I did one of these for Hulu (https://github.com/chris124567/hulu) a while back. It didn't take very long to write. Most of these programs are just using the pywidevine library along with some key that's been leaked (if you know how to navigate Github search you can find one in a couple of minutes) and then integrating the streaming site's API. I wrote mine in Go because I got sick of the pywidevine hegemony and I felt it was unnecessarily complicated. The annoying thing is that key revocations are happening pretty frequently now. It's another one of those pointless cat and mouse games.
I'm not sure there's some rigorous ethical justification but it's only available to people who have a Hulu account so they could just watch the movies on hulu.com instead of downloading them anyways. It also makes watching Hulu possible to people who don't want to run an opaque obfuscated library (Widevine) on their computer (also people who use musl libc [like myself] which Widevine doesn't work on). Hulu ripping was happening long before this software so I doubt it will have any impact in the grand scheme of things. It was mostly just written for my own fun.
Just wanted to say thanks, both for writing it and for not being ashamed of it. And also for being honest that reverse engineering is often really fun. (Unlike being an actual pentester, which mostly consists of writing TPS reports.)
P.S. To lighten the mood a little, I have a different question for you. Why "from"? It's a great name; I'm just super curious if there's any meaning. Also surprised that a Python reserved word was available on HN in 2019 -- most of those were snatched up in 2008.
I'm not exactly sure how this works, it seems you need to have to have a hulu subscriptions, which means you are paying for the content.
From the instructions "Note: Ensure you are signed in before following these steps." You are just able to download the video/ You'll at that point likely watch it once and then not watch it again.
But sometimes when your traveling and you don't have internet and you want to watch something, this is useful. I mean if you got the video files through someother DRM free site, you wouldn't have these restrictions at all and you wouldn't be paying at all. Then you could argue you are consuming without compensating the creators, which I think wouldn't be right.
- Downloaded something in country A and want to watch while in country B? Sorry, the content is not available in your region. Want to watch it via VPN? Sorry, we detected that you are connected via a VPN (had exactly those two issues with Amazon Prime Video).
- Even if content is available in another region, some language options are not available anymore (you are in Russia? Now you can only choose English an Russian).
- Some titles are not available for download and can only be streamed
- Downloads require you to use the app. Not all devices have the app. E.g. you can't download movies on a Macbook because there is no Mac Netflix App. However you can do it on Android, Windows and iOS. I am forced to watch content on my Android phone instead of the bigger Macbook screen when traveling.
