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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

#151

Post by mwcampbell »

Anonazon wrote: post #143
benatkin wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what's futile is this objection by the EFF. But I think it's a token gesture, so it probably doesn't bother them that much.

I've really been disillusioned by EFF lately. It seems like they're more of a black hole of activist's dollars than anything productive. When I donate, I like my dollars to go to more productive and practical use (like FSF) than to support libertarian ideals wrapped in a feel good presentation.

The FSF is opposing this proposed W3C standard too, of course. What's wrong with having the EFF oppose it too?

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#152

Post by dorian-graph »

jobu wrote: post #133
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…

People hate DRM because it gives the content producers too much power, and then they treat consumers like muppets: http://neosting.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/pirated_vs_le... The Internet has shifted a huge amount of that power back to consumers (especially technically savvy ones), so it's understandable that something needs to change. It's also obvious that producers can't create decent content if they don't get…

I see people often saying to vote with your wallet and then go illegally download whatever movie, TV show, videogame or piece of software—which I find kind of funny. Why don't people vote with their time? Don't watch something, for example.

I suppose the main thing I find funny is how outrageous people become when something isn't provided which seems trivial to life. I live in Australia where it seems we are one of the nations the pirates the most. People here, and elsewhere, act as if having a TV show is a basic human right and necessity. Who cares if you can't watch a TV show? I think both sides are in the wrong. Another thing with the horse-riders yelling at some large fat cats is that they often pretend to speak for the masses; the non-hackers, -geeks, or whatever labels are necessary to delineate these two groups. They say they would buy everything if it was available in a way that jives with them and postulate that the masses will run out and buy everything.. and maybe they will, but as one of the 'computer guys' when most people ask about how to use torrents and you ask them why they want to know usually they just want to get something without paying for it. This goes back to Napster too.

This isn't so much directed at you, jobu, these thoughts just came to mind again after looking at the image you posted. I do agree with what's presented in the image in that it is a horrible user-experience.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#153

Post by quaint- »

jlgreco wrote: post #102
VonGuard wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because not doing so concedes this type of market to Microsoft. Open standards are a way to ensure no specific company has control over stuff like this.

> Because not doing so concedes this type of market to Microsoft. Bullshit. 1) I am able to gleefully avoid it these days, but in the past flash worked with Linux. Furthermore, all relevant DRM systems work with Apple devices including OSX. Netflix works on Android, and on Google's ChromeOS. 2) Even if it did, who gives a shit? I'd rather have people who absolutely must watch netflix on their laptop do it with window…

Netflix actually already "works" in Linux, or at least did back when I last looked it up, and most probably their CDM would as well. I'm of course speaking of using wine. (Having not actually tested the solution, I cannot verify it nor tell about its shortcomings.)

Or perhaps they would rely on secure/trusted path this time. I doubt that - the hardware simply isn't there for their customers.

Anyhow, I certainly wouldn't want W3C to endorse any type of DRM, or have them make it easier to abuse DRM. It's a good thing that Flash and Silverlight are restricted to PCs. It's a good thing that plugins annoy people; it makes them less desirable. We really shouldn't be building a new framework for plugins on all platforms.

Furthermore, I'd like to assure everyone reading this that DRM-free media is (still) thriving on the Internet. It's unfortunate that some people fail to play along; this only means that money doesn't go to the right people even if it's their media that's being exchanged.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#154

Post by quaint- »

mythz wrote: post #57
mikeash wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it does. "Don't" is a perfectly reasonable solution here. It won't satisfy all parties, but not all parties are worth satisfying.

The future of everyone being able to view online video (e.g. Netflix/Hulu/BBC) without a plugin is not getting anywhere closer.

You do realize that the proposed HTML5 DRM specification has nothing to do with being able to view DRM-protected videos without plugins, as it's mostly centered around specifying a platform for plugins, do you?

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#155

Post by shousper »

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…

Perhaps we should workd on the economic will of the people..

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#156

Post by roc »

cynicalkane wrote: post #91
shmerl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the market interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it. You said it. DRM is close to censorship in its core idea - it's preemptive policing. The market will find routes around it. > I see a lot of opposition to DRM on principle. These principles will go nowhere. Not true. There is a lot of opposition in principle to the totalitarian approach (which DRM embodies). If there would be no opposition, then it w…

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…

And as iTunes and Amazon Music have demonstrated, if you make paying the easy solution, having DRM is either irrelevant or a net negative.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#157

Post by wavefunction »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #136
shawnz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect most DRM today exists for Windows only. Thanks to Android, there are now a ton of consumer devices powered by Linux that can browse the web. If publishers started using EME, they would probably be encouraged to compile Windows and Linux blobs for this reason.

I disagree. The CEO of the W3C thinks this unlikely, and there's already the example of Netflix. They are one of the primary agitators behind EME, and they refuse to make their system available on Linux.

So you want to demand that Netflix provide at their expense a solution for every possible OS out there?

Don't like it, don't partake. I can't understand this mentality...

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#158

Post by ivanca »

taybenlor wrote: post #108
ivanca wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

I feel like you're falling trap to the Slippery Slope fallacy

I wish I had your naivety; but I already sow things like a media center that counts heads and will stop the movie if the amount of people exceeds the number allowed by the purchased licence...

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/139706-microsofts-new-kine...

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#159

Post by azakai »

alipang wrote: post #51
duncan_bayne wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As painful as it is, one part of living in a capitalist > society is to exercise your right/power as a consumer. > Don't like it? Don't use it. I agree, but there's more to it than that. From the W3C site: "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web." ... and ... "One of W3C's primary goals is to make these benefits availa…

I don't see how DRM is incompatible with their goals. Of course one might argue that DRM might be platform specific. However, I very much doubt this standard will make DRM more platform specific than it already is.

> Of course one might argue that DRM might be platform specific. However, I very much doubt this standard will make DRM more platform specific than it already is.

It is in fact quite possible that it will. DRM, right now, is mainly Flash. For all its faults, Flash runs on all browsers and OSes. However, EME CDM modules may only work in Chrome and Internet Explorer - the two browser vendors pushing the EME spec, and that have their own DRM solutions that they are building as CDMs.

Why would Google or Microsoft create CDMs that work in browsers or OSes that they do not own? If not them, then who would create a CDM that works on all browsers and OSes? Possibly no one.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#160

Post by GhotiFish »

alipang wrote: post #43
duncan_bayne wrote: post #33

I've made this point already on the W3C CEO's blog, but it bears repeating here: DRM removes control of certain aspects of a device that I own, and places it in the hands of another. It does so in a manner that could not be less trustworthy: most DRM solutions are proprietary, closed-source applications. This means that I can't rely on others to audit it for me (as with FOSS) and I can't audit it myself. Some DRM imp…

DRM allows you to volontarily give up whatever control of your machine you're talking about. As painful as it is, one part of living in a capitalist society is to exercise your right/power as a consumer. Don't like it? Don't use it. To me, DRM is not something that infringes on your freedom, though I'm very glad we have the EFF when they spend their time combatting things like surveillance, that are not opt-in.

As long as they're not the only game in town, right?

As long as DRM doesn't start getting mandated to function in society.

Frankly, take a look at the way Richard Stallman lives, the way he uses tech, sticking dogmatically to only free open source software.

Why should I have to live like that to not ceed control of every single device I have.

DRM is not opt-in. It's my way or the highway. That's a big difference.

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