Live data from Hacker News

Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

lists.w3.org

121–130 of 424 posts

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#121
post #41

This is all so ridiculous, rtmp for instance is as secure a DRM as its ever gonna get and that never stopped me from downloading a stream. Even things like HDMI/HDCP is broken beyond repair. And all of this should justify damaging the w3c reputation forever, what are they thinking?! This whole concept of DRM is just idiotic, its enough if one guy breaks the DRM and releases it. Why should I even bother booting a prop…

W3C's reputation went out the window in the minds of all serious software developers with the concept of HTML5's "living standard" aka, no standard. This is the kind of standards we can expect from a standards body in the industry. The only solution is to start again from scratch, maybe on top of TCP/IP only.

W3C have never been an official standards body; the most they’ve ever made is a ‘Recommendation’. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#122
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.

Turns out, Chrome on Linux shipped with a Widevine CDM before any other browser (including Chrome on Windows).

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Apple was initially on board. I think it may be there only since late last year. All of this started with Netflix, and the outrage should be directed mostly at them (but definitely at W3C and the 3 companies, too). Netflix got Microsoft (obviously, since Hastings is/was on their board), they got Google because of the Chromecast and perhaps some other previous partnerships, and also because Google is ver…

> I just can't believe that Netflix & Co would rather ruin the web People keep repeating this. How is it ruining the web to remove the requirement for crappy (and, at this point, end-of-lifed) browser plugins in order to play Netflix content? The only reason I, and I suspect most people, even bothered to install Silverlight was for Netflix. If I can get a pure HTML5 video-watching experience with no browser plugins,…

But you can't get a pure HTML5 DRM experience! All the HTML5 bit is, is a Javascript API to a CDM decryptor that is every bit as crappy, proprietary, closed-source, insecure and buggy as Flash or Silverlight.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#124
post #111
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are versions that are public and I doubt the "secret" studio requirements are much different: http://www.microsoft.com/playready/licensing/compliance/ http://www.aacsla.com/license/AACS_Adopter_Agrmt_090605.pdf (see Exhibit E on p. 90) In reality these requirements are not set in stone; they are a business negotiation. The first version of iTMS did not meet the record labels' DRM "requirements", but Jobs convin…

> they are a business negotiation. The fact that you (and others, obviously) think of this as a "business negotiation" is part of the problem. Many of us see Free {Software,Standards} as necessary for a free society, and as such should be considered some kind of "right" similar to those listed in the 1st Amendment. The idea that we should "negotiate" away those rights is obviously not something that will be taken ser…

And only a subset of movies, don't forget: big-money blockbusters. That's the only sort which depend upon the business model 'big media' is trying to protect with DRM.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#125

I suppose that the title assertion is to be expected. DRM only works if you don't know how it works. ~~~ I'm not sure I see anything wrong with DRM per se (this could be my fever talking), there are probably good uses I'm too dim to think about, but I do think it's unnecessary as part of the HTML specification. There's no industry or company that has switched to DRM-free content, that I know of, that has failed or su…

DRM enables movie rentals over the internet and that's about the only good use I've seen for it.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#126

I suppose that the title assertion is to be expected. DRM only works if you don't know how it works. ~~~ I'm not sure I see anything wrong with DRM per se (this could be my fever talking), there are probably good uses I'm too dim to think about, but I do think it's unnecessary as part of the HTML specification. There's no industry or company that has switched to DRM-free content, that I know of, that has failed or su…

> For games, Steam makes it easy to avoid SecuROM Hell Steam is not DRM-free. It's just gamer-accepted DRM.

Which seems more rooted in the overall ease-of-use and lock-in Steam creates as well as goodwill towards Valve from their games. Steam's terrible - fight them on a transaction, and you could lose your entire library.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#127
post #94
post #69

Great. DRM. The best example of shooting yourself in the foot ever. Give customers encrypted content and the keys, try to prevent them from freely using the two together, undermine copyright fair use and first sale doctrines as you go along. Intended effect - No Piracy Actual effect - Paying customers get crippled products, pirates carry on regardless It's crazy. And the more they try to lock it down the worse their…

The DRM is becoming increasingly complex and elaborate, and taking longer and longer to fully crack. Compare PS2 to PS3 crack times, for instance. The media executives are of the firm belief that unbreakable DRM is just around the corner, and that when they reach it, piracy will end and they can go back to charging whatever they want again. A return to the good old days of $25 CDs for one song you like and eight fill…

DRM on a sealed hardware platform is entirely different than DRM on a consumer controlled device, which is what the HTML5 DRM plugin interface hopes to achieve.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#129
Compliance rules for Microsoft Playready: http://www.microsoft.com/playready/licensing/compliance/

The encryption part of DRM systems is effectively the same as client-side SSL certificates with a secret SSL certificate. How well it's kept secret is defined in the compliance documents. This secret, plus a secure decoding and output path, are the engineering core of DRM systems.

Studios require "industry standard DRM" for movies and TV shows, with lesser requirements for SD. This effectively means "DRM backed by some entity with lots of money that we can sue if things go wrong". Studios approve each individual device that you serve to, usually with compliance targets at some particular future date for various existing loopholes.

Flash (Adobe Access) is somewhat different, and has an obfuscated method for generating the equivalent of a client cert, thus on laptops it's only rated for SD by most (all?) studios. Apparently studios don't care too much about people copying SD content.

Studios would theoretically approve watermarking DRM systems, but there are two major barriers: having a large (ahem, suable) company offering it, and some way to serve individualized media through a CDN. Neither seem likely. So nobody loses too much sleep about whether studios would actually approve watermarking.

Re: Requirements for DRM in HTML are confidential

#130
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

How about the embed tag? What big differences do you see between implementing EME vs the embed tag?

One difference is that with embed you can still support most existing platforms by implementing NSAPI.
Post reply on HN