Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by gress » Wed, May 14, 2014, 11:55 PM UTC

azakai wrote: post #140

GuiA wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ding ding ding! You've hit the nail on the head. Mozilla has no real power over the web. Google, Microsoft, and Apple have the power (look at the names associated with EME DRM - what a surprise). Mozilla has an illusion of power, which is tolerated by the other actors because it makes everyone happy. But no one should mistake it for real leverage.

> Mozilla has no real power over the web. Google, Microsoft, and Apple have the power (look at the names associated with EME DRM - what a surprise). That's not right either. It's the users that have the power. Users can pick which browsers they use and which sites they visit. There was essentially no boycott of EME-shipping browsers (Chrome and Internet Explorer). That shows that we, the people on the internet, did n…

Given that most Chrome users installed it because of the deal with flash or advertising on the Google home page, and updates are silent, it's safe to assume very few of them have any idea what is being introduced or when or what the implications are.

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

#212

Post by pessimizer » Wed, May 14, 2014, 11:55 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #185

The EFF stance is a little shrill. Remember how FairPlay and Zune were going to create proprietary music forever? Didn't quite work out that way. End of the day, content is a commodity, and like any other commodity, prices are falling as the supply expands. Unless it's a Pixar movie, most films in DVD/Blueray are in the $10 range within weeks. Digital rights for new releases are as little as $3 when you buy with phys…

>FairPlay and Zune

That's because they didn't sell. What if they had been every player in the market?

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

#213

Post by beedogs » Wed, May 14, 2014, 11:55 PM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #88

barrkel wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the wrong choice. It's the same BS I remember reading on slides from graphics card vendors excusing some other way of selling the user down the river. Content can adapt to reach their customers. Bend here and the web itself is under threat. Mozilla needs a social contract like Debian, since it seems clear they can't rely on leadership for backbone.

Did you seriously just equate closed source graphics drivers to slavery?

Uh oh, we've got someone here who can't comprehend hyperbole.

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

#214

Post by jasonwocky » Wed, May 14, 2014, 11:55 PM UTC

jgon wrote: post #145

GuiA wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ding ding ding! You've hit the nail on the head. Mozilla has no real power over the web. Google, Microsoft, and Apple have the power (look at the names associated with EME DRM - what a surprise). Mozilla has an illusion of power, which is tolerated by the other actors because it makes everyone happy. But no one should mistake it for real leverage.

Exactly, Mozilla had power right up until the tech community sold out the future of the web in favor of sparkly things given to us by our benevolent corporate masters. Every time we installed Chrome for our parents because it was so minimal , every time we fired up safari because zomg the user interface was "lickable", we were working towards this point. We gave Google and Apple this power because we decided that smo…

> We gave Google and Apple this power because we decided that smooth animations and per process tabs were a fair trade for the future of a global information network not controlled by corporate interests.

Actually, I decided that hellacious startup times weren't worth it.

All of your hyperbole is a spin-master's way of saying that Chome and Safari beat out Mozilla because, for a significant amount of time, Firefox sucked compared to them.

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

#215

Post by shkkmo » Wed, May 14, 2014, 11:56 PM UTC

Daiz wrote: post #169

Oh, so the web has given up and is now genuflecting at the altar of video DRM. Next up: picture DRM, because since we're protecting videos we should naturally protect still pictures too. You know what? We also have all this professional writing on the web, and anyone can just copy & paste that! That clearly shouldn't fly in our brand new DRM-protected world - authors should be able to control exactly who can view and…

>>Giving in to HTML DRM will only make the situation worse than it currently is

Except if you use the new Firefox you may have better privacy and security than you currently do with flash and silverlight.

I haven't seen anybody on here argue for DRM, so I don't see the point in this FUD.

Instead, lets find more ways for Firefox to fight DRM and reduce it's negative impact. I particularly support one of Doctorow's suggestions:

>Mozilla has demonstrated that it has some negotiating leverage with Adobe – after all, it was able to fend off the demand for details of users’ systems to be leaked to video companies.

>It should demand that Adobe give it a covenant not to sue or threaten developers who report vulnerabilities in the Adobe decoder. Adobe does not need to give up the right to sue people who release cracks for their DRM or competing products in order to do this.

