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Tim Berners-Lee approves Web DRM, but W3C members have two weeks to appeal

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91–100 of 222 posts

Re: Tim Berners-Lee approves Web DRM, but W3C members have two weeks to appeal

#91

A younger version of myself would be against Web DRM, but these days I wonder if there's a potential for it to help in democratizing distribution among indie content producers. Ideally I'd have some time to piece together an essay, but the major points are: 1) Ted Nelson's vision on how Project Xanadu would have some form of copyright protection / micropayments for authors. 2) Independent content creators that have c…

>democratizing distribution among indie content producers

So I have this idea for a video/audio streaming website that operates like an open market. Website operator makes a cut for infrastructure costs. Other than that, the site runs pretty much on its own. No content deals, no drm, no geo restrictions, no ads. Some safeguards to limit abuse. A producer puts up content. Consumers consume content. Revenues are split between producers using some fair and transparent proportionality metric. Would there be any appetite for such a model ?

Re: Tim Berners-Lee approves Web DRM, but W3C members have two weeks to appeal

#92
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This one is likely the best of the three. I don't agree. Ignoring the massive injustice of ramming proprietary extensions into an open standard, standardising DRM has several secondary detriments to the free culture movement. In fact, standardising EME might actually be the worst of the three choices (the best being no DRM of course). Non-standard extensions are better to the movement (though still disastrous) than…

It's a bit tough to argue we should keep computers insecure and hope people get annoyed and change their minds. Keeping people's computers safe is a primary goal of browser vendors, and this improves that state of affairs. Sure, DRM sucks, but at least the vendors can't root your machine and install keyloggers now.

> Keeping people's computers safe is a primary goal of browser vendors

I disagree with that goal being primary when it comes at the expense of user freedoms.

I for one prefer taking a small risk rather than living in some dystopia where all software must either run in crippled sandboxes or be approved by the central ruling committee for trusted computing.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee approves Web DRM, but W3C members have two weeks to appeal

#93
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The server can send an encrypted blob to your browser which hands it off to the DRM module which can hand it off to the system's ring -2 PAVP/Trustzone/etc. stuff that only runs signed firmware which passes it encrypted over the PCIe bus to the gfx hardware which passes it encrypted via HDCP2 to the monitor. So in principle fully encrypted paths that can'e be screengrabbed exist. Not all DRM makes use of those compon…

Thanks for the detailed description. > .. which passes it encrypted via HDCP2 to the monitor. And where does the decryption actually takes place? > EDIT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandwidth_Digital_Content... > In order to make a device that plays HDCP-enabled work, the manufacturer must obtain a license from Intel subsidiary Digital Content Protection LLC, pay an annual fee, and submit to various conditions.…

> How about the case where the hardware doesn't support it. Would screen-grabbing be possible then? Where will the decryption take place in that case?

You don't get the content then. Full stop.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee approves Web DRM, but W3C members have two weeks to appeal

#94
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The server can send an encrypted blob to your browser which hands it off to the DRM module which can hand it off to the system's ring -2 PAVP/Trustzone/etc. stuff that only runs signed firmware which passes it encrypted over the PCIe bus to the gfx hardware which passes it encrypted via HDCP2 to the monitor. So in principle fully encrypted paths that can'e be screengrabbed exist. Not all DRM makes use of those compon…

Thanks for the detailed description. > .. which passes it encrypted via HDCP2 to the monitor. And where does the decryption actually takes place? > EDIT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandwidth_Digital_Content... > In order to make a device that plays HDCP-enabled work, the manufacturer must obtain a license from Intel subsidiary Digital Content Protection LLC, pay an annual fee, and submit to various conditions.…

> How about the case where the hardware doesn't support it. Would screen-grabbing be possible then? Where will the decryption take place in that case?

There essentially are several tiers of DRM

  - hardware-assisted encrypted pipelines (described above)
  - kernel module assisted
  - pure userspace obfuscated code
If it's in userspace, such as some software DVD players or game DRM then you can use a debugger to dump the keys or maybe hook some method that sends the frames to the gfx card.

