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

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

#281

Post by loup-vaillant »

syntern wrote: post #253
kator wrote: post #133

DRM is a fantasy that uninformed media executives cling onto with a dream that it will put the genie back in the bottle. It's sad to see this stuff but totally understandable considering the divide between the technology people who understand the reality and the people in charge of dreaming of a fantasy that gets them back to the '80s.. Yes I know.. I was an executive as a major record label, trust me it's hard to be…

I'm wondering: what do you suggest to artists, how shall they make money on their work?

Cut out the middle men, rely on donations. Or still sell your stuff for a price, those who want it for free can reach for the Pirate Bay anyway —it's about the same. You won't be rich, but you may live off your craft.

---

Other schemes such as global licence may also help.

We also need easy, anonymous micro payment. Like, click a button to give 10 to 50 cents every time you feel like it when using something (song, e-book, software…).

Oh, and, like, universal basic income. It's hard to get paid when we contribute to the commons, so basic income can help a great deal. (Seriously, if we had sustainable basic income —dunno if it's possible right now— we could probably abolish copyright and patent laws right away —and not worry about the massive lawyer lay-offs that will ensue.)

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

#282

Post by magicalist »

azakai wrote: post #175
pessimizer wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the web gain if Mozilla could just be pushed into chasing whatever Apple, Microsoft, and Google decide to do for fear of some users jumping ship? edit: Mozilla needs to cultivate its brand, and set itself apart from the other browsers through actual differences in philosophy. Maybe they need a John Legere...

Mozilla has been different in philosophy. It's the only browser created by a nonprofit, and it fights for open web causes all the time. I think people that care about that are aware of it. But the facts remain that the vast majority of users don't care about the philosophical differences. When Chrome and Internet Explorer started shipping EME, almost no one switched browser. When Snowden's revelations came out, almos…

> Mozilla has been different in philosophy. It's the only browser created by a nonprofit, and it fights for open web causes all the time.

Just not, you know, this one.

I understand why Mozilla is making this choice, but it's still the wrong one. I mean, seriously, DRM in the HTML spec, endorsed by Mozilla. I can't think of a bigger WTF.

I'm very much in agreement with Cory Doctorow that all these assertions that Mozilla will lose all its users if it doesn't implement EME have had no evidence to back them up. Almost no one is delivering EME-supported content, and all the cries of "IE and Chrome will leave us behind" fail to mention that's only IE11 and ChromeOS, so any company delivering only EME content would leave many more customers behind than just Firefox users.

At the very least doing this now instead of years from now when it might start mattering (like what happened with h.264) does not exactly demonstrate sticking to their guns.

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

#283

Post by mccr8 »

aestetix wrote: post #168

I am curious whether this would have happened if Eich were still the CEO.

He commented on this DRM thing on Twitter:

"I supported this least-worst EME plan when I was at Mozilla. I'm still working on no-DRM solution w/ @OTOY + some content "bigs"."

https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/466666103972696064

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

#284

Post by loup-vaillant »

kevincrane wrote: post #164
dllthomas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If content providers knew that there was a large chunk of users they'd be excluding by choosing the DRM option, they would be less likely to choose it. Firefox may be only 20% of web users, but that's still a lot of revenue to leave on the table if we can rely on firefox users to stick with firefox. I don't know whether or not we can - apparently, Mozilla is worried about it. The best option might be to sink this dev…

How many users would stick around when YouTube or Netflix stop working though?

Wait, since when YouTube is supposed to use DRM? I just downloaded 5 videos with DownloadHelper today.

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

#285

Post by quasque »

pdeuchler wrote: post #218

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 wi…

I don't think it's necessarily unethical to write such DRM software, and I'd be interested in hearing your argument as to why this is the case.

It's not as if the software causes harm; indeed it probably reduces the potential of economic harm to the content providers. Assuming it does exactly what it claims to do, i.e. decoding of video and audio content dependent on a provided decryption key - then what is the ethical problem with programming an algorithm for that?

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

#287

Post by lern_too_spel »

higherpurpose wrote: post #83
wolfgke wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no. drm will still be an add-on, just like it is today. Flash is not an add-on, but a plugin. And there is a good reason why plugins have a bad image and browser developers and users prefer to get rid of them.

Watch Netflix, the champion of "HTML5 DRM", go back to a plugin in order to use P2P streaming within the next 18 months.

P2P streaming can be built on top of WebRTC fairly easily.

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

#288

Post by magicalist »

StavrosK wrote: post #188
pessimizer wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the web gain if Mozilla could just be pushed into chasing whatever Apple, Microsoft, and Google decide to do for fear of some users jumping ship? edit: Mozilla needs to cultivate its brand, and set itself apart from the other browsers through actual differences in philosophy. Maybe they need a John Legere...

If we have platforms A and B, and A is more aligned with your interests than B, then we have an advantage in having everyone on A rather than on B. You're presenting a false dichotomy: "Either Mozilla doesn't compromise anywhere, or they might as well go away". Things aren't black and white.

Sure, but if the only thing to weigh is "will we lose users if we don't implement this feature?" and the only reason given why it's different this time is the assertion that this time it's different, I think you can understand the sentiment.

Besides, I think the argument is more "Either Mozilla doesn't compromise where it's important not to, or they might as well go away", which is a true statement. Mozilla does need to continue to exist, and compromise is fundamental to the web (it's right there in their manifesto), but this was something that should have been fought tooth and nail. The protest of this mostly involved sternly written emails to W3C lists, when it should have been simply not implementing it and holding that ground until it was clear no alternatives were viable and imminent harm was actually demonstrated.

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

#289

Post by Spooky23 »

pessimizer wrote: post #212
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 ?

iTunes has been the #1 music store since 2008. Back in those days, iPod utterly owned the mp3 market. I believe DRM went away after that happened.

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

#290

Post by MrRage »

kator wrote: post #133

DRM is a fantasy that uninformed media executives cling onto with a dream that it will put the genie back in the bottle. It's sad to see this stuff but totally understandable considering the divide between the technology people who understand the reality and the people in charge of dreaming of a fantasy that gets them back to the '80s.. Yes I know.. I was an executive as a major record label, trust me it's hard to be…

Most artist, according to my understanding, have never really made money on record sales even before the advent of Napster (for example, google "The Problem with Music" by Steve Albini). Most musicians are going to make money off of concerts tickets and T-Shirts, etc sold at concerts.
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