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W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

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Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#331

Post by sp332 »

wolfgke wrote: post #308
sp332 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They make EME-free builds. e.g. http://download.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/55.0/

> They make EME-free builds. e.g. http://download.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/55.0/ A well-hidden build of Firefox to silence the people who accuse the Mozilla Foundation of betraying their principles...

Mozilla is very upfront about the fact that it goes against their principles. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-missi... Anyway it's opt-in, it's easy to uninstall the one CDM it comes with, and it's fairly easy to stop it from even asking about downloading CDMs. The EME-free build just does all of that for you up front.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#332

Post by gcp »

HappyCynic wrote: post #145
yellowapple wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

FireFox included closed-source DRM back in 2014. They've already picked their side.

The users picked by collectively not giving a fuck.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#333

Post by AndrewCHM »

rocqua wrote: post #226
ArchReaper wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For "simple economic reasons" you believe companies will go out of their way to block Linux users for some reason? If the browser supports it, that's all that really matters.

To support EME on linux, they need to create an EME plugin for linux. Leaks in that plugin would kinda break DRM, so it needs to be designed well. Writing and maintaing a crypto plugin is quite expensive.

wouldn't it be Google or Adobe who would write the plugin?

its not like they lack the developers or the such

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#334

Post by icebraining »

barrkel wrote: post #66
tptacek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems self-evidently unharmful, in that we appear to be in a golden era of delivering content online so extraordinary that it threatens traditional television networks. I understand that this is an extremely unpopular sentiment on HN, but here goes: at least with respect to video content, the industry seems to have largely proven DRM concerns unfounded. Update: modulo the Hickson concerns below. Continuing: DRM ce…

I think you're discounting the opportunity cost here. In a world where browser manufacturers, as a block, refused to implement DRM, it's seems obvious that sooner or later visual media producers would be forced to the table, to gain access to paying consumers. We could be in a DRM-free world, without the inconveniences of elaborate technical restrictions on pass-through and mutual device compatibility, or black box b…

In a world where browser manufacturers, as a block, refused to implement DRM, it's seems obvious that sooner or later visual media producers would be forced to the table, to gain access to paying consumers.

Doesn't seem obvious to me. Why wouldn't they use their existing native apps?

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#335

Post by emodendroket »

YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 wrote: post #263
untog wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and which no-one will download. To be clear: if DRM is not implemented in browsers, Netflix and the like will just make native apps, which are far larger vectors of malware attack than the locked down EME standard is. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but "people should just not watch DRMed video" is not an actual answer to the problem at hand.

For all the DRM Netflix has pushed down our throats, they still serve many titles (mainly movies and not their own productions) in piss-poor quality with those browsers whose users' freedom they have crippled. And I do mean absolutely awful quality as some titles clock in at less than 1000 kbps which isn't even nowhere near DVD quality.

What's one thing got to do with the other?

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#336

Post by kibwen »

wolfgke wrote: post #262
andrepd wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is opt-in AFAIK.

There is no option I have to opt in whether I want a malware interface (EME) installed in my browser or not.

Yes, there is an option, and it has been linked repeatedly in these threads. The irony being, of course, that if Firefox didn't yield to the other browser vendors in implementing EME they wouldn't have the marketshare to keep development going, which means there would be zero browsers rather than one that make it trivial to forgo DRM.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#337

Post by emodendroket »

kibwen wrote: post #319
wolfgke wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla was forced to ship it as well If anybody was forcing them, it were the media companies.

Google is also a media company. (Microsoft too, though Xbox isn't especially relevant here.) EDIT: Yes, and Apple, I completely forgot about iTunes.

Surely we can count Apple among media companies as well.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#338

Post by mockindignant »

favorited wrote: post #81

For the record, the EFF only joined the W3C to fight EME in the first place. They're not resigning in protest, they're leaving the group because they didn't win the single battle they joined for the purpose of fighting.

Source please?

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#339

Post by EGreg »

ashark wrote: post #327
sboselli wrote: post #38

Shame, shame, shame. We're losing the internet day by day, if we haven't done so already. I've seen people and posts here and there calling for attention on these issues, but imho it's all too subtle. We should start using harsher terminology for what's actually happening. This is flat out CORRUPTION, and I'm not seeing anyone express it as such. It's probably too late already, and unfortunately, this is merely a ref…

If someone launches a new HTML-based Web with crippled javascript ( no network comm access, for one, including ability to trigger links or forms), some small, restricted subset of CSS, and much better built-in dynamic table and form elements, I'm there . This Web's about to be eaten by DRM and WebAssembly anyway. Pretty soon it'll just be a way to deliver QT apps (or some other framework that runs in WebAssembly and…

Wait, what? Perhaps you are right, but how do you make the leap from "W3C standardizes DRM" and "the Web is about to be eaten by DRM?"

The Web is used for so many things these days. It is a publishing platform that allows anyone to host their own content to the entire internet, thanks to Web Browsers just loading it. I can see IPFS being an improvement over the Web but besides the web server being a single point of failure, why is a DRM standard specifically going to destroy the Web?

Wordpress is used to power 20% of new sites. My own company is developing an open source platform for communities to run their own social networks (https://qbix.com) so what is this "eating" you speak of?

EDIT: This has been one of my most downvoted comments ever. Can someone explain the rationale? (Is it super obvious that the Web will be killed by DRM that asking the question should be punished?)

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#340

Post by LeoPanthera »

dottrap wrote: post #315

Did Apple actually support this proposal? Seems like their own self-interest would want them to reject this. The lack of a standardized web DRM would push developers to native apps which benefits Apple. And web DRM doesn't benefit the iTunes eco-system.

Safari has supported for DRM for quite a while. It was the first browser to support Netflix without a plugin.
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