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W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards

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Re: W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards

#11
post #2

How will this work with open-source browsers like Firefox? After all, what's to stop somebody from publishing an extension or even a modified version of the browser itself? DRM seems fundamentally unenforceable, after all. Are the people pushing for this hoping it's just too much hassle? These questions aren't rhetorical: I'm interested in what exactly the DRM people are pushing and how they expect it to work. Just n…

DRM people are not interested in how it'll work, in fact DRM often contributes to user of whatever it is implemented in suffering. They just want permission to insert their cluster fuck to keep getting rich.

Re: W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards

#12
post #2

How will this work with open-source browsers like Firefox? After all, what's to stop somebody from publishing an extension or even a modified version of the browser itself? DRM seems fundamentally unenforceable, after all. Are the people pushing for this hoping it's just too much hassle? These questions aren't rhetorical: I'm interested in what exactly the DRM people are pushing and how they expect it to work. Just n…

They want to propose an API which would allow proprietary closed source binary blobs to display videos. In other words: They are pushing "yet another Flash" into HTML5.

Re: W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards

#13

I don't see it taking too long for someone to make an open source DRM-free browser that just ignores the HTML 5 DRM functionality.

Would that be possible? Then can this still be called DRM? Edit: How can it be DRM if the algorithms/formats/protocols are open? Or aren't they open?

>How can it be DRM if the algorithms/formats/protocols are open? Or aren't they open?

They're not. IIRC, the only open parts are the hooks the actual DRM plugin (but we're not calling it a plugin!) will utilize.

Re: W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards

#14
post #2

How will this work with open-source browsers like Firefox? After all, what's to stop somebody from publishing an extension or even a modified version of the browser itself? DRM seems fundamentally unenforceable, after all. Are the people pushing for this hoping it's just too much hassle? These questions aren't rhetorical: I'm interested in what exactly the DRM people are pushing and how they expect it to work. Just n…

I'm curious how with the whole open source community how this will be at all enforceable... there's nothing stopping me releasing a browser that says "To hell with DRM, I'm just not going to enforce any of it"... and because it's open source and out there in the wild, there's not a whole hell of a lot anyone can do to shut it down...

Re: W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards

#15
post #2

How will this work with open-source browsers like Firefox? After all, what's to stop somebody from publishing an extension or even a modified version of the browser itself? DRM seems fundamentally unenforceable, after all. Are the people pushing for this hoping it's just too much hassle? These questions aren't rhetorical: I'm interested in what exactly the DRM people are pushing and how they expect it to work. Just n…

DRM is not in the browser. The browser just acts as a gateway to allow the website to talk to a DRM component in the OS (or potentially in hardware).

Re: W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards

#16
post #2

How will this work with open-source browsers like Firefox? After all, what's to stop somebody from publishing an extension or even a modified version of the browser itself? DRM seems fundamentally unenforceable, after all. Are the people pushing for this hoping it's just too much hassle? These questions aren't rhetorical: I'm interested in what exactly the DRM people are pushing and how they expect it to work. Just n…

I'm curious how with the whole open source community how this will be at all enforceable... there's nothing stopping me releasing a browser that says "To hell with DRM, I'm just not going to enforce any of it"... and because it's open source and out there in the wild, there's not a whole hell of a lot anyone can do to shut it down...

The browser doesn't enforce the DRM, a binary blob in the OS does.

Re: W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards

#17

I don't see it taking too long for someone to make an open source DRM-free browser that just ignores the HTML 5 DRM functionality.

The problem is MPAA & friends will already see this as an "entitlement" and say those other browsers are "facilitating piracy", while the major ones from Google, Microsoft and Apple aren't. Something like that will sound very good to government and authorities.

I really think allowing this to happen in the first place is just like opening the Pandora box. You give these guys an inch, they never stop demanding for more censorship.

Re: W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards

#18
post #2

How will this work with open-source browsers like Firefox? After all, what's to stop somebody from publishing an extension or even a modified version of the browser itself? DRM seems fundamentally unenforceable, after all. Are the people pushing for this hoping it's just too much hassle? These questions aren't rhetorical: I'm interested in what exactly the DRM people are pushing and how they expect it to work. Just n…

The DRM isn't actually implemented by the browser its more of a plugin architecture (Encrypted Media Extensions) which commercial closed source DRM plugin can fill.

Re: W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards

#19
post #2

How will this work with open-source browsers like Firefox? After all, what's to stop somebody from publishing an extension or even a modified version of the browser itself? DRM seems fundamentally unenforceable, after all. Are the people pushing for this hoping it's just too much hassle? These questions aren't rhetorical: I'm interested in what exactly the DRM people are pushing and how they expect it to work. Just n…

I imagine the client-side stuff won't really matter. I think in the end there will be a DRM API that will not trust the client. "Does this user have a valid key or username/pass to access this content" won't be answered on the client-side, but on the server-side.

Probably with a client-side file (or binary?) that gets delivered to the browser from the server and accessed locally in a sandboxed environment. This handles keys, auth, etc natively with the browser. This might be seamless to the end user.

Probably easily crackable like, say SteamWorks, but good enough to keep low-hanging fruit safe and copyright holders happy as we begin to retire flash entirely. Joe User won't be able to 'right-click and saveas' but he'll be able to view HTML5 video.

I think TBL is stuck between a rock and a hard place, just like Gabe Newell was with Steam. Users hate DRM, but he can't sell games without it. Some crowd-happy DRM scheme that's unobtrusive might be the only winning move here.

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