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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

#271

Post by [deleted] »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #68
alipang wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just saying that DRM doesn't concern me. I don't feel it infringes on my rights, so no need to complain. It's an (my) opinion, feel free to complain as much as you prefer. Of course I also feel that businesses need a legitimate means of getting paid, and I prefer them using DRM over convincing congress to let them spy on us.

> I don't feel it infringes on my rights, so no need to complain. That's a pretty narrow criterion for complaint. How about the fact that the purpose of the W3C is to oppose everything that DRM enables? How about the fact that blind, deaf or otherwise-handicapped people have real trouble accessing DRM-crippled content? What of the fact that DRM bit-rot causes massive cultural content loss? Are you concerned by the fa…

[deleted]

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#272

Post by nitrogen »

sbuk wrote: post #270
mikeash wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the one who brought morals into the conversation. The original statement is 100% correct: torrents do work just fine. Their morality was not mentioned until your reply.

If we remove morals from the debate, then the whole F/LOSS movement is meaningless. By ending the statement "...until the movie industry learns what the music industry learned the hard way." implies a moral lesson and as such is an appeal to morals. The value being proffered, that DRM is fundamentally wrong and shouldn't be allowed as it affects the end users rights (a moral issue if ever there was one) is lost when…

The Free Software and Open Source movements have strong practical arguments in their favor; there's no need to invoke morality to promote F/LOSS. Arguments against DRM are similarly pragmatic; the cost to all computing simply isn't worth the tiny perceived benefit to a very few. The lesson to be learned by DRM proponents is not a moral one; it is the very practical lesson that people don't want it.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#273

Post by walid »

walid wrote: post #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.

I disagree with all of you previous commentators. DRM in the browser already exists and it is called Flash. This is also the reason why Adobe is still supporting Flash and wants to bring it to other platforms other than the browser.

http://www.adobe.com/products/adobe-access.html

As for Netflix on Linux, they want to make money and will have to make it available if they want Linux customers. Remember that nothing is going to stop Netflix or anybody else from making their media incompatible with your setup, so the keys are already in their hands.

On the other hand demanding freedom and openness from organizations that only want to make money is useless. Just ask for your platform to be supported and pay them when they do. Otherwise no one is going to take a second look at you no matter how loud you shout.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#274

Post by mikeash »

sbuk wrote: post #270
mikeash wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the one who brought morals into the conversation. The original statement is 100% correct: torrents do work just fine. Their morality was not mentioned until your reply.

If we remove morals from the debate, then the whole F/LOSS movement is meaningless. By ending the statement "...until the movie industry learns what the music industry learned the hard way." implies a moral lesson and as such is an appeal to morals. The value being proffered, that DRM is fundamentally wrong and shouldn't be allowed as it affects the end users rights (a moral issue if ever there was one) is lost when…

> "...until the movie industry learns what the music industry learned the hard way." implies a moral lesson and as such is an appeal to morals.

It implies no such thing. It merely implies that DRM is a net loss for the industry, and that the music industry has already learned this but the movie industry has not.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#275

Post by walid »

fafner wrote: post #62
walid wrote: post #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.

That's why the W3C proposal is a proposal for an API which proprietary plug-ins would use. The plug-in will do the decoding and rendering. Therefore the EFF is absolutely not over-reacting. https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med...

I'm sorry but you're overlooking that this is already the case with Flash. Our other alternative to Flash is to use a native app. Both ways are not web friendly in that they both completely rely on closed standards. This is one of my gripes with Flash. It is a lock-in tool that is controlled by one company, namely Adobe, who isn't interested in my security and gives me a player for free to collect money from publishers. Native platforms, aka apps, on the other hand create a lock-in that completely ignores the browser.

This draft however helps create a common standard, albeit closed, but standardized in operation which means there will be competition on other many fronts: better encryption extensions, secure, respecting privacy, all of which don't describe Flash or even QuickTime or whatever pops to mind.

To point out the irony of labeling DRM as the ultimate evil: Do you use iOS/Android/Windows Phone/BlackBerry 10/Kindle?

