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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

#291

Post by azakai »

magicalist wrote: post #282
azakai wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Moz…

> 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.

The reasoning is actually very sound in my opinion. It is true that EME is not a major force on desktop yet. But, Netflix - the most popular streaming video service - has written an EME player. It is moving towards that, and the hollywood studios as well. Those studios will not support anything but EME.

Currently Flash is supported by the studios, to some extent. But even that is problematic - Flash has dropped Linux support and is not present on mobile. Not only is EME being pushed by Netflix, Hollywood, Google and Microsoft, but also Flash is no fallback.

The result is that soon you will need EME to view Netflix. People will not use a browser that does not support Netflix. It's a simple as that. Yes, there are some principled people that refuse to use DRMed content, and those people are already not using EME-supporting browsers like Chrome and Internet Explorer, but look at their market share. The principled people are a tiny minority. That is the problem.

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

#292

Post by joaren »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #274
joaren wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh really? Mozilla brought this on itself when they took the epic lead they had with Firebug and utterly squandered it by thinking real dev tools were not something a browser should include out of the box, in favour of an utterly useless "3D" DOM view that is a made up diagram conveying no useful information about compositing or layering. Mozilla brought this on itself when they treated memory leaks and extension cra…

Still. Are those problems so bad, that even you stooped as low as using a proprietary browser? Was that a sufficient price for your freedom? Mozilla made mistakes, but it doesn't excuse the blindness of its users. Reminds me of GNU/Linux vs OSX. Apple made a shiny new OS that "just works" on their own hardware, and a good chunk of the tech community went drooling over this, instead of getting its act together and fix…

Are you for real? Mozilla gets $300 million per year from Google to maintain the pretense of freedom. Meanwhile I have to pay my own bills and deliver projects that my clients will pay for. To bring money into this argument and somehow blame "the users" for this string of epic mess ups is fucking rich.

Was I supposed to not diagnose jank using Chrome's frame analysis tools? Not profile memory allocations in its timeline? Develop my WebGL against an incomplete, broken and slow implementation to spare Mozilla's feelings? Firefox is a buggy and slow hunk of code whose maintainers are high on their own supply, and are only now starting to eat the humble pie now it's far too late. Simple as that.

Oh and the reasons why people switched to OS X are more related to connecting to wifi in under 1 second and implementing sleep/hibernate in a way that makes sense. Elegant solutions to real problems, not hack piled upon hack. Not that the hardcore free software nerds will ever get any of that, because it's too nice and shiny for them to even consider.

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

#293

Post by lampe3 »

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?

if you buy a CD from a artists that is on a major label how much do you think the artist gets? If he wrote the music/lyrics and produced it he will maybe get 2 $ if your not a big star you will get 1 $ or less!

you make money by selling merch and going on tour

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

#294

Post by npsimons »

Silhouette wrote: post #104
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.

Bend here and the web itself is under threat. Don't bend here and Mozilla itself could be under threat. DRM exists, many major content providers have shown little interest in releasing their material without a mechanism for preventing casual copying (and you can hardly blame them), and accessing multimedia downloads is an increasingly important function of the Web. Denying that reality isn't going to achieve anything…

many major content providers have shown little interest in releasing their material without a mechanism for preventing casual copying (and you can hardly blame them)

I can and do blame them and I say: let them die like the dinosaurs they are. The world will be better off without them. Mozilla refusing to implement DRM would have been one nail in the dinosaur's coffin.

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

#295

Post by vitno »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #255
azakai wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Anybody taking Snowden's revelations seriously would switch to Chrome or another Chromium build. The leaks contained information on exploited vulnerabilities in Firefox. Chrome's sandboxing makes it a safer browser than Firefox. This is opposite the choice somebody would make if they were philosophically opposed to DRM.

are you kidding? all builds contain a dial-home to google. Why would you ever switch to something that contains that?

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

#296

Post by dannyobrien »

tn13 wrote: post #200

The article is written as if Mozilla is making a mistake. I think Mozilla's stand is perfectly reasonable and pragmatic. Mozilla must adhere to all the web standards. I think the war for an open web was lost when EME became W3C standard. We should have fought it at that time.

EME isn't a W3C standard.

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

#297

Post by bsder »

Excellent.

When the plugin fails (and it will fail ... anything which is default deny will have lots of mysterious fails), more and more people who paid for the content will switch to pirated versions.

Personally, I can't wait. Piracy was roughly at a balance point recently with all the mobile consumption. Now, the lazy-ass social media generation is going to discover the need for it.

Welcome to Popcorn Time.

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

#298

Post by prewett »

I dislike DRM as much as the next person, but what do you suggest as an alternative way that content creators can protect their work? Movies cost tens of millions of dollars to make; I expect that you would not spend $10 million of your money to make something that everyone could just freely download. Would you invest a year writing a great novel if everyone could read it for free without paying you? Some people will, of course, say "yes" but I think most of us would not, and we would end up with less art.

I think the tech community needs to come up with a better alternative, rather than just complaining.

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

#299

Post by 13throwaway »

spoiler wrote: post #225
13throwaway wrote: post #46

If all major browsers support eme, every website will use it. Say goodbye to youtube-dl. Maybe next year eme will be updated to "protect" html. Soon the entire web may be a closed system. It doesn't matter what the FCC decides on Friday, today is the day the web dies, at mozilla's hands. There is always a choice mozilla, please make the right one.

That's bullshit. In what extremist world do you live? How on Earth did you manage to correlate DRM and "protected HTML"? This is like saying: "maybe next year my security system will be updated to hide my furniture from me!" I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to protect content. Frankly (I'm a hypocrite, becsus the I have used it, myself), isn't the YouTube downloading plugins some type of breaking copy…

While it wasn't stated in the article, I believe this system will lead to fully "protected" websites. Things you and me take for granted such as copying text, downloading an image, or modifying a URL to navigate a site easier may become a thing of the past. It's dark waters ahead, and with Hollywood at the helm I'm absolutely terrified at what tommorow's internet will look like.

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

#300

Post by res0nat0r »

res0nat0r wrote: post #234
Dylan16807 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright is a government-created monopoly.

Is there something inherently wrong with content creators controlling how their content is consumed?

I'm slightly confused as to why this perfectly valid question is downvotable....going against the hive mind?
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