubled as a backup for their music collection. Yeah, I know third party software eventually made it possible, but we're talking about people who bought a device expecting everything to "just work."
Of course, when you factor in that Apple basically has to stay in the good graces of the RIAA and MPAA lest the terms of their licensing deals be altered (think Darth Vader style), it's not surprising that they've taken a heavy-handed approach to what you're allowed to do with DRMed content.
Ironically, the protection behind all this content has been quite broken for some time. Pick up a generic HDMI splitter and one of the various cheap HDMI capture cards capable of 1080p60 capture and you can literally record whatever you want. Most people don't bother with this method though, because the actual scene group pirates have tools for directly ripping streams, and then it's up for grabs as a torrent. Being able to record from a streaming service can still be useful, if for example, for some strange reason you're the only person who wants a copy of an extremely unpopular Disney movie and Disney Plus is the only service that has it in HD.
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. Being able to record from a streaming service can still be useful, if for example, for some strange reason you're the only person who wants a copy of an extremely unpopular Disney movie and Disney Plus is the only service that has it in HD.
Or are a fan of Arliss, which will never make it to DVD because of all the personalities involved; or of shows who replaced original music because securing DVD rights would be prohibitively expensive.
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Remember how back in the day if you transferred your music to an iPod there was no functionality built into iTunes to send the music files back to your computer?
I remember a lot of things about when the ipod replaced "MP3 players." There were some great models out there from a range of manufacturers. Big ones with hard drives, little ones with flash, video ones, ones with removable battery and SD card. When the ipod came out I was blown away that anybody at all wanted one.You needed to install software to use it! (every other device just showed up as removable storage when plugged in to a PC). Itunes was utter shit and by default would reorganise your files, change
Wait what (Score:4, Funny)
Woah, slow down here. How do I get the webcam of my macbook to even point at the screen for a single device screenshot?
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Woah, slow down here. How do I get the webcam of my macbook to even point at the screen for a single device screenshot?
You're supposed to also own an iPhone. If you don't have an iPhone, you buy one with 0% APR financing on your Apple Card. Next you'll be telling me you don't have one of those either. I bet you don't even have a little white Apple sticker on your car!
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Woah, slow down here. How do I get the webcam of my macbook to even point at the screen for a single device screenshot?
That's why your MacBook came with a large mirror. You hold it up in front of your face to enable the live screen recording feature.
Also breaks DisplayLink (Score:2)
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WTF, Apple?
You will use our machines exactly as we allow you to and in no other way. Your convenience or even the usability is of no concern to us. It looks pretty and we know the chances of you getting something else are so extremely slim as to be negligible. Now be a good little peon and integrate all your(ours) iDevices and start saving for the next one so you can be locked in even tighter. Good boy, now bend over and spread those cheeks for the corporate D.
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Wait... I thought Apple was why 1984 wasn't going to be like 1984?
Re: Also breaks DisplayLink (Score:2)
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When did "It just works" become "It just can't even"?
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My experience with DisplayLink is hit and miss - I had an ancient USB 2 -> DVI that worked with everything.
But my latest USB 3 -> HDMI one, Linux detected it somewhat but I had to download and compile a kernel module via DKMS to get audio out. It didn't work correctly with Windows 11, even with the official driver download - would detect the monitor but display nothing on screen. Funnily enough it works okay (mirroring) on Android.
I have no experiences on Mac with DisplayLink but drivers aren't quite
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Those DisplayLink adapters have always been kinda janky on Mac, probably due to the drivers (which come from DisplayLink, not Apple). Very touchy, tending to go wonky every time there's an update to the system software, and then you have to wait until they release new drivers to compensate. I stay away from them whenever possible.
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Just don't use macos, then you don't need shitty displaylink. All of the non-novelty OSes support MST.
.webp (Score:2)
Simple answer (Score:2)
Apple owns a streaming service; Microsoft does not.
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DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
For 30+ years I've watched PC makers and the movie etc. industries try to stop people watching things they have legitimately purchased a licence to watch because some people use those avenues to piracy.
Everything from Macrovision to DVDCSS, to HDMI blacklisting to this nonsense where content won't show on secondary monitors, etc.
Hilariously, not once in those same 30 years, have those who pirate not been able to get a perfect copy of whatever content they want, even if that was a few months after the release.
The amount of money poured into this junk is just not worth it. The day a thing is released in the cinema, or Netflix or whatever, it's available online. They're literally punishing billions of people, for the sake of slightly hindering a few tens of people who pretty much aren't affected by such measures at all.
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The longer I live, the more derivative, formulaic, and frankly, shitty, mass produced entertainment gets. Movies, television, online, whatever, it all sucks throbbing purple donkey dick. It's not worth paying for, certainly, and even free is overpriced. It's not worth the time to watch unless they pay me, and I'm expensive.
