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

BBC demands DRM for HTML5

boingboing.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 213 posts

Re: BBC demands DRM for HTML5

#131

Post by gph »

mmastrac wrote: post #126
gph wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elucidate that point? So if netflix streamed their content with no-DRM (which none of the content companies they license from would allow, but we'll skip that fact) you assume no one would just get a subscription, copy their entire catalouge, and freely distribute it? Doesn't sound like a very sustainable business model to me...

DRM didn't stop House of Cards from appearing on PB: http://thepiratebay.se/search/house%20of%20cards/0/99/0 I don't see Netflix going out of business because of this.

Yea, but my point is different than a cracked version leaking into bittorrent. That doesn't have a drastically large footprint.

If they streamed videos with no-DRM, everyone with a subscription would easily grab a copy of whatever they want. And all it would take is copying a file and sharing it with friends/family to have it spread. This might not seem like a huge difference, but honestly I think it would be. It would lower the barriers of sharing to the point that everyone could do it. Only those who hold onto a moral belief in not committing copyright infringement wouldn't participate. I think the past has shown that these people are in the vast minority.

Re: BBC demands DRM for HTML5

#132

Post by Turing_Machine »

jmodp wrote: post #127
Gormo wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we're going to transition to a plug-in free web then we need HTML5 video to support these extensions. So, a plugin-free web that requires plugins?

Smaller specialized standard plugins.

Smaller, specialized, closed-source plugins that are practically guaranteed to become attack vectors.

Personally, I'm glad Flash is dying and am not in any real hurry to replace it.

Re: BBC demands DRM for HTML5

#133

Post by mmastrac »

gph wrote: post #131
mmastrac wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM didn't stop House of Cards from appearing on PB: http://thepiratebay.se/search/house%20of%20cards/0/99/0 I don't see Netflix going out of business because of this.

Yea, but my point is different than a cracked version leaking into bittorrent. That doesn't have a drastically large footprint. If they streamed videos with no-DRM, everyone with a subscription would easily grab a copy of whatever they want. And all it would take is copying a file and sharing it with friends/family to have it spread. This might not seem like a huge difference, but honestly I think it would be. It wou…

How would they? Even ripping DRM-free YouTube videos is beyond most people. I don't see YouTube piracy as a big world problem.

Re: BBC demands DRM for HTML5

#134

Post by gph »

mmastrac wrote: post #133
gph wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, but my point is different than a cracked version leaking into bittorrent. That doesn't have a drastically large footprint. If they streamed videos with no-DRM, everyone with a subscription would easily grab a copy of whatever they want. And all it would take is copying a file and sharing it with friends/family to have it spread. This might not seem like a huge difference, but honestly I think it would be. It wou…

How would they? Even ripping DRM-free YouTube videos is beyond most people. I don't see YouTube piracy as a big world problem.

What DRM-free Youtube videos? Youtube uses DRM-enabled flash player and locks down the ability of people to copy videos.

Besides Youtube is a free service, that everyone basically assumes will continuously be there. You're bringing up non-related factors.

Re: BBC demands DRM for HTML5

#135

Post by trunnell »

Gormo wrote: post #105
trunnell wrote: post #86

Wow, Cory's article is totally over the top... as are some of the comments in this thread. Let's start with the facts. Here's the spec. It's called Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med... The EME spec isn't that long, and the introduction has a nice diagram. Go check it out. The W3C spec does not put "DRM in browsers." It allows browsers to use "decryption mod…

> If we're going to transition to a plug-in free web then we need HTML5 video to support these extensions. So, a plugin-free web that requires plugins?

No, it doesn't require plugins. The EME approach is agnostic to whether the "decryption module" is implemented by the OS, the browser, or a plug-in. Nothing specifies where they come from, but in practice I think they will usually be provided by the OS. We'll have to see what browsers end up doing. There will probably be a variety of approaches.

Re: BBC demands DRM for HTML5

#136

Post by lucian1900 »

gph wrote: post #117
lucian1900 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix requires a subscription to stream. DRM is irrelevant.

Care to elucidate that point? So if netflix streamed their content with no-DRM (which none of the content companies they license from would allow, but we'll skip that fact) you assume no one would just get a subscription, copy their entire catalouge, and freely distribute it? Doesn't sound like a very sustainable business model to me...