If it's kernel-assisted you would have to bypass kernel module signing and hook deep into the operating system because the OS will also prevent screengrabbing of the protected surface.

If it is hardware assisted you will have to find a flaw somewhere in the pipeline or buy devices that contain decryption chips that basically are repurposed official decryption chips.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee approves Web DRM, but W3C members have two weeks to appeal

#95
post #78

A younger version of myself would be against Web DRM, but these days I wonder if there's a potential for it to help in democratizing distribution among indie content producers. Ideally I'd have some time to piece together an essay, but the major points are: 1) Ted Nelson's vision on how Project Xanadu would have some form of copyright protection / micropayments for authors. 2) Independent content creators that have c…

Has DRM ever actually stopped piracy?

Sure. Try pirating Reason or Cubase for one...

Re: Tim Berners-Lee approves Web DRM, but W3C members have two weeks to appeal

#96
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be a pedant (who am I kidding), but this is actually one of the examples where distinguishing between "free software" and "open source" is more than a philosophical disagreement. You actually can create an open source DRM solution, because none of the OSI definition[1] makes reference to user freedom or other issues that DRM violates. As far as the OSI is concerned, DRM is can be released under an OSI license.…

CDMs are sandboxed, which is an improvement over the NPAPI plugins. I don't think we have to worry much about Sony rootkit attacks at least.

> which is an improvement over the NPAPI plugins.

why does that argument get thrown around so much? flash runs in sandboxed processes too these days.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee approves Web DRM, but W3C members have two weeks to appeal

#97
post #46

W3C takes advantage of the ambiguity of what the EME spec and "standard" DRM is. People unfamiliar with the spec may think it's the end of plug-ins and a spec for a DRM that is somehow open, implementable and cross-browser. It's nothing like it. It's a small JS API that launches the same old, fully closed, proprietary DRM solutions. The NPAPI has been replaced with DMCA-protected interface, and previously separate DR…

Before DRM plugins could access anything. Now they live in a sandbox which was not possible when they were NPAPI plugins. So the security story is actually much better as far as I know. It still sucks to infect the web with this nonsense, but at least it can't do as much evil crap.

Now the DRM plugin can only access the DRM subsystem installed on your machine that has root enough access to verify your files, OS version, and graphics drivers, as well as a callchain allowing them to make draw calls to your GPU driver.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee approves Web DRM, but W3C members have two weeks to appeal

#98

A younger version of myself would be against Web DRM, but these days I wonder if there's a potential for it to help in democratizing distribution among indie content producers. Ideally I'd have some time to piece together an essay, but the major points are: 1) Ted Nelson's vision on how Project Xanadu would have some form of copyright protection / micropayments for authors. 2) Independent content creators that have c…

>democratizing distribution among indie content producers So I have this idea for a video/audio streaming website that operates like an open market. Website operator makes a cut for infrastructure costs. Other than that, the site runs pretty much on its own. No content deals, no drm, no geo restrictions, no ads. Some safeguards to limit abuse. A producer puts up content. Consumers consume content. Revenues are split…

so Patreon plus content hosting?

Re: Tim Berners-Lee approves Web DRM, but W3C members have two weeks to appeal

#100
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>democratizing distribution among indie content producers So I have this idea for a video/audio streaming website that operates like an open market. Website operator makes a cut for infrastructure costs. Other than that, the site runs pretty much on its own. No content deals, no drm, no geo restrictions, no ads. Some safeguards to limit abuse. A producer puts up content. Consumers consume content. Revenues are split…

so Patreon plus content hosting?

Patreon is more about supporting individual projects. I'm thinking more like netflix/spotify + youtube + ebay. As an end user, you still pay some monthly fees. The total money is divided up between all the producers using some metric minus operating costs. As a producer, your job is pretty much clicking on upload.
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