Live data from Hacker News

EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

eff.org

11–20 of 280 posts

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#11
post #4

The Web is going to get DRM one way or another. Now we can do this the easy way, with standards that are agreed upon across vendors -- or the hard way, with proprietary plug-ins that only work in Windows and Internet Explorer.

And the difference between your two options is exactly what? Except that the first one is blessed by W3G?

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#12
post #4

The Web is going to get DRM one way or another. Now we can do this the easy way, with standards that are agreed upon across vendors -- or the hard way, with proprietary plug-ins that only work in Windows and Internet Explorer.

I vote for the hard way.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#13
when I first heard of DRM in HTML5, the first thing that came to mind was that web apps would be encrypted, and that the only interface people would have would be mouse or touch. This would essentially make the web like blue-ray: great for consuming content and playing scripted games, and not-so-great for everyone else. Also, how long before "safe" browsers only allowed drm-encrypted web apps, to "protect consumers"?

I agree with the EFF that DRM should not be in HTML5.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#14
post #4

The Web is going to get DRM one way or another. Now we can do this the easy way, with standards that are agreed upon across vendors -- or the hard way, with proprietary plug-ins that only work in Windows and Internet Explorer.

If those are the only options I vote for proprietary plugins; those are way easier to block.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#15
post #4

The Web is going to get DRM one way or another. Now we can do this the easy way, with standards that are agreed upon across vendors -- or the hard way, with proprietary plug-ins that only work in Windows and Internet Explorer.

To be clear, EME is not really a standard agreed upon across vendors. It's more of a meta-standard. There will be no CDM that works in 90% of browsers, so EME would lead to fragmentation just as bad or worse than what we have today.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#16
post #12
post #4

The Web is going to get DRM one way or another. Now we can do this the easy way, with standards that are agreed upon across vendors -- or the hard way, with proprietary plug-ins that only work in Windows and Internet Explorer.

I vote for the hard way.

So do I. That way will mean that I will probably never be able to use it on my (Linux) laptop, but that's fine, because I don't want to use something with DRM anyway. Torrents work just fine until the movie industry learns what the music industry learned the hard way.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#17

when I first heard of DRM in HTML5, the first thing that came to mind was that web apps would be encrypted, and that the only interface people would have would be mouse or touch. This would essentially make the web like blue-ray: great for consuming content and playing scripted games, and not-so-great for everyone else. Also, how long before "safe" browsers only allowed drm-encrypted web apps, to "protect consumers"?…

...what?

That would be quite ridiculous. And the "safe" browser thing will never happen, so long as open-source is alive.

Nobody can control the Web. The W3C is forgetting that.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#18
post #4

The Web is going to get DRM one way or another. Now we can do this the easy way, with standards that are agreed upon across vendors -- or the hard way, with proprietary plug-ins that only work in Windows and Internet Explorer.

The Web has DRM, implemented in proprietary plugins: Flash (and to a lesser degree, Silverlight).

And this proposal involves DRM implemented with proprietary plugins (known as CDMs). There is no requirement that CDMs be available across platforms, on open operating systems, available to license by any vendor. The CDMs are the new proprietary plugins, they just happen to do less than Flash, leaving more of it up to the browser.

Is it really so much better to trade one proprietary form of DRM for another? What does that actually get us? More crappy services, where Hollywood decides on a month by month basis which particular services get to offer its content, so you need to sign up for 5 different services just to watch all of the content that you watch? And each one of them supports different set-top boxes, doesn't work on open platforms, and restricts you from backing up media that you have bought?

This isn't improvement; this is just wanting to get browser vendors to implement anti-features that users object to, instead of getting Adobe to do it.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#19

when I first heard of DRM in HTML5, the first thing that came to mind was that web apps would be encrypted, and that the only interface people would have would be mouse or touch. This would essentially make the web like blue-ray: great for consuming content and playing scripted games, and not-so-great for everyone else. Also, how long before "safe" browsers only allowed drm-encrypted web apps, to "protect consumers"?…

That's the only natural evolution; for example the news sites will say:

"Why the movie industry have protection but we don't? We need HTML5 DRM in our writings, is our copyright less important than theirs? I say no sir!"

And slowly an internet where you can't use browser extensions, where you can't copy anything you read, where you depend on the existence of a company, a functional internet connection to play (just once) the content you bought, but a content that you certainly don't own.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#20
The way I see it is if DRM is going to be managed in Firefox and Chrome then it wouldn't necessarily block a determined person from circumventing it. Both browsers are open source. HTML5 DRM will only stop people from using regular copy/paste.

I have a feeling that the EFF is over-reacting, but only time will tell what the right action should have been.

Post reply on HN