Can you stop people screen recording your videos?
Mostly yes, on most devices — and never against a phone camera. Here is exactly what happens on each platform, so you can decide with the real picture rather than a marketing one.
With hardware DRM the decoded video never reaches the part of the system a screen recorder can read, so the recording comes out black. That is an operating-system behaviour, not a trick the player can do on its own — which is why it needs DRM and cannot be bolted on with JavaScript.
| Where it is watched | A screen recording gets |
|---|---|
| Safari on macOS | Black frames FairPlay on the hardware path; macOS screen capture records black where protected video is shown. |
| iPhone and iPad (any browser) | Black frames FairPlay; the system screen recorder and screenshots both come out black. |
| Edge on Windows | Black frames PlayReady hardware DRM (SL3000) on supported machines — most PCs made in the last several years. |
| Chrome on Windows 11 | Black frames on most PCs Chrome can now use the same hardware PlayReady path as Edge, and StreamVault's player picks it automatically. A PC without it falls back to Widevine in software, where a recorder can capture the picture. |
| Android | Black frames Widevine L1 on most modern devices; the system recorder captures black where the protected video plays. |
| Chrome on Mac or Linux; Firefox on a computer | Can be recorded These browsers decrypt Widevine in software (L3). Downloads are still blocked — there is no file to take — but the decoded picture is reachable, so, like Netflix, we cap them at 1080p (720p on Linux). |
| A phone camera pointed at the screen | Records fine No DRM on any platform prevents this. It always produces a visibly worse copy, and a watermark makes it traceable. |
Not sure which row a viewer is in? Open the DRM test in their browser: it checks Widevine, PlayReady and FairPlay and says whether a recording would be black. What the Widevine levels mean is explained in Widevine L1 vs L3.
The part most pages leave out
Chrome on a Mac, Firefox, and Chrome on a PC without hardware PlayReady decrypt in software, and a screen recorder there can still capture the picture. You do not control which path a viewer's device uses — the hardware and the browser do. Treat DRM as removing the clean, redistributable copy rather than as making recording impossible, and pair it with a viewer-identifying watermark so that whatever does get out points back to an account.
Questions
Can you stop someone screen recording your video?
On most devices, yes — with hardware DRM the protected video never reaches the part of the system a screen recorder can read, so the recording comes out black. Safari, every browser on iPhone and iPad, Edge, Chrome on most Windows 11 PCs and most Android phones behave this way. The exceptions are the browsers that decrypt in software: Chrome on a Mac or Linux, Firefox, and Chrome on PCs without hardware PlayReady. And nothing stops someone filming the screen with a second phone.
Does this work without DRM?
No. Blocking right-click, detecting the PrintScreen key or overlaying the player are client-side tricks that a determined viewer bypasses in a minute, and that fail silently against any external recorder. The black-frame behaviour comes from the operating system honouring a hardware-protected media path, and that only exists when the content is DRM-encrypted.
What about Widevine L1 versus L3?
L1 means the decryption and decoding happen inside the device's trusted execution environment, so the decoded frames never enter ordinary memory — that is what produces black frames in a recording. L3 means it is done in software, which is still real encryption but the decoded picture is reachable, so capture can succeed. Desktop Chrome and Firefox only ever use L3; L1 is found on Android phones, TVs and streaming sticks. On Windows the hardware path is PlayReady SL3000 instead, which Edge uses and Chrome on Windows 11 can use. You do not choose this; the viewer's device and browser do. This is why DRM should be described as raising the cost of copying rather than preventing it.
Why does protected video go black when I share my screen or use a second display?
Because it is the same protection working as designed. On devices with hardware DRM, anything that copies the screen — Zoom, Teams or Meet screen sharing, remote-desktop tools, AirPlay mirroring, an iPad used as a Sidecar display, some capture cards — gets black frames, exactly like a recorder does. Watch on the computer's own display, or open the video directly on the other device, and it plays normally.
So is DRM worth it if a camera still works?
Yes, for a reason worth being precise about. Piracy at scale needs a clean, redistributable file. DRM removes the clean file, leaving only a camera recording — worse quality, out of sync, visibly filmed, and with a watermark that identifies the account it came from. You have not made copying impossible; you have made the copy bad and the copier identifiable, which is what stops your course appearing on a download site.
What does it cost to have this?
Studio DRM is on every StreamVault plan, from $12/month, with 1,000 protected plays included on the entry plan. Most platforms sell DRM as an add-on starting around $99/month on top of hosting. There is a sourced, dated comparison on our DRM pricing page.