Several of the movies and shows at Netflix have been pulled since this story. What's happened is rather than 'open' the movies to all uses, this 'hack' has basically closed down much of this offering for those of us who streamed the movies to our televisions.

With more help like this, I expect we'll eventually see the death of downloadable content.

NETFLIX still sends regular DVDs in the mail to its members homes. We have software that can by-pass the DRM copy protection in those discs. Its easier to burn these if you want a personal copy for your film library. Pirates can convert them to compressed formats often found on the internet.

So why bother downloading the lossy streams in the first place?

Sometimes the mood strikes to watch a movie right at that moment. A download with a decent internet connect means very little wait time.

This was kind of unexpected, not that I expect DRM to remain uncracked (it all gets cracked eventualy) but this is kinda quick lol I wonder how the quality is on these downloaded movies ? if its not as good as a DVD then I dont see the point in cracking this other then to say it was done ? (usualy DVD downloads are a little over 4GB's and the quality is quite good as long as the person encoding it is proficient)
The pirate in me is happy and loves the chaos !
The profesional in me worried this may put Netflix out of buisness ? (or perhaps its a cleaver scheme to sell more movies....)

I wouldn't worry about Netflix. They're not at fault here. It is Microsoft, the DRM industry as a whole and the entertainment industry as well for not understanding that DRM is worthless and doesn't do anything to prevent commercial piracy, which is their whole intent for developing and using this.

How exactly do you propose for them to evolve? Obviously 'good faith' tactics don't work. Some kind of 'protection' needs to be in check.
I think they should put users full names, current address on file and social security numbers into their stuff to be downloaded...that way you can strip the drm away but if you try to remove that information, the file becomes corrupt. Either way, if the user decides to share the file, then they can share this information as well.

Thieves always ruin it for everyone else.

So you think people are able to remove the DRM from the file with out damaging the file but that for some reason they wouldn't be able figure out a way to remove other data like their name and address without corrupting it? That suggestion is almost comical.

All DRM does is hinder honest people from exercising their fair use rights. An average Joe can't make a backup of his new DVD, which he is legally allowed to do, because of DRM while pirates will just use tools like this, strip the DRM from it, and then share it on the internet or sell it on the street corner. All the does is make the average person want skip buying the genuine thing because the pirated version will allow him to make that backup copy or otherwise use it as he sees fit.

I do agree that thieves ruin it for everyone else. But at some point you have to accept the fact that it's a battle you are not going to win.

"So you think people are able to remove the DRM from the file with out damaging the file but that for some reason they wouldn't be able figure out a way to remove other data like their name and address without corrupting it? That suggestion is almost comical."

Well I see data as data. DRM is a protection scheme to serve the purpose of copy/share prevention and is embedded externally and enforced by the use of various server/local keys. If you digitally watermark a file with something, it's there to stay - and it's removal means data corruption, not entirely but enough to render the item useless.

Kind of like I add my voice someplace into a mp3 song, remove it and you mess the song up somehow.

The cell phone was a 'comical' idea a few decades ago too.

You're missing the point. It's just another obstacle for the hackers and crackers to solve, which they inevitably will, and with quicker speed than they did in the past. The teams of people working to crack these clearly far more cunning than any of the people designing these DRM schemes. It took three years to crack the DVD DRM. It took only a few months to crack the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD DRM. How long do you think it will take to crack the next thing they come up with? Additionally, I'd love it if you could point out a copy protection system that has so far been unable to be circumvented.

By the way, comparing the cell phone to some arbitrary DRM scheme that "digitally watermarks" your name and address onto a file is actually more comical than your previous suggestion. I think it'd also helpful to you to point out that you seem to have no grasp or understanding about what DRM or watermarking is and how it actually works.

Why isn't anyone talking about the software that strips drm from apple itunes?

Probably because you could stip the DRM a long time ago. I don't use iTunes, but it doesn't seem like Apple really does anything about it.

I just cant believe that they would go about and claim that they used stolen source code. I mean, how on earth would they ever be able to prove something like that. Just stupid.

...looking forward to the day when my super-hero quantum decoder ring always decodes their quantum DRM.

Well to be fair its not all on Netflix until Hollywood realizes DRM does not work, they will continue to try and implement it.

DRM will not work. Give up already. Your old business models are dead. Resistance is futile.
Evolve or die.

Exactly. Evolve or die.