The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users

Obviously the point of DRM is to try to reduce the number of people who are consuming the content without becoming paying customers, and given the assumption I'm making above, it doesn't need a very high success rate to be economically worthwhile.

If people still buy EA games like lemmings even after things like the SimCity fiasco, how many pirates do they really need to deter using DRM, and for how long, before it becomes an absolutely guaranteed revenue booster? Most games or major movies make an extremely disproportionate chunk of their revenue in the first few days after launch. If the suppliers can hold off piracy for even a week or two before a crack is out and get even a few percent of would-be pirates who are desperate to play the game or see the film to do it through a legitimate channel instead, that's potentially millions in extra profits on a AAA game or Hollywood blockbuster.

Flash and silverlight lost to an open, interoperably-implementable standard (html). This EME proposal just standardizes an interface to something that's not standard or open (the CDMs).

Some people like to say that content producers will never let up on their demands for DRM. But that's happened already in music and with the broadcast flag, and it's starting to happen in book publishing as well. We should keep fighting for it to happen in web video.

Everything is available pirated already, but people still pay for netflix & friends because they're convenient and most people are honest. If DRM doesn't make it into HTML, there will still be a viable business model streaming video to paying customers without DRM.

The proof is available all around - i.e. movies, games, ebooks and etc. released with DRM start getting pirated almost right after the moment they are being released. What kind of other proof you need to see to admit that DRM doesn't affect piracy? If you think otherwise, bring at least one example where DRM prevented illegal copying. Some even bring examples where DRM promoted pirating, creating an incentive to break it. (I.e. when content is offered without DRM there is less incentive to show off by pirating it, than to show off by breaking the DRM and pirating it. CDPR found it out by seeing that the pirated copy of their Witcher game was the cracked DRMed copy of their early retail version, and not their DRM free copy which they sell through GOG. They don't use any DRM since then).

* http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/29/interview-cd-projekts-ceo-...

* http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/04/24/talking-the-...

* http://truepcgaming.com/2011/09/20/relive-the-classics-drm-f...

I honestly don't care what DRM proponents in the industry internally believe or base their push for DRM on, since none of those reasons make DRM any more acceptable or ethical. But if you yourself propose to assume they are doing it in bad faith, hiding their real reasons, it should be even a stronger reason to oppose it according to your logic.

You said it. It means that DRM doesn't do anything useful about pirating. The moment "you can pirate the game", it will be pirated. Or you can put it this way - the moment someone puts a DRM stripped version to bittorrent - it becomes available for anyone who wants to pirate it. And it happens all the time. So, again, what other proof do you need, to admit that DRM doesn't affect piracy?

> It doesn't tell us whether the same number of people actually do or whether any casual copying is deterred

Forget about casual copying. The bulk of pirating happens through the networks like bittorent and the like. If you claim that DRM is needed to stop "casual copying" - it's very silly, since any "pirate" who is determined to copy something won't go to ask friends for casual copies. They'll go to torrent networks. So what good did DRM achieve?

> Something involving hard data on sales and piracy trends with and without DRM

You'll never get hard data, since it's not possible. You can only use heuristics, and they all point in the same direction - DRM does not hurt pirates in the least. It hurts legitimate users.

> Ubisoft did change their stance on the DRM after the PR disaster associated with the AC2 launch

Will, major DRM fiascos happen. SimCity fiasco demonstrated that. Sometimes it's enough to clear their brains, but often not. I meant that in most cases execs don't care at all. As CDPR said in the interview I linked above:

Fortunately and unfortunately at the same time, games are becoming huge business. And as with every growing business, there are a lot of people coming in who… have no clue about games and could work in any other industry. They are not asking themselves the question “What is the experience of a gamer?” Or “Is this proposition fair?” But rather, they just look to see if the column in Excel adds up well or not, and if they can have a good explanation for their bosses. As funny as this might sound, DRM is the best explanation, the best “I will cover my ass” thing. I strongly believe that this is the main reason the industry has not abandoned it until today, and to be frank this annoys me a hell of a lot. You are asking, “So why is it taking so long for them to listen?” The answer is very simple: They do not listen, as most of them do not care. As long as the numbers in Excel will add up they will not change anything.

I agree with that 100%. Because if those execs would care about user experience, DRM wouldn't exist.

And what he said about using piracy/DRM as an excuse for incompetence - that was very well spotted. I.e. imagine someone makes a film, game etc. and gets poor sales. They can admit the product was really not so good, so people don't care to buy it, or these execs can point to others and say - Look, so many sales were lost due to pirates! But with DRM - we did all we could to stop them, so it's not our fault.... I.e. DRM can easily be used as a fake excuse to avoid being blamed for the poor quality of the stuff they produce.

In essence though it's simply irrelevant, since even if DRM slightly hinders some casual copying as you assumed, it doesn't make its existence justified in the least, and it can't serve as a reason behind pushing such horrible preemptive policing practices on consumers. The bottom line and the practical lesson that we can take out of this discussion was already expressed above. Those who push for DRM must be doing it for other reasons than piracy. And it should be strongly opposed, since DRM has no justification and it's an unethical practice.