Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 374 posts

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#21

Post by snird »

Technology should never force it's users (the sites creators) to use one technology or another. Not implementing DRM is idiotic for couple of reasons:

1. The decision of whether or not to use DRM should be of the site creators. That's as "free" as it gets. forcing them otherwise by not letting them the option is bad.

2. Even without implementing it, DRM is available through flash or silverlight or any other third party plugin. The only result not implementing DRM gets is that of hurting the HTML5 video component.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#22

Post by cbhl »

a3_nm wrote: post #16

I would hope that rebranded versions of Firefox such as Iceweasel will strip the DRM support, so I guess it is not like it will be forced on people who don't want it. Of course, this is still bad news, because it means there is no more pressure on content owners against this DRM, which can eventually become painful for people who want to avoid the DRM.

It is painful today for people who want to avoid the DRM legally.

We already lost the ideological war with the media companies.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#23

Post by viraptor »

themoonbus wrote: post #3

Can some one explain to me why having, say, an HTML 5 based video player with DRM would be worse than one implemented in a closed platform like Silverlight or Flash? I'm genuinely curious, and not trying to make an argument here.

I guess it depends on the implementation. At least we can put limits around the current flash plugin. Can we do the same thing for the new plugin architecture, so a media codec exploit doesn't take over your browser?

Or in a darker version - can we make sure the new plugins don't scan your drive for "incompatible content". Game anti-cheat systems already do that. At least flash / silverlight was playing nice so far, unlike some of the more interesting DRM systems in the past.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#24

Post by ggchappell »

themoonbus wrote: post #3

Can some one explain to me why having, say, an HTML 5 based video player with DRM would be worse than one implemented in a closed platform like Silverlight or Flash? I'm genuinely curious, and not trying to make an argument here.

Okay, let's assume that, in the former case, the functionality required is built into the browser and enabled by default.

The problem with the former case, then, is that I get a browser that ostensibly supports my freedom, and this code that runs things secretly, without letting me intervene or analyze, comes in with it, under the radar.

In the latter case, I have to take a deliberate action, explicitly agree to a license, and install a product I know to be freedom-denying. So I have something icky on my computer if/when I specifically choose to, and I know exactly what the icky stuff is, why it is there, and how to get rid of it if I decide to.

I think it would be much better if Mozilla were to present the DRM stuff as an optional, not-installed-by-default plug-in with clearly restricted scope, access, and capabilities. If they do this, then they probably ought to spin off the group that makes the plug-in as a separate organization.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#25

Post by wolfgke »

suprgeek wrote: post #9

Mozilla had to be dragged into this acceptance kicking and screaming (metaphorically). They were faced with a hard choice, Not implement EME (HTML5 DRM) and risk users moving to other browsers (user loss) or implement EME and risk looking like they are contradicting their core mission (trust loss). They figured a little loss of trust is worth keeping most of the users on the Mozilla platform - which in my view is the…

For people who want DRM there are already enough browser choices. On the other hand for people who refuse DRM there's only one choice - and soon zero.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#26

Post by wyager »

snird wrote: post #21

Technology should never force it's users (the sites creators) to use one technology or another. Not implementing DRM is idiotic for couple of reasons: 1. The decision of whether or not to use DRM should be of the site creators. That's as "free" as it gets. forcing them otherwise by not letting them the option is bad. 2. Even without implementing it, DRM is available through flash or silverlight or any other third par…

> The decision of whether or not to use DRM should be of the site creators. That's as "free" as it gets.

Why does that mean that we should facilitate their use of DRM? If they want to use it, they can specify a third-party plugin.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#27

Post by pcwalton »

chimeracoder wrote: post #4

From a comment by a Mozilla employee on another thread, it seems that the UI for this has not yet been determined[0]. It's possible that this may be presented to the user in a way similar to a plugin installation, except that the plugin happens to be provided by Mozilla (not a third-party). This isn't great, but to the end user, it looks the same as Flash and Silverlight. Especially if Mozilla were to add click-to-pl…

It's been made clear that, whatever happens, "users will have control over whether the CDM is used in their copy of Firefox."

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#28

Post by saganus »

themoonbus wrote: post #3

Can some one explain to me why having, say, an HTML 5 based video player with DRM would be worse than one implemented in a closed platform like Silverlight or Flash? I'm genuinely curious, and not trying to make an argument here.

I believe the issue is not about the video player per se, but the specifications that are going to be (or are already there) added to HTML as a standard.

As I see it, it kind of looks like it help DRM, first by legitimizing it, i.e. it doesn't carry the same weight if it's something proposed by only one corporation ("these guys are crazy and don't know what they are doing") vs the weight it carries by virtue of being part of the HTML standard ("if it's a standard it must be already accepted by everyone so it must be good!")

And second, by preventing fragmentation among DRM solutions, i.e. it will be easier for DRM users (not end-users) to interact with one another and even innovate and pass on that innovation (licensing, etc) instead of fightning among them like it happens nowadays (i.e. SecuROM vs their competition, etc).

Again, that's what it seems to me, but maybe someone else can provide a different explanation?

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#29

Post by isomorphic »

michaelt wrote: post #17
themoonbus wrote: post #3

Can some one explain to me why having, say, an HTML 5 based video player with DRM would be worse than one implemented in a closed platform like Silverlight or Flash? I'm genuinely curious, and not trying to make an argument here.

The whole point of replacing Flash with HTML5 video is to get rid of buggy third party plugins that crash all the time and have shitty cross-platform support. If HTML5 video is going to rely on buggy third party DRM plugins, we lose the benefit that was the whole point of HTML5 video.

I run my browsers without Flash in order to avoid Adobe's exploit-du-jour crapware. This means, for example, that I don't run Chrome.

If this binary blob from Adobe isn't presented with a similar UI as regular "plugins" (that the user can disable or uninstall), then I will look into writing an extension to disable it, or perhaps rely on a Firefox fork to give me a Flash-lite(tm) free browser.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#30

Post by jgraham »

wolfgke wrote: post #25
suprgeek wrote: post #9

Mozilla had to be dragged into this acceptance kicking and screaming (metaphorically). They were faced with a hard choice, Not implement EME (HTML5 DRM) and risk users moving to other browsers (user loss) or implement EME and risk looking like they are contradicting their core mission (trust loss). They figured a little loss of trust is worth keeping most of the users on the Mozilla platform - which in my view is the…

For people who want DRM there are already enough browser choices. On the other hand for people who refuse DRM there's only one choice - and soon zero.

That isn't the case. You can choose to not install the CDM component.
Post reply on HN