>In an era in which vulnerabilities are leveraged to expose users to identity theft, sexual exploitation and government surveillance, no one should fear legal reprisal for warning people about flaws in the software they use.

Additionally, we need to focus on ways to educate users about the risks of DRM and disincentive web sites from using DRM wherever possible.

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

#216

Post by takluyver » Wed, May 14, 2014, 11:56 PM UTC

pdkl95 wrote: post #139

DigitalSea wrote: post #111

This is most certainly the wrong choice, but people need to understand they essentially had no choice. Their options were rather limited: Option 1) Stick to your laurels and refuse to implement DRM. Other browser vendors implement DRM, certain parts of the web become inaccessible via Firefox as DRM is implemented into more and more web services (think Youtube, Vimeo, Netflix, Hulu). Firefox's lack of DRM means its us…

> Firefox's lack of DRM means its users are being disadvantaged. Firefox's lack of DRM would mean that users are being encouraged to used the services not encumbered with this nonsense, instead of all gravitating to whichever DRM service is most popular. Mozilla supporting DRM is a failure because of Metcalfe's Law[1]. By giving access to the network of people using DRM to their n users, they support that network by…

I don't think Metcalfe's law applies here - people don't use encrypted HTML video as a communication network, it's mostly a channel from content producers to users. So its value only grows linearly with the number of users that can receive it.

More importantly, though, content is more compelling than browsers, and browsers are easier to switch. If Firefox blocks its n users from receiving some content, some fraction of those will leave Firefox and get the content anyway, leaving Firefox with less strength to fight the next battle. In this case, it looks like that fraction would be pretty significant, and the impact on DRM not that great.

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

#217

Post by pessimizer » Wed, May 14, 2014, 11:56 PM UTC

skylan_q wrote: post #155

First gender identity/equality is more important than free speech, and now DRM is more important than freedom from submitting to vendor demands. What's the point of Mozilla?

Gender equality is more important than free speech.

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

#218

Post by pdeuchler » Wed, May 14, 2014, 11:59 PM UTC

Seriously, who is building this DRM software/hardware? If you are a software developer you have no excuse but ignorance, and as someone who makes a living on a computer (where the Internet resides) that excuse is waning extremely thin. I harbor a hairs breadth more grace for the hardware engineers designing locked down chips, but that's no more than a rhetorical nicety due to the fact that I'm am not very familiar with the intricacies of their work.

I honestly don't get it, you could make just as much, if not more, money doing something that's not 100% ethically wrong... especially in this job market! It's easy to work remotely, so you can't claim geographic entrapment. I'm sure if those who were especially financially encumbered could make a kickstarter page people would literally pay them to quit their job!

As much as this stings, it stings even more that it's "our own" selling us out, that it's the people who should know better that are killing everything so many of us have worked so hard for.

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

#219

Post by pessimizer » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:02 AM UTC

jgraham wrote: post #121

chris_wot wrote: post #42

So time to fork Firefox?

So I've seen this reaction in a few places, and I'm genuinely interested in what people think that it would achieve. You take the code of a browser that allows, but does not require, you to use a DRM system* and change it so that you are no longer able to install a DRM system. What's the value proposition of the new browser? You won't be tempted to install the DRM component when you find yourself wanting to view medi…

>change it so that you are no longer able to install a DRM system.

No, you change it into one that doesn't have code that caters to a particular DRM system (the EME system, not the blobs themselves.) If they want to have DRM, they can write a plugin with their blob. Putting in the calls for DRM to use is the same as putting in DRM.

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

#220

Post by rectangletangle » Thu, May 15, 2014, 12:02 AM UTC

Reading between the lines here, I have a strong suspicion this and the smear campaign directed against Eich are related events. Only a few short months ago Mozilla was staunchly opposed to this. Then Eich gets forcefully removed, and Mozilla's stance turns a 180. In retrospect the "outrage" against Eich felt very artificial. It could have been a deliberate attempt at character assassination in order to further someone's goals of destroying our internet freedoms. The motive of course being heavy financial incentives. This likely had nothing to do with LGBT* rights (which I'm a proponent of, FYI). Instead it was all about someone lining their greedy pockets, at the personal expense of Eich and us to a much lesser extent. Keep in mind the same people who have a vested interest in strengthening DRM, are the same people who own the media outlets which propagated this story.