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Why can't we screenshot frames from DRM-protected video on Apple devices?

This “feature” accomplishes nothing of value for anyone, including the streaming services, but imposes a massive (and for most people, confusing and frustrating) hindrance on honest people simply trying to easily capture high-quality (as opposed to, say, using their damn phone to take a photograph of their reflective laptop display) screenshots of the shows and movies they’re watching.

Saturday, 1 March 2025 About five years ago, Catherine Pearson started taking screenshots of every bouquet featured on The Nanny(1993–1999), the six-season CBS sitcom that was then streaming on Netflix. A few months ago, however, Pearson suddenly found that when her fingers danced instinctively toward Command-Shift-3, she was greeted by a black box where her flowers used to be, a censored version of what she had meant to capture. I referenced it in my post earlier today re: Matthew Green’s entreaty to Apple to add “disappearing messages” to iMessage, and re-reading it made me annoyed enough to finally write about it.

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