Black screenshot of (widevine) DRM protected video?

[S_Paternotte]

Did Widevine (or other DRM protection) recently introduce a new trick to prevent capture of images?

I'd like to insert a couple of captures from a TV show into a Powerpoint presentation.

• I login to my online TV platform (https:/www.npostart.nl)
• Play the video
• Use the browser's screen capture feature
• End up with empty, black images

This occurs with the latest Vivaldi (5.7.2921) as well as the latest Edge browser. Until recently there were no issues using this method.

So I am thinking "Did Widevine recently add an extra transparent layer on top of the video? And if they did, how can this be bypassed?"

[Pathduck]

@S_Paternotte The whole point of DRM is to block "pirates" making recordings of the content directly from the screen.

Whether or not that happened "recently" I have no idea. Try searching the web for it. My guess is only the Widevine developers (Google) or the site in question might know, or maybe the Vivaldi team.

HDCP also plays a role of course, and in some cases services will refuse to play video on devices that are not HDCP-compatible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandwidth_Digital_Content_Protection

Of course, one could argue that taking a screenshot or a short recording is covered under Fair Use, but I doubt either the site or the DRM developers care much about that argument. Fair Use is US law only, the EU has different laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_European_Union#Limitations

Of course ‍️ pirates ‍️ will always find a way around such limitations - so the only thing they accomplish with such DRM measures is to block law-abiding citizens from doing things that should be exempt from copyright law, like making screenshots or short recordings for reviews or academic articles etc.

"Disney+ currently uses Widevine encryption, which is similar to what other streaming services use. Downloading or ‘ripping’ these videos doesn’t appear to be too hard."
https://torrentfreak.com/disney-launched-and-pirates-love-it-especially-mandalorian-191113/

"The tools to bypass the strictest protection are made available through private channels and for a few days, they’ve been floating around in public as well."
https://torrentfreak.com/widevine-dump-leaked-code-downloads-hd-video-from-disney-amazon-and-netflix-211227/

Here are some demo sites. All these sites will show a black screen if trying to make a screenshot.
https://bitmovin.com/demos/drm
https://buydrm.com/multikey-demo/
https://www.nuevodevel.com/nuevo/showcase/drm

A workaround for your case at the moment seems to be using Firefox. Although that is bound to change at some point as well, or sites might just start blocking Firefox from accessing their services.

[Athlonite]

@S_Paternotte If you're using windows 10 or 11 just use the snipping tool it should get round the widevine drm BS

[Pathduck]

@Athlonite Sadly, it wont...

[Athlonite]

@Pathduck funny it's worked for me before

[Pathduck]

@Athlonite Did you try the demos above?

This is what I get:

Maybe Widevine changed something recently to make it work *like it should - which is to block screen recorders.

But like I said, the pirates will always find a way to crack it. Only people who suffer from DRM are regular users.

[Athlonite]

I did this moments ago using the Windows snipping tool

and an area selected version aswell

[DoctorG]

@Athlonite Does not wok on my Windows 11 22H2.( 10.0.22621.1413)
Starting Win+Shift+S starts the Snipping Tool, shows the toolbar of it on top and the video area gets black.

[Athlonite]

@DoctorG Well I have no idea then as that's the same version of Windows 11 Pro I have so I don't know what's going with yours