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EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

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Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#121

Post by bcoates »

cynicalkane wrote: post #100
mwcampbell wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the crypto in the world is worthless for a DRM system if a user can easily circumvent the system by replacing one of the components between the black-box DRM module and the hardware in order to get a perfect digital copy of the "protected" stream. This is why "content protection" systems, like the one introduced in Windows Vista, tend to be so over-reaching; they want to create a leak-proof pipe between the "p…

That's a last mile problem the industry doesn't need to solve. How many people would rather hack hardware than pay money to watch TV and play video games? Of course, if it becomes cost-effective to hardware encrypt the entire stream, I don't think the lack of a W3C standard will make any difference in stopping it.

> How many people would rather hack hardware than pay money to watch TV and play video games?

It only takes one. Everyone else just uses that cracked copy.

I'm not worried about DRM working, I'm worried about it not working in a way that gets in my way as someone whose time is generally worth more than the hassle of finding movies on bittorrent.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#122

Post by shmerl »

youngerdryas wrote: post #119
jlgreco wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Copyright not existing" and "concessions to DRM not being included in standards" are wildly different things, as are "copyright not existing" and "DRM not existing" . Ten years ago, would you tell people to go to the doctor if they asserted that the music industry could and would survive selling their music without DRM?

Maybe you misunderstood. The current model will die, like everything.

DRM model will die. But such proposals like this one with putting DRM into HTML standard will only prolong its lingering and it's another serious reason to oppose them.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#123

Post by shmerl »

eridius wrote: post #120
jlgreco wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Copyright not existing" and "concessions to DRM not being included in standards" are wildly different things, as are "copyright not existing" and "DRM not existing" . Ten years ago, would you tell people to go to the doctor if they asserted that the music industry could and would survive selling their music without DRM?

The music industry has been selling music without DRM since recorded music was invented. I don't think there's any surprise that they survived by continuing to sell without DRM.

Same goes for everything else. DRM came to music and went away later. Same will happen to other content.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#124

Post by eridius »

ronaldx wrote: post #69
cynicalkane wrote: post #52

The market problem is that people want to consume expensive art. There is billions of dollars of interest in making this market clear. The market will not go away because a bunch of hackers find it unethical. As the war on drugs has demonstrated, the market interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it. I see a lot of opposition to DRM on principle . These principles will go nowhere. The interesting question…

It's not correct for W3C to enforce policies that are worth billions of dollars to big companies at the average user's expense.

That's the thing, though. It's not at the average user's expense. It's only at the technological idealist's expense. The average user is in fact benefited greatly by having an open, standardized approach, because it increases the likelihood that things will Just Work™.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#125

Post by ihsw »

johnvschmitt wrote: post #46

Good for EFF. DRM is futile. There is NO stopping people from recording what's on their screen (with a cell phone camera among other devices). What we've seen is: A) The more barriers you put in front of legitimate use, the more you see illegitimate use grow. B) The EFF is rock solid in standing up & protecting our rights & values in the modern, internet, connected age. Please help fund them. Meaning: DRM all you wan…

DRM isn't about stopping piracy and it never was. Don't get confused, it's not about consumers of content -- it's about distributors of content. It's to maintain control over who distributes what content, for how long, to whom, and at what price.

The laws restricting consumption of content are few and far, however the laws restricting distribution of content are many and broad-sweeping.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#126

Post by miles »

bitwize wrote: 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.

Reminds me of this exchange between Dwight and Ryan on The Office:

---

Dwight: Okay, I’m going to need to search your car. Give me your keys.

Ryan: I am not giving you my keys.

Dwight: Don’t make me do this the hard way.

Ryan: What’s the hard way?

Dwight: I go down to the police station on my lunch break. I tell the police officer — I know several — what I suspect you may have in your car. He requests a hearing from a judge and obtains a search warrant. Once he has said warrant, he will drive over here and make you give him the keys to your car, and you will have to obey him.

Ryan: Yeah, let’s do it that way.

---

Note to Hollywood: Yeah, let's do it the hard way.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#127

Post by femto »

cynicalkane wrote: post #52

The market problem is that people want to consume expensive art. There is billions of dollars of interest in making this market clear. The market will not go away because a bunch of hackers find it unethical. As the war on drugs has demonstrated, the market interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it. I see a lot of opposition to DRM on principle . These principles will go nowhere. The interesting question…

The real danger, from the W3C's perspective is that people will route around an HTML5 standard that includes DRM. What's the point of writing a standard that is built to fail?

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#128

Post by mortenjorck »

shmerl wrote: post #113
cynicalkane wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that people are routing around existing DRM solutions. It's not true that this represents any threat to DRM. As the Steam platform has demonstrated, if you make paying the easy solution and piracy the hard one, the target audience (viz. people willing to pay money) will choose the easy one. The average consumer will not try to route around unfree information as long as it shows up when they click play. Poli…

As the Steam platform has demonstrated, if you make paying the easy solution and piracy the hard one, the target audience (viz. people willing to pay money) will choose the easy one. Steam is still DRMed and can be annoying enough. Try to get Loom there to play on your Scummvm and good luck with that. I don't use Steam since I don't want to support DRMed approach. I use GOG and other DRM free distributors for gaming.…

Steam has a unique market position, with an extremely loyal user base.

The really interesting thought experiment I see is this: What if Steam quietly went DRM-free tomorrow? What would change? What wouldn't?

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#129

Post by ihsw »

johnvschmitt wrote: post #95
duncan_bayne wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix uses DRM, and is one of the sponsors of this attempt to add DRM to HTML5.

Yes, that's a shame. But: Netflix makes it easy & convenient. They are not the bad guy. They are really stuck between a rock & a hard place. (Between old school distributors of content (Hollywood), squeezing them for money to make sure they have no margin), and ISP's (Comcast, AT&T) who are saying, "Hey, Netflix is popular, >50% of bandwidth, so let's shake them down" (net neutrality needs to keep them from doing thi…

"Good guys" and "bad guys" are such comforting terms, however they're hardly applicable. Do you honestly see no evil in Netflix, or good in MPAA/RIAA/etc?

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#130

Post by jlgreco »

eridius wrote: post #120
jlgreco wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Copyright not existing" and "concessions to DRM not being included in standards" are wildly different things, as are "copyright not existing" and "DRM not existing" . Ten years ago, would you tell people to go to the doctor if they asserted that the music industry could and would survive selling their music without DRM?

The music industry has been selling music without DRM since recorded music was invented. I don't think there's any surprise that they survived by continuing to sell without DRM.

9 years ago Sony was panicking, realizing what they had done, and began infecting users PCs with malware in a desperate attempt to undo the "harm" they thought the CDs lack of DRM was causing them.

And of course the movie industry was surviving without DRM for some time too. Both thought that lossy analog copying was DRM enough.

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