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Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

lists.w3.org

11–20 of 424 posts

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#11
post #4

Sigh. Look, I'm okay with DRM, as long as it works on all my devices. EME won't, under linux, I guarantee the DRM Vendors won't bother releasing Linux binaries. That annoys me.

They're going to have to create ways to play their media on Linux, with the growing popularity of the OS for appliances such as living room video players and products like the Steam Machine.

Playing on Linux is not the issue. The issue is that EME + CDM introduces an 'Open Web' standard that cannot in fact be implemented by anyone who chooses.

Say the W3C decided to add a new tag to HTML, called '', that displays a smiling face. Anyone who wishes (Firefox, Mozilla, you, me) could implement that feature and start properly displaying content that contains tags.

This is not true of encrypted content that requires a proprietary, closed-source CDM and / or a secret key to operate.

That is why EME should be rejected by the W3C. Lack of Linux support is a consequence of the problem, not the problem itself.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#12
post #4

Sigh. Look, I'm okay with DRM, as long as it works on all my devices. EME won't, under linux, I guarantee the DRM Vendors won't bother releasing Linux binaries. That annoys me.

> I'm okay with DRM

It seems really defeatist to say this. You are a consumer. You have the ultimate vote on everything, with your wallet, with the only exceptions really being what you need to survive and whatever your government takes.

And I don't think netflix is on par with eating.

My problem is I have no idea what to do about the w3c. I'd really like to know what alternative network protocols for document rendering there are, because they are destroying the platform they are supposed to advance, community backlash be damned, they got bought off.

I'm definitely looking into ways to get qml into browsers, though. I think qtquick apps as remote resources would be amazing, because they would be actual apps, not documents with scripts running on them.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#13

It's worth mentioning that the CEO of the W3C, Jeff Jaffe, is trying to rectify that: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-restrictedmedia/2...

... but the more I think about it, the more it's scary that things have progressed so far without the requirements being public.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#14
post #9
post #4

Sigh. Look, I'm okay with DRM, as long as it works on all my devices. EME won't, under linux, I guarantee the DRM Vendors won't bother releasing Linux binaries. That annoys me.

you should not be okay with DRM. It's as simple as it's: DRM is the form of slavery.

> DRM is the form of slavery.

I dislike DRM as much as the next guy, but really? Slavery?

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#15
post #5
post #4

Sigh. Look, I'm okay with DRM, as long as it works on all my devices. EME won't, under linux, I guarantee the DRM Vendors won't bother releasing Linux binaries. That annoys me.

It will work under Google Chrome (not Chromium) on Linux most likely, as Google is a DRM vendor.

And Google will presumably have a Linux CDM for Chrome OS, so they could release it for Linux desktop, too.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#16
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty much baked into the definition of DRM that it may not work on all of your devices.

There is no technical reason that DRM technology can't be FOSS and use non-secret keys; this is a result of licensing agreements with content owners. I'm hoping to have those agreements made public so technical discussions surrounding EME can take place with a degree of transparency.

Eh? If your DRM code is FOSS I'm just going to patch it, recompile it, dump out the keys, decrypt my media, and ignore all your constraints.

Technical DRM only 'works' when the code is an obfuscated steaming pile and the implementation/platform/hardware tries to make it an incredibly difficult process to mess subvert.

Theres never been a consumer-facing DRM technology thats made a lick of sense, and frankly I'm glad most of the FOSS success stories are in defeating it rather than proliferating a broken trust model that serves to prop up slow-moving industry monopolists who bump up costs (of many kinds) to consumers and are going to lose in the long-run anyway.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#17
post #4

Sigh. Look, I'm okay with DRM, as long as it works on all my devices. EME won't, under linux, I guarantee the DRM Vendors won't bother releasing Linux binaries. That annoys me.

EME will work on Linux. The thing is, the CDMs with which it is designed to interface won't . It is technically possible to produce a purely FOSS CDM that will compile on pretty much any platform. However that idea has been rejected by content licensees on the grounds that it won't meet requirements, as defined by licence agreements that (so far) no-one is authorised to post on the W3C discussion list. Other ideas th…

I find it somewhat awesome that this whole html drm debacle is effectively what Richard Stallman has been saying for decades versus outdated entrenched old media interests. Except in this case, the web standards consortium is giving away your freedom for you.

That is what pisses me off most, really - if big media was left to squalor in broken plugins and horrible drm, which should be horrible because its entirely anti-user, they would have to eventually adapt to the Internet and change their ways or die.

But with the power of money and apathy on the part of vast swathes of the tech community that think they don't have ground to stand on (hint: you are the consumers they want buying stuff, you hold all the cards) they are ending the open inter-operable web. It sucks.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#18
post #12
post #4

Sigh. Look, I'm okay with DRM, as long as it works on all my devices. EME won't, under linux, I guarantee the DRM Vendors won't bother releasing Linux binaries. That annoys me.

> I'm okay with DRM It seems really defeatist to say this. You are a consumer. You have the ultimate vote on everything, with your wallet, with the only exceptions really being what you need to survive and whatever your government takes. And I don't think netflix is on par with eating. My problem is I have no idea what to do about the w3c. I'd really like to know what alternative network protocols for document render…

I've been hacking around with 'websites as Racket' ... the idea that you could use Racket's documentation format for, well, documents, and the Racket GUI for everything else. Much the same idea, just Scheme instead of QT.

But I don't think it's too late for the W3C. I don't think they've been bought out in the strictest sense; rather, I think they've been subject to some very effective lobbying that has proved most persuasive ( a.k.a. 'crisis of representation; see http://boingboing.net/2013/06/06/w3c-insider-explains-whats-... ).

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#19
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will work under Google Chrome (not Chromium) on Linux most likely, as Google is a DRM vendor.

And Google will presumably have a Linux CDM for Chrome OS, so they could release it for Linux desktop, too.

But it doesn't matter. Google could release their CDM for any operating system they choose; it doesn't alter the fact that EME and CDM are inimical to the Open Web and should be rejected by the W3C.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#20
post #4

Sigh. Look, I'm okay with DRM, as long as it works on all my devices. EME won't, under linux, I guarantee the DRM Vendors won't bother releasing Linux binaries. That annoys me.

They're going to have to create ways to play their media on Linux, with the growing popularity of the OS for appliances such as living room video players and products like the Steam Machine.

What they'll do is created CDMs that work on restricted subsets of Linux (Android and ChromeOS already support DRM and many media player devices have Linux buried inside) and tell you that if you want "Linux" you can use the supported subset (which is totally Tivoized so it's no more open than Windows).
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