restrict users sharing/copying a video stream

[wesleykonrad]

Hey Guys,

My employer is an educational facility. They want to stream videos of classes for when students can't be there. They also want to protect their educator's privacy and not allow the students to copy or share the videos. Anybody have any ideas how to do this?

[poisondeathray]

Impossible to prevent copying . If it can be viewed it can be copied by screencapture software

The most you can do is to make things more difficult, like get the IT guy to setup logins / passwords . Setup RTSP streams (more expensive), rather than HTTP progressive downloading (which allow for simple downloading the entire file). Have a look at Adobe's HTTP Dynamic Streaming which uploads fragments (it's more difficult to download as a single video which makes it a pain to share, but still can be screencaptured)

The other option is to look at the Microsoft and Silverlight DRM angle. e.g. DRM protected WMV files can be downloaded but "expire" after a certain time period or number of plays .

[Cornucopia]

Plus the Silverlight files are "married" to the particular device(s) they've been licensed to. IIRC, Netflix uses Silverlight, which ought to tell you something.

Scott

[poisondeathray]

Plus the Silverlight files are "married" to the particular device(s) they've been licensed to. IIRC, Netflix uses Silverlight, which ought to tell you something.

Scott

And nobody has been able to file for "divorce" . Silverlight remains "uncracked" AFAIK - it's impossible to share the original file . (But you can still screencapture and copy that way)

[Cornucopia]

Oh really? I though it used special overlay functions so the video manager would only show a "green" or "purple" screen when screen capping (hadn't tested it).

Scott

[poisondeathray]

Oh really? I though it used special overlay functions so the video manager would only show a "green" or "purple" screen when screen capping (hadn't tested it).

Scott

Actually I'm not 100% sure on that, maybe something has changed recently ? You used to be able to capture Silverlight with screencapture software

[jagabo]

The PrintScrn key still works for NetFlix (Win7).