Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

boingboing.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 1001 posts

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#571

Post by is71515124 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #428
is71515124 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Extortion" typically refers to using force to unjustly extract money from someone. Without unjust extraction of money, there can be no extortion. I understand that others have concerns about control, and that's totally legitimate, but it's also not what I was responding to.

The thing being extorted doesn't have to be money. It can be, for example, control of a distribution channel to lock out prospective competitors.

> average consumer ... complain with the extortionist environments that leads to.

I suppose so, but I wasn't really talking about entities that might be able to control a distribution channel. I was talking about average consumers.

Realistically, the limiting factor in (legally) distributing movies is not the technology, but getting the rights-holders to sell you those rights. This DRM tech does not really change the landscape on that, because a small new entrant already had no shot at making a deal.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#572

Post by Crespyl »

icebraining wrote: post #356
Crespyl wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EME plugins will use whatever user-hostile platform-specific opaque techniques necessary to communicate with the host OS in their attempt to ensure compliance. If the browser interferes with them, or the OS can't promise a "secure" chain from plugin-output > display, they can just refuse to stream the content. You can bet EME plugins will be highly platform specific, and poorly supported, if at all, on platforms that…

Firefox will heavily sandbox their EME plugins. They get no direct access to the host OS.

Anyone taking bets on how long it will be before CDMs start requiring extensions that allow access to platform Output Protection/HDCP mechanisms?

If nothing else, the standard already allows for the CDM to access the network (albeit managed by the user-agent) which means, for example, it could ping Microsoft to ask about this particular Win10 computer (as identified by user agent, IP address, and/or user account data from the content provider).

Netflix/Microsoft/Hollywood/etc. aren't going to stop until they can close the loop as much as possible, with MS and hardware manufacturers already working to tighten things from the other end (see HDCP and the various frameworks for "protected content" that MS has been working towards).

Either providers will push to integrate those platform-level frameworks, or they'll just stop offering content to web browsers entirely.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#573

Post by nkw »

mozumder wrote: post #312
5_minutes wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In 2013, EFF was disappointed to learn that the W3C had taken on the project of standardizing “Encrypted Media Extensions,” an API whose sole function was to provide a first-class role for DRM within the Web browser ecosystem" With so much money involved here, it's quite naive to believe the W3C members are virgins here and did this out love for the web and for the consumers. And: "It is clear that the W3C allowing…

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…

>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.

LOL. With what? Their paper? Their DVDs? Their CDs? Their cable channel subscribers?

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#574

Post by kelnos »

Veedrac wrote: post #412
cbhl wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people think that the battle here is EME versus DRM-free content, but that's not the case. You can still have all the DRM-free content you want, whether that's YouTube videos or iTunes MP3s. Really, the decision being made is between EME and Adobe Flash. Flash was the one cross-platform way to serve DRMed content before EME. And now that EME is ratified, Adobe, Microsoft, Google and Mozilla can all work toge…

> the decision being made is between EME and Adobe Flash Flash is a mix of dying and dead, mostly the latter. Having to use Flash is a strong economic and practical motivation not to use DRM, and if that wasn't the case there wouldn't be so much pressure to implement something in the browser itself.

That's pretty unlikely. If Flash (and Silverlight) died and browsers didn't have anything built-in, the studios/distributors would just get together and form a company to build a new plugin that does the job. Or worse, we'd have several competing implementations.

Regardless of which of these occurs, you can bet that they wouldn't bother to sandbox the implementations, and we'd end up with the same security issues we had with Flash.

If browser vendors don't want to play ball (NPAPI is dying/dead, PPAPI and NativeClient are Chrome-only, etc.), then forget about in-browser video: they'd just build native apps instead. And maybe that's not a bad outcome for people who want the web to remain pure, but as a practical matter and a person who runs Linux, I like being able to run Netflix on my laptop.

