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W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

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Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#161

Post by lawnchair_larry »

throwaway613834 wrote: post #52
idle_zealot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By its very nature DRM of media content makes no sense. How can audio and video be delivered to the user without also allowing the user to save and distribute that content later? At some point, the content must be available in unencrypted form, even if that point is when the content is sent to the display, it can just be captured there.

It could be easy to view but hard to save and distribute. Why can't it? Or do you really think these people have no idea what they're taking about?

The problem is that being "hard to save and distribute" means it doesn't work. It has to be more than hard. Piracy release groups enjoy "hard", and you only have to do the hard part once for a given title (or usually, for a given DRM technology). Once you strip it of its protection, you throw it online and anyone can download it. And now that you've broken that particular DRM technology, your results are repeatable and can be automated, making future releases available even more quickly.

Fundamentally, I can read or write to any byte in my computer's memory. That includes whatever is coming out of the piece of code that reads in the protected file and then passes it to the video decoder or the display.

Until we have computers that can read and write bytes in such a way that not even a user with full privileges on their own machine can access them (keeping in mind, this user can control the kernel and even the hypervisor), this can't be made to work.

The people pushing for DRM, in my experience, really do have no idea what they are talking about. They tend to be industry lawyer types. People who do understand DRM are usually aware that what they are implementing can be broken, but their VP told them to do it anyway so they can make a deal with content distributors.

Also, the DMCA forbids circumventing copyright measures, so they like to have that as a legal tool as well. As long as they tried something, they can go after anyone disabling it, using the legal system.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#162

Post by AnssiH »

yellowapple wrote: post #111
emodendroket wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And which browsers are going on this fork?

If Mozilla has any integrity, then I suspect Firefox might.

Firefox has included support for EME DRM since 2015, despite it not being formally standardized.

I don't see them dropping it even if the HTML standard Firefox follows drops them, unless other browser vendors drop EME too.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#163

Post by wolfgke »

MBCook wrote: post #130
jacamat wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it not in their interests?

It’s actively against their interests. Their interest is in letting people use their browsers to view content. The media companies have made it clear that’s not happening without DRM. So the browser companies support it. It’s not manditory , you can ship content without it. But if Chrome said ‘DRM free only’ all that would happen is people would abandon it to be able to watch video online. If you don’t like DRM then…

> The media companies have made it clear that’s not happening without DRM.

If people were actively boycotting anything that uses DRM and were bawling out media companies that use DRM, there would soon appear media companies that provide a "no-DRM media package". As soon as these companies were making big money with DRM-free content, I am pretty sure the large media companies would in the long run give up their stupid idea that DRM is necessary.

DRM is only necessary because there exist (too many) people who don't have a zero-tolerance policy against DRM.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#164

Post by smsm42 »

idbehold wrote: post #11
featherverse wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suggest not underestimating Mozilla's market influence. It would be possible to create a browser that displays DRM content and ignores DRM. The only thing that content publishers could do is ban that browser. And then it would adapt to disguise itself as other browsers. DRM on the web can only happen if all of the major players (that is, browser publishers) agree to play along. I am very excited about this ne…

So hopefully Firefox will simply display DRM content and ignore any restriction DRM imposes.

Probably not while Mozilla Foundation is a US organization.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#165

Post by jakelazaroff »

josteink wrote: post #105
vkou wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, I'm sure the enterprises on the W3C who voted for this will jump on board. Oh, you mean I can't get Netflix on the forked internet? Welp, back to mainline.

For me it's the other way around. Netflix is on the other side? Cancel 'em.

I'm willing to bet there are quite a few zeroes between the decimal point and the other digits of the percentage of people who will actually practice what you're preaching here.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#166

Post by tempay »

josteink wrote: post #105
vkou wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, I'm sure the enterprises on the W3C who voted for this will jump on board. Oh, you mean I can't get Netflix on the forked internet? Welp, back to mainline.

For me it's the other way around. Netflix is on the other side? Cancel 'em.

I applaud you and anyone else who does this but I fear too many people sit on the other side of caring more about having Neflix now than maintaining the open internet. I know I won't be able to persuade my partner that we shouldn't watch Netflix anymore because of an issue she doesn't care about.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#167

Post by josteink »

CJefferson wrote: post #101
wolfgke wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're losing the internet day by day, if we haven't done so already. Let's just "fork" the web from W3C (or 3WC as some people like to call them by now) instead.

No, the W3C is the web. You'd be forking to what? This was basically wanted by Firefox, Apple, Microsoft and Google. They are the modern web. Trying to go against them is how we ended up with XHTML, a standard no-one really wanted, or implemented.

> This was basically wanted by Firefox, Apple, Microsoft and Google.

This was absolutely NOT wanted by Firefox.

They were the only browser to represent the users in this fight.

Don't put Mozilla in the same group as those other traitors.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#169

Post by thephyber »

wolfgke wrote: post #151
epistasis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a big shift from historical standards. Where has the pushback been for plugins that permitted DRM? Or from allowing them in, say Firefox? I'm wondering why this proposal gets so much more attention than all the past DRM that's been on the web. Did people just not realize that it was there?

> Where has the pushback been for plugins that permitted DRM? I have never installed any plugin for DRM and don't know anybody who has.* I also warned people about the dangers of DRM all the time. In this sense the pushback was always there - but since browser plugins were hated anyway this was a rather easy fight. * OK, to be 100% honest: I am aware that Flash allowed some kind of DRM - but I never seen or used any…

Flash and Silverlight plugins have been used by Netflix/Hulu on desktop browsers.

I highly doubt nobody you know has installed them. It's much more likely they simply don't tell you they did or it never came up in conversation.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#170

Post by no_wizard »

pdonis wrote: post #61
2trill2spill wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hogwash, there is more open source software now then ever before.

What's important is not what software exists somewhere where somebody could theoretically download and use it, but what software actually gets used. Most users don't even know what open source software is, much less where to find any; they use what comes with either Windows or OS X or their smartphone. Also, your software can be as open source as you like, but if it can't interoperate with the rest of the Internet, i…

Its always been this way. I can't remember a time that open source software was front of mind even for those who Ould have had a vested interest in knowing about beyond computer scientists/engineers or their academic counterparts. There are exceptions, no doubt. I think generally though, this has always been the case. End users in particular usually don't know the difference nor do they care to (though as the allegory goes, sometimes they do when its too late. )
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