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#276

Post by sbuk »

mikeash wrote: post #274
sbuk wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we remove morals from the debate, then the whole F/LOSS movement is meaningless. By ending the statement "...until the movie industry learns what the music industry learned the hard way." implies a moral lesson and as such is an appeal to morals. The value being proffered, that DRM is fundamentally wrong and shouldn't be allowed as it affects the end users rights (a moral issue if ever there was one) is lost when…

> "...until the movie industry learns what the music industry learned the hard way." implies a moral lesson and as such is an appeal to morals. It implies no such thing. It merely implies that DRM is a net loss for the industry, and that the music industry has already learned this but the movie industry has not.

Rubbish. Back that up with figures.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#277

Post by sbuk »

nitrogen wrote: post #272
sbuk wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we remove morals from the debate, then the whole F/LOSS movement is meaningless. By ending the statement "...until the movie industry learns what the music industry learned the hard way." implies a moral lesson and as such is an appeal to morals. The value being proffered, that DRM is fundamentally wrong and shouldn't be allowed as it affects the end users rights (a moral issue if ever there was one) is lost when…

The Free Software and Open Source movements have strong practical arguments in their favor; there's no need to invoke morality to promote F/LOSS. Arguments against DRM are similarly pragmatic; the cost to all computing simply isn't worth the tiny perceived benefit to a very few. The lesson to be learned by DRM proponents is not a moral one; it is the very practical lesson that people don't want it.

From the FSF "As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us." A statement laced with moral reasoning. The whole 'about' page is a full of fallacies, no least appeal to emotion. Not for one minute do I with the FSF's raison d'être, I hasten to add, merely I use it point out how utterly poorly that logic is applied in these discussions.

"The cost to all computing simply isn't worth the tiny perceived benefit to a very few" So morally it's wrong. That pragmatism comes from the moral imperative or the perceived masses.

"...it is the very practical lesson that people don't want it." Why? Because it affects their perceived freedoms, ergo moral reasoning.

To glibly dismiss the moral imperative of F/LOSS simply wrong. Heck, Stallman, the EFF and the FSF rely heavily on argumentum ad consequentiam, argumentum ad metum and argumentum ad passiones in a not-insignificant amount of their literature and all of those to varing extent rely on moralising.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#278

Post by nitrogen »

sbuk wrote: post #277
nitrogen wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Free Software and Open Source movements have strong practical arguments in their favor; there's no need to invoke morality to promote F/LOSS. Arguments against DRM are similarly pragmatic; the cost to all computing simply isn't worth the tiny perceived benefit to a very few. The lesson to be learned by DRM proponents is not a moral one; it is the very practical lesson that people don't want it.

From the FSF "As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us." A sta…

You seem to use a very loose definition of "moral." I don't see any morality inherent in logical statements of the form A->B, B is widely undesirable, therefore A is widely undesirable. If that's a moral argument, then by your definition, there's no such thing as pragmatism or logic.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#279

Post by dragonwriter »

nitrogen wrote: post #278
sbuk wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the FSF "As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us." A sta…

You seem to use a very loose definition of "moral." I don't see any morality inherent in logical statements of the form A->B, B is widely undesirable, therefore A is widely undesirable. If that's a moral argument, then by your definition, there's no such thing as pragmatism or logic.

> I don't see any morality inherent in logical statements of the form A->B, B is widely undesirable, therefore A is widely undesirable.

The moral (or, at least, subjective; whether the particular subjective distinction is "moral" or something else is somewhat of a an arbitrary distinction) part is "B is widely undesirable". Desirability is not a factual premise.

> If that's a moral argument, then by your definition, there's no such thing as pragmatism or logic.

Well, no; that is a moral argument (or at least, an argument that rests on a subjective premise), and it is also an application of logic. Logic doesn't provide premises, it applies based on premises which are either sensory observations (which are inherently subjective) or a priori postulates (which are often subjective moral/aesthetic/etc. value propositions.)

Logic exists, it just doesn't get you to any kind of conclusions about the way things should be or what things you should do without starting with premises that are about the way things should be or what you should do.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#280

Post by mikeash »

sbuk wrote: post #276
mikeash wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "...until the movie industry learns what the music industry learned the hard way." implies a moral lesson and as such is an appeal to morals. It implies no such thing. It merely implies that DRM is a net loss for the industry, and that the music industry has already learned this but the movie industry has not.

Rubbish. Back that up with figures.

I'm explaining someone else's post. Go ask him.
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