NetFlix is one of the companies pushing this.
The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users
11–20 of 158 posts
Re: The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users
#12What's the solution? Forking html?
Short term, the solution is to convince W3C that moving forward will be an embarrassing disaster, nevermind what some of its for-profit members want. This has been accomplished before, in particular ~2001 when many wanted W3C to have a RAND (ie fee required OK) patent policy, but they were embarrassed into finally doing the right thing, ie mandating RF (royalty free) patent licensing by participants in W3C standards.
Long term, help free culture become dominant. The post says "The Web doesn’t need big media; big media needs the Web" which is true, but web companies do fear and/or hope for an advantage over competitors by doing deals with big media, including deals selling out The Web writ large.
Re: The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users
#13TL;DR: # Myths 1. that DRM doesn’t work; that it exists to protect creators, but since it is easily cracked and can be worked around, it is largely ineffective and irrelevant 2. that DRM in HTML5 is a necessary compromise to finally bring an end to the proliferation of proprietary browser plugins such as Adobe Flash Player and Micrisoft Silverlight 3. that the web needs DRM in HTML5 in order for Hollywood and other m…
Honest question - why is having a framework that allows for others to provide some form of DRM different from any other plugin system that exists currently?
In theory perhaps it's no different. But I think EME would work out very poorly in practice. Some browsers either allow no plugins or only a few grandfathered plugins. What EME systems will they support? Imagine a future where Mobile Safari only supports FairPlay, IE only supports WMDRM, Chrome OS only supports Widevine, Android gets fragmented into a half-dozen different DRM schemes depending on vendor, desktop Linux has nothing, etc. This scenario is much worse than Flash.
Re: The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users
#14DRM is based on obfuscation at the core. How would this ever work with open source browsers?
Do you have any clue how encryption works? There are plenty of open-source encryption algorithms that are very secure.
I'm not sure how W3C is recommending the DRM be implemented, but it is in no way necessary for the source code for browsers to be 'closed' vs 'open' source in order to have effective DRM.
Re: The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users
#15My take is that Google in particular likes this development (though are probably trying to stay away from it publicly for political reasons) because it allows them to easily (ie. with studio blessing) pilot monetizing their vast YouTube-watching userbase by offering paid content services and user profiling far beyond what is available on cable networks (eg. by selling 'anonymized' matches of consumer viewing behaviour in conjunction with email, location, sleeping-schedule as determined by a cross-section of Google services, etc.). Existing Google projects and their recent significant investment in video (patents, new LA offices, Android 'Smart TVs', ChromeOS Google Fiber) all look like they will benefit from this type of development. With all due respect to people who work at Google, please consider protesting internally in parallel to this public effort, or leaving.
Re: The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users
#16What's the solution? Forking html?
The solution is waiting it out. They caved on music; they will cave here too. All that is required is patience: something that is admittedly rare in the tech world, but it works.
Not at all clear to me that waiting it out is a winning strategy. There is no deterministic path for other media to follow music away from DRM, and indeed there is a threat that a faux-standard as proposed will mean that DRM becomes the expectation and demand of/by record companies, again.
Re: The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users
#17What's the solution? Forking html?
Short term, the solution is to convince W3C that moving forward will be an embarrassing disaster, nevermind what some of its for-profit members want. This has been accomplished before, in particular ~2001 when many wanted W3C to have a RAND (ie fee required OK) patent policy, but they were embarrassed into finally doing the right thing, ie mandating RF (royalty free) patent licensing by participants in W3C standards.…
I wonder which ones sold out already?
http://www.microsoft.com/playready/
https://tools.google.com/dlpage/widevine
Bitches.
Re: The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users
#18Wait, so the W3C is actually letting this happen? How the mighty have fallen.
Re: The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users
#19What's the solution? Forking html?
FWIW, I'd chip in my time for this.
Re: The W3C's plan for DRM in HTML5 is a betrayal for all web users
#20What is the complaint. It isn't clearly summed up here.
Noone will force you to use DRM on your website. Noone will force you to browse websites that use DRM.
What do you care what others choose to do with their sites and content, unless you believe you have the right to access everything everyone creates, in an unrestricted fashion, for free, in perpetuity.