So in the end, to borrow from The Eight Deadly Words [tvtropes.org], I don't care what happens to these companies.
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Hilariously, not once in those same 30 years, have those who pirate not been able to get a perfect copy of whatever content they want, even if that was a few months after the release.
Actually we have ample evidence that DRM has worked effectively for quite some significant durations in more recent iterations. Look to example BD+. It was not only nearly a full year between BluRay's release and the first example of someone playing a copy, but it wasn't even cracked and relied on a specific piece of broken software which then only worked for some specific titles and was patched in future releases shortly after. It was several full years before the playback of BD+ protected titles were pos
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
So tell me... at what point after it's pirated do they turn that stuff off (they don't), at what point after it's released in any format does the HDMI blacklisting turn off for that movie (it doesn't / can't), and at what point after the scheme is broken permanently and irreparably do they stop putting it on the disks (they don't)?
If it's just to cover that little release-to-compromise window, then you could argue it was cost-effective, but that's NOT what it's for. It's to control and profiteer off all content.
Which is why every certified HDMI device of a thousand different kinds have HDMI blacklisting, why every PC and tablet have TPMs and why every single DVD made after a given time includes CSS for no real reason - even movies that literally never made it onto DVD until long after the format was obsolete.
Also, after BD was compromised they came up with BD+, and that was compromised (how doesn't matter, it was compromised) and then from then on - 4K versions of those movies (some of which were decades old) were available forever.
It's nothing to do with the release window. It's to do with controlling literally everything from the day of release to decades after the format is obsolete. It is - again - punishing billions of people in perpetuity for the few pirates who honestly couldn't care less anyway.
Gaming is no different. There are some games that removed Denuvo only YEARS after the games were utterly compromised and widely available on illicit channels, but many didn't. Some still haven't done so.
It's handing control in perpetuity to something that was broken long before most people ever bought that movie / game anyway, and modifying literally every device that COULD touch it in any way to facilitate that functionality, even if it's a hindrance (e.g. Denuvo has been recorded with STUPENDOUS performance degradation to the game, and again the pirated versions didn't have that).
It is ludicrous that we have allowed things like HDMI ports on every machine in existence to take part in this profiteering - and we're paying for that to be there on behalf of the industry through licensing fees on every port / chip - when not one title out there is "uncopyable".
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Compare the trajectory of CDs and DVDs: the means by which many MP3 players, especially the higher capacity ones, were actually filled often didn't necessarily reflect perfect adherence to copyright law; but, because ripping a CD raised no DMCA issues, even relatively risk-averse and family friendly consumer tech outfits shipped with CD ripping out of the box and Apple mov
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So tell me... at what point after it's pirated do they turn that stuff off (they don't)
Of course they don't. Why would they? They've already spent money on putting DRM in, why spend more money to pull DRM out after it is broken? It's like the opposite of sunk cost fallacy, you're actively trying to spend as much as possible for no benefit.
If it's just to cover that little release-to-compromise window, then you could argue it was cost-effective, but that's NOT what it's for. It's to control and profiteer off all content.
Thats... that's the same thing. They are trying to profit. They put DRM in to profit in the release window. They don't remove it because that's an expense they couldn't be fucked going through. Your point makes no sense. If it is about control alone then all
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Their response: Fuck you. It is ours. We will do whatever we want with it. Don't like it? Create your own shit.
And here we are with neither side backing down.
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It's not just punishing billions, it's literally punishing the paying customers, and only the paying customers. Arr, me first mate never sets ye "disallow screenshots" flag, matey.
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I almost agree, but that's not the purpose of DRM. It's about putting up little obstacles to keep the sheep in line. Convenience is king, and if it takes more than a few minutes effort to get around an obstacle they'll just take the easier path even if it means paying $17.99.
Remember back in the heyday of music piracy, using Napster was a real pain. It often took hours to get a good copy of a song, let alone a whole album, but it was far easier than going to a record store and browsing through CDs. Now the
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Hilariously, not once in those same 30 years, have those who pirate not been able to get a perfect copy
I believe the feature was never about stopping pirates. It is to deter casual copying.
They want to make sure the average consumer can't easily make a copy and share it with your neighbor, etc. Determined people can always find things ripped online and prepared by other pirates, but they also send lawyers after downloaders too sometimes. It's not a zero-risk venture, and people are made to be afra
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For 30+ years I've watched PC makers and the movie etc. industries try to stop people watching things they have legitimately purchased a licence to watch because some people use those avenues to piracy.
Everything from Macrovision to DVDCSS, to HDMI blacklisting to this nonsense where content won't show on secondary monitors, etc.