I could copy their entire catalog now, if I wanted to. It would only be very slightly harder because of the DRM.

Re: BBC demands DRM for HTML5

#137

Post by TheZenPsycho »

Let me preface this by saying that I am not in favor of DRM. However, from the perspective of working inside a media company, I can say with certainty that without some way of "protecting" the media stream, media companies will continue to use flash exclusively for distributing content.

Yes, of course you clever folk can find a way around any kind of blockage. That is not the point. It is security theater. It is the media equivalent of asking you to take off your shoes and put them through the x-ray. It does nothing to protect us from any kind of danger, but it is necessary to assuage the fears of powerful people with irrational beliefs.

Because, a media company is licensing content from all kinds of different sources. All those sources have to agree that they do not want or need any special protection. It won't do us technologists any good to petulantly insist that they distribute their IP with no DRM. It must be voluntary, and we should direct our efforts to figuring out how get their willing consent. That is, the CONTENT owners. Not the distributors, like the BBC, who have to make the content owners happy or they simply don't get the content.

So yes, Trunnel is correct. We need this, or some other equally compelling theater. The alternatives are that we continue to use flash, and iOS apps, or we get no content at all, from the content owners that need the theater to be happy.

Re: BBC demands DRM for HTML5

#138

Post by xj9 »

jshen wrote: post #62
Udo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, really. Encryption in the browser today works exactly the other way around. It's sole purpose is to ensure data integrity on my behalf as things are transmitted between me and my chosen endpoint. The endpoint is not protected from me, and I can do whatever I want with this data once it arrives in my browser. DRM would be the antithesis of that. The problem is not they keys, it's what they keys can control or not…

They aren't trying to "properly" lock it down. They are trying to bring html5 up to the same level as current flash based solutions.

I'm pretty sure you can do that already. HTTP has authentication, HTTPS gives you content encryption, rate limiting can prevent content scraping, I mean if you really wanted to you could do something with canvas (the hardware acceleration stuff that's being worked on could even make it perform fairly well, I suppose). Its not the same way but it could give the same result.

Re: BBC demands DRM for HTML5

#139

Post by gph »

lucian1900 wrote: post #136
gph wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elucidate that point? So if netflix streamed their content with no-DRM (which none of the content companies they license from would allow, but we'll skip that fact) you assume no one would just get a subscription, copy their entire catalouge, and freely distribute it? Doesn't sound like a very sustainable business model to me...

I could copy their entire catalog now, if I wanted to. It would only be very slightly harder because of the DRM.

Yea, you could. But, you aren't going to first of all. And secondly you are a drop in the bucket. Even if you put it on all the bittorrent trackers it's still not a dent in their overall market share.

But if every subscriber could simply right-click on download because they have ZERO DRM that would be very different. I won't drone on because I already stated my case to another comment. I don't see why you guys keep pressing this point about some tech savvy people being able to get through DRM.

Re: BBC demands DRM for HTML5

#140

Post by trunnell »

ferongr wrote: post #111
trunnell wrote: post #86

Wow, Cory's article is totally over the top... as are some of the comments in this thread. Let's start with the facts. Here's the spec. It's called Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med... The EME spec isn't that long, and the introduction has a nice diagram. Go check it out. The W3C spec does not put "DRM in browsers." It allows browsers to use "decryption mod…

Content decryption modules are plugins by another name. The spec gives no guarantee that a given CDM can be interoperable with all browsers (being a binary it can possible arbitrarily reject to operate with a given browser), Operating system (because it's a binary) or that all browser functions and accessibility features will work with them (CDMs could completely bypass the browser's rendering pipeline and overlay th…

Content decryption modules probably won't be plug-ins.

> The spec gives no guarantee that a given CDM can be interoperable with all browsers.

I'm not sure if the CDM is actually part of the spec. They are in the diagram for illustrative purposes. The APIs being proposed on the media element are agnostic to the type of CDM being used.

> The proposal is a step back for the openness and interoperability of the Web.

If you include video from Amazon, HBO Go, Netflix, and others in your definition of "the Web", then I disagree. This spec expands the set of applications that can be implemented in HTML5 and javascript. It doesn't immediately change the interoperability of these applications, which already have limited platform reach, but it at least opens the door for more platforms (like Linux).

Post reply on HN