I'm completely flabbergasted that people seem to believe that DRM would somehow magically disappear if the W3C hadn't been willing to discuss EME.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#575

Post by kelnos »

freshhawk wrote: post #514
cbhl wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people think that the battle here is EME versus DRM-free content, but that's not the case. You can still have all the DRM-free content you want, whether that's YouTube videos or iTunes MP3s. Really, the decision being made is between EME and Adobe Flash. Flash was the one cross-platform way to serve DRMed content before EME. And now that EME is ratified, Adobe, Microsoft, Google and Mozilla can all work toge…

So, the argument is ... either cede control of your browser to us in a form where it is illegal to examine what we do with it OR we will continue to use a piece of crappy technology that exposes you to security problems. That sounds less like a technical problem and more like a threat to me. Because neither of those are actually technically necessary, except to support a business model that depends on some form of DR…

> Because neither of those are actually technically necessary, except to support a business model that depends on some form of DRM.

Well, yes, that's absolutely true. But they have the leverage here (at least for now), whether we like it or not.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#576

Post by dsacco »

madez wrote: post #555
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…

DRM is harmful. Its prerequisite is that users do not control their hardware. This has far reaching consequences that go well beyond media consumption and entertainment.

That's not axiomatic; in fact, it's a normative claim, not a positive one.

The argument is not that there are no consequences, but that DRM is a net positive because those consequences are the trade off for more and better content online.

Why don't you clarify why you think the tradeoff is not worth it, instead of just saying DRM = bad?

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#577

Post by kelnos »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #413
matthewmacleod wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just wishful thinking, I fear. In reality, all that will happen is that users will continue to be forced into using native applications where DRM can be enforced arbitrarily by whatever service they are trying to use.

And then DRMed content will be properly separated off into its miserable DRM slum that everyone hates, the cost of using it will be higher, users will complain more, companies who don't use DRM will capture more of the market, etc. That's the entire point.

What "miserable slum", though? Honestly, I find Netflix's Android app an absolute delight to use. Even if I'm sitting on my couch with my laptop, I'll pick up my phone to cast something to the TV before I use my laptop for that purpose.

All in all, average customers (as in, not the majority of the HN crowd) seem perfectly happy with the current experience. Even if they had to install a native app to watch Netflix on their laptop, I doubt that would change their perception much.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#578

Post by flukus »

krupan wrote: post #553
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

Basically, unless you are writing a browser with decent marketshare, you defacto have no voice in making the standards. Basically, the only voices that matter are Mozilla (Firefox), Apple (Safari), Google(Chrome), and Microsoft (Edge/Explorer). Despite what any standard says, web developers are going to go by the behavior of the browsers do. The only company on the list of browser makers that really has any desire to…

Who watches Netflix with their browser ?

Due to DRM it's the only (legal) way I can watch it on my computer.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#579

Post by kerkeslager »

jdmichal wrote: post #451
kerkeslager wrote: post #423

Earlier 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…

I'll repost a comment by mcphage on why this doesn't work, in general. TL;DR is that common ontologies sound great but don't work in reality, because it leaves no room for value-added services from individual providers. (Recipes would probably be OK, because there's just not a lot of value-add you can really provide. Or, alternatively, I'm just completely ignorant about how value could be added.) https://news.ycombin…

You left out users when you said "everybody".

Yes, this model makes it so content creators actually have to create content or their customers will drop them for a better content creator. That sounds great for users.

I'm not sure why I should care that a few user-hostile rent-seeking entities won't have complete control of the internet anymore.

The API extensions causing vendor lock-in complaint is fairly bogus. Features would be driven by the content renderers, not the content creators. It's that very abdication of power that browsers have given to content creators that the system I'm proposing would avoid.

Re: W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

#580

Post by jedberg »

krupan wrote: post #553
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

Basically, unless you are writing a browser with decent marketshare, you defacto have no voice in making the standards. Basically, the only voices that matter are Mozilla (Firefox), Apple (Safari), Google(Chrome), and Microsoft (Edge/Explorer). Despite what any standard says, web developers are going to go by the behavior of the browsers do. The only company on the list of browser makers that really has any desire to…

Who watches Netflix with their browser ?

I'm guessing you don't have young kids? I say that because if I want to watch any R rated content (like Bojack Horseman for example, which I did last week), the only place I can safely do that is in my office with headphones on, since the toddler tends to creepily sneak up on us in the middle of the night after climbing out of bed.
Post reply on HN