Hilariously, not once in those same 30 years, have those who pirate not been able to get a perfect copy of whatever content they want, even if that was a few months after the release.
The amount of money poured into this junk is just not worth it. The day a thing is released in the cinema, or Netflix or whatever, it's available online. They're literally punishing billions of people, for the sake of slightly hindering a few tens of people who pretty much aren't affected by such measures at all.
Even more hilariously, things have gotten better on the Piracy front... Very rarely these days do I download a movie that was clearly filmed on a camcorder in a cinema with out of sync audio.
The Answer is Always Money (Score:2)
Since videos are a combination of several still frames and an audio track, someone somewhere could ostensible write a program to screenshot each frame, record the audio, put it all together, and presto, a bootleg copy is born.
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Since videos are a combination of several still frames and an audio track
No. Videos are a combination of audio track and numerous groups of ordered frames. Only some frames in the video file called keyframes record the whole image, and most frames are only the differences from the last keyframe. The encoding process is ABSOLUTELY critical. The storage requirements would be absolutely astronomical if the video was not encoded in this way. Your idea of screenshotting every frame if it were theoretical
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This is one of many reasons you should never update your Apple OS after the major release the device came with.
If you fail or refuse to update you do eventually reach a point where the DRM engine forces you to update before you are able to watch any more DRM-protected video content.
How else would they prevent pirates from just rolling back to earlier versions or declining updates in order to Evade the "hardware blacklist" feature of HDCP?
Remember ringtones? (Score:3)
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Pretty cute idea, but I think no... My guess would be "Screenshotting DRM-protected videos" was never designed nor intended to be a feature that would be a thing. Playback of most DRM content types at 4k requires hardware acceleration. The video is decoded and rendered directly on the GPU so software never sees it. Same reason Netflix doesn't work over a screensharing session even in Windows.
I am not sure why Microsoft would go through extra efforts to restore screenshot functionality f
One frame at a time. (Score:2)
This, in fact, used to be a viable way to capture video assets when there was no other obvious solution.
You'd script a player or an app to advance one frame at a time, grabbing screens, then use something like AfterEffects or DeBabelIzer to turn the stills into a video track, then separately record the audio, analog through the headphone jack if you had to, and lay back the audio onto the video.
Of course, this would often fall out of sync due to problems with 29.97/30 fps, and you'd have trouble with things
Frame at a time (Score:2)
Hmmm, doesnt sound like a huge problem really. Sounds exactly like the kind of thing that someone could write a script to do. Chatgpt could probably write the code for you.
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Chatgpt could probably write the code for you.
Last time I asked Chatgpt to help me bypass encryption it refused to help and was an extremely rude and threatening chatbot.
I'm afraid that if you told it that "Write code to bypass digital rights management by playing a video file; capture the audio, screenshot each frame, and reassemble them into a new video file" ChatGPT would instead report you to the MPAA
Apple suck-factor is rising. Notably. (Score:3)
By premium Apple laptop for 4k Euros. Boot up, press play button, get blasted with Apple Music ad.
Get nagged by same laptop at least once a week because something something iCloud, give us your subscription money.
Need IT expertise and FOSS demons/services installments to reclaim play button and stop iCloud ads, like on some cheap-ass discounter Windows trash top.
Unacceptable. They've lost me as a customer.
Re: Apple suck-factor is rising. Notably. (Score:1)
If you want to put in the work (Score:2)
once again (Score:1)
I thought this was a tech site... (Score:2)
And expected the first comment being an explanation of how this works.
Accelerated hw decoding happens from buffer to buffer, the destination buffer can be (and usually is) in vRAM. vRAM buffers can be encrypted, it's just a flag at buffer allocation. Those encrypted buffers can't be read out of the GPU without knowledge of the key.
Radeon GPUs support the same functionality on Linux since 2020, called Trusted Memory Zone: https://www.phoronix.com/news/... [phoronix.com]
It's evil, it's crappy, but it's required by the MAFIA
Unpopular view but (Score:1)
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Pirates grab the entire video and save it... (Score:2)
Despite all this DRM, it seems like pirates find it incredibly easy to capture an entire video stream and save it as an unencrypted video file, which then ends up on file download sites, torrent sites and, yep, pirate streaming sites that stream it without DRM.
Once it's available as a normal video file, it's then trivial for the end user to run a video player, pause it and screenshot any frame they like on any device they can play video on. With the splintering of content across many expensive streaming ser
10.4 (Score:2)
The last good MacOS was 10.4 and after that I moved to linux on the desktop.
I Dual-booted my Macbook Pro for a while but eventually just got a Clevo laptop and left Apple behind.
It did help c. 2009 to have 15 years with linux on the server. It's trivial now.
No regrets.