Time to start cracking.
W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
501–510 of 1001 posts
Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
#502Well, the W3C only matters to the extent they have credibility.
Not that one thing will break that. But there will be future efforts where a positive outcome hinges on the credibility of the W3C's process. Those may not go as well.
Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Why isn't all software native apps?
It comes down to the same set of reasons.
Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
#504Shame, 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…
So amp?
Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do not need the web to distribute their content online.
Then let them suffer the loss of revenue from losing all of those potential customers. Content producers who don't use DRM will be happy to take those customers from them, and those will be the content producers who have more money with which to make new content tomorrow.
Native apps on tablets, phones, and set top boxes are the future (present, really) of that, anyway.
Linux users could be a bit more screwed if publishers had to move to Windows/Mac apps if interested in desktop/laptop users, but otherwise it wouldn't be a big impact for the big properties.
What's the difference to a user of opening a Netflix app vs going there in the browser? Basically nothing.
Do we want apps on the web, or in the OS—that's the only question here. Browser vendors are incentivized to provide a path for apps in browser, because otherwise they become less relevant. And so this is the result.
(Personally I'd rather have OS-level native apps anyway. So please, kill DRM in the browser. Browsers are massive resource hogs. Netflix devs would probably be happy too to not have to deal with cross-browser-compatibility shit. The web is a mess already.)
Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I am saying that browser manufacturers should slightly increase their vulnerability surface area (and maybe not at all - I don't know the internals of EME) in order to provide a locked-down feature to users that they would only otherwise get by downloading a native app that has access to their local file system, amongst other valuable things. It's the same logic that leads to them to support JavaScript.
Assuming the motivating reasoning here is that the overarching goal of the browser vendor should be to protect the user, the question still is what timeframe it is appropriate to consider. If the browser does not implement DRM, the user may download an infected native app to watch Netflix or porn from some far shadier website or whatever, sustaining more harm in the short run; however, if the user then is repeatedly…
The "garbage-piled-up-on-grandpa's-computer bad" isn't an isolated incident, and is a relatable category, as you imply in your usage, because it is a common problem. IE toolbar plugins and "special download managers" have never gone away and likely never will, those sorts of malware will continue to just change shapes. Your grandpa probably just wants to play poker with his buddies and his buddies are on Joe's Terrible Malware-Infested Poker Site. Convenience, pragmatism, and social network effect immediacy beats theory, logic, and "long term thinking".
Replace "play poker with his buddies" with "watch movies his buddies are talking about" and "Joe's Terrible Malware-Infested Poker Site" with "Netflix's DRM-Infested Site" and the results are the same every time. Your grandpa isn't likely to care if Netflix has DRM or not so long as it doesn't stop him watching movies. If Netflix, because it's the brand he and his buddies trust, tells him to install a thing to keep watching movies, he installs the thing.
Maybe, maybe you might be able to convince your grandpa to stop watching videos using that thing he installed because it's bad for his computer's health... but there are a lot of "grandpas" out there, it's a huge category of people that "I just want to do the thing and I don't care how so long as it works and is convenient".
I don't think this a question of timeframe, it's a question of do the right thing for the most users. There are a lot more "grandpas" than there are DRM-fighting or at least DRM-wary concerned citizens like you or me.
Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And what's your solution (proposal) for the problem they faced? Make the zero-tolerance for DRM a unique selling point of Firefox.
Firefox is, AFAIK, the only browser vendor that decouples the EME module from the browser, allowing the browser to be downloaded without any DRM support at all. See the various "EME-free" directories here: http://download.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/firefox/releases/55.0/
Interesting, I didn't realize they did this. I guess they've been doing it since EME support landed[0] in 2015, but it sounds like they opted to not really publicize it. I always just set media.eme.enabled to false when I configure a new profile, but I hadn't really considered that this does not prevent the DRM libraries from being automatically downloaded.
Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I see how that gets us to a DRM-free world, but not so much why ordinary consumers would care. To a first approximation, no ordinary consumer uses TPB. Unauthorized copies are less convenient (especially since mainstream playback devices won't play them) and frequently of lower quality. The price point for legitimate copies is low enough that the purchase decision isn't that hard. A standards body is a great place to…
The arguments I've seen in favour of supporting DRM are all about enabling the delivery of "protected" media to the consumer - but it's competition of a Prisoner's dilemma kind that drives them there.
If any one vendor - it doesn't matter whether it's a browser, or an operating system, or a graphics card, or a monitor, etc. - agrees to add DRM technology, they hope they'll get an increase in usage / sales at the margin by convincing shy media producers to distribute.
The only way to stop it is to band together and refuse across the board. Individually, everybody gets picked off. You can't be the only monitor that can't play movies, or the only browser that can't show the latest episode of GoT.
Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ultimately, I think the failure of the open web runs deeper than that. When I visit, for example, a cookbook website, when I view a recipe, the problem isn't just that the site can run arbitrary scripts on my computer. It's also that I have no control over how that recipe displays because so much of that display is in HTML. I can't pull it into a useful format and store it with all my other recipes because it's in HT…
Oh but don't worry! As soon as someone breaks www.cookbooksRus.com's "Encrypted Media Extensions," you or someone totally benevolent will be able to help render ANYONE's www.cookbooksRus.com browser-experience! Server-protection isn't always a 0-sum game against client-protection, but in this case it totally is.
Sure, and I'm sure the users will step up to fund your legal defense when you go down for violating the DMCA and CFAA and whatever else they can come up with.
Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
DRM is also how you get media companies to publish on the web. Media companies couldn't give any less fucks about the web. They can go 100 years without publishing on the web, since they have other revenue paths that they're perfectly happy with. This whole process of enabling DRM is web developer's efforts to kiss media-companies ass in order for them to publish their products on the web. Artists and other creatives…
Very well put. Ultimately, as long as the big content companies have content that people want to consume, they will have leverage. They want DRM, they will get DRM, or else they will take their content elsewhere, to alternative platforms that people will then flock to, making the web less relevant. EME is the wrong hill to die on.
By my memory the web BECAME relevant before DRM, before streaming video sites, before media companies started pushing their DRM on us. Remember how in the late 90s media companies were ignoring the web? Remember how webmail, web search, and social networking websites were the killer apps that people flocked toward?
Media companies tried to ignore the web because it is the antithesis of their business model. The result was that the media companies became less relevant, because the web is better than cable TV, better than movie theaters, better than physical discs. We could and should have ignored EME and forced media companies to adapt or die, just like all those other outdated industries.
Media companies are not special cupcakes, they are just businesses and like any other business they have to contend with disruptive new technologies. Nobody shed a tear when the film processing industry faded away; nobody suggested that digital cameras should be restricted for Kodak's benefit. Why are we acting like Hollywood deserves such special treatment?