I thought the idea behind Netflix using Silverlight (instead of flash, which would presumably allow Netflix to normally work in Linux, like youtube or amazon instant video) was that Silverlight had super-duper DRM stuff that did nonsense with TPM.
If it works with WINE, I am guessing the situation is not quite that simple?
Netflix didn't use Silverlight because it had extremely good DRM, but because nobody used it nobody had taken the time to reverse engineer it so getting the raw video files out of Netflix would be harder.
Most computers don't have TPMs but Netflix runs on any Windows OS that has Silverlight. In the end, it is still software using the Win32 API, it just required implementing some Microsoft-specific functionality they had going on.
I do wonder how the Netflix apps not on Microsoft platforms work though. The Android, iOS, and game console versions mainly.
"Netflix didn't use Silverlight because it had extremely good DRM, but because nobody used it nobody had taken the time to reverse engineer it so getting the raw video files out of Netflix would be harder."
Not sure where you're getting those facts from, but Netflix does use DRM extensions in Silverlight as was pushed into using Silverlight because the copyright holders demanded Netflix to do so (just as Love Film were forced to switch from Flash as well).
It would be daft for a company who's business is based on streaming content to the masses (such as Netflix's business is) to switch to a platform that fewer people use simply because fewer people use it. No sane web company would do this unless their content was threatened to be pulled by the content owners.
Ah, interesting. I suppose they probably haven't re-evaluated that decision because they don't really have a compelling reason to care.
When the Netflix android application came out I had high hopes for Netflix on desktop GNU-ish/Linux, particularly when I learned that the Netflix application would work on rooted/otherwise open android phones. That hasn't happened though, so I guess either nobody has bothered to see that through, they got hit with law stuff, or for some reason it isn't technically feasible.
You will get an encrypted form of it, you would still have to figure out the key which would require stepping through silverlight/netflix with a debugger as well as working around whatever tamperproofing has been added to your OS kernel when you installed it.
Technically WINE provides more than just Win32 APIs, but essentially you're right. WINE is more a compatibility layer / wrapper for PEs than an emulator.
In fact, I often make the container distinction: you have containers (Zones / Jails / OpenVZ) and you have virtual machines (VMWare / Vbox / Qemu / etc). WINE falls more into the containers category because it runs Windows PE natively on the host but in a sandboxed environment (and in an approximate sense of the term, chrooted) but with hooks that go between the host and client.
But, like with WINE, many lump containers into the virtualisation pigeon-hole as the full hardware emulation suites even though you're not actually emulating any hardware with containers.
Ripped from a source you have legal access is undetectable in most cases.
Downloading a copy over the net that someone else ripped can be detectable.
That being said, I agree that piracy is just piracy. In my mind grabbing something from bittorrent/usenet is the same as using a VPN provider to stream from a different country, is the same as watching an illegal streamed copy on some website, is the same as ripping a copy from a friend/public library.
Did you pay to access it? Does the copyright holder make it freely available? No?
I wasn't aware that it did. My only personal experience with Netflix on windows was Netflix being very very strict about my windows installation being up to date and verified (or whatever the terminology was). This was 2007/2008 or abouts though.
Is there a reason then that they use Silverlight instead of flash?
If it works with WINE, I am guessing the situation is not quite that simple?