With streaming content, the barrier to just copying it is already as high as pirating. You don't just have a file you can email to your friend -- you have to install and use software to capture the video and then handle the big file that results, on your phone, which is awkward. And that just gives you one movie which in isolation is barely worth anyone's attention to begin with. By the time you've figured out all that, you could have just figured out how to torrent, or even easier, find a free Chinese website that streams the pirated content to your browser just like the original service.
Pretty much. The path of "figure out how to screen capture the entire DRM-unprotected movie as a video and send that entire file" has about the same level of resistance as "find a link to a pirate streaming site that already has the movie on it and send that link". Maybe more.
>The path of "figure out how to screen capture the entire DRM-unprotected movie as a video and send that entire file" has about the same level of resistance [...]
The biggest flaw with this logic is that screen capturing tools specifically don't work on DRM protected content. Moreover if you're trying to imply making a screen recording is some sort of black magic to normies, you must be living in the 2010s. Nowadays both iOS and Android have built-in screen recorders, and on desktops you can use something like loom, which works off a browser.
The biggest flaw with your logic is the utter lack of it.
If I could rip K-Pop Demon Hunters with a screen capture app to obtain a file I could share with a friend, I still wouldn't do it. Because finding a torrent is simpler and faster. I would get a very similar file, but so much faster, because I didn't have to keep the screen running at x1 for the full duration.
And finding a shady website that has it available is simpler and faster still.
>If I could rip K-Pop Demon Hunters with a screen capture app to obtain a file I could share with a friend, I still wouldn't do it.
Well no, because the lack of DRM wouldn't just mean you can manually screen record netflix. It also means you (or someone else) can write an app to screen record netfilx for you, or skip that altogether, similar to something like yt-dlp. After all, if somebody wants to rip youtube (DRM free), they don't screenrecord it, they find some random website/tool off google.
YouTube is not just DRM-free, but cost-free. One of the things you can pay for is "enhanced bitrates", and while you can yt-dlp them if you auth (maybe?), you won't find the random download sites offering it.
Even if money is no object, if you want to watch bluray-quality 4K content your only choice is to buy the physical media and get it shipped to you (and then use some horrible proprietary player interface). I'm not aware of any streaming services offering the same bit-rates at any cost.
Then you didn't look very hard.
https://www.kaleidescape.com/
There are a couple others as well.
This requires a physical device to be installed on-prem, I'm talking about something you can install as an app, or a website you can visit.
Their tagline is also "Downloaded, Not Streamed"
But if you internet is fast enough, you can still just play it without first downloading it.