W3C green-lights adding DRM to the Web's standards • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by mmcclure » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 8:41 PM UTC

I don't mean this as a defense of EME, but I think this is more rabble-rousing and fear mongering than anything else. What the EFF and this article are saying is that EME opens the door for this kind of stuff to make its way to the spec. EME on its own does absolutely none of this.

EME is not DRM. It's a standard spec for plugins that provide DRM. Essentially it means that someone like Netflix could still use the HTML5 video element for playback while interacting with a browser plugin just to handle the DRM aspect of things.

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

#112

Post by x0054 » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 8:41 PM UTC

Ok, it sounds to me like this is way, way, over blown. First, the DRM is NOT going to be built into the browser it self. It's basically a new name for a plug in system, nothing more. So, to everyone who thinks they can roll their own browser and avoid the DRM, no you will not be able to.

It's not bad or good for consumers, at best, it's about the same. It's very simple, studios will not allow you to rent their movies without DRM. Netflix will not be able to function without DRM. Neither can steam. It's not up to them, it's up to the content providers, not companies like Netflix.

Is it stupid? Yes. My high school teacher, with no technical knowledge what so ever had a way to brake almost any video DRM. He would play the video on his TV, and record the image with his HD Cam. Stupid? Yes. Effective? Also yes.

The point is, as long as its a plugin type of architecture, not part of the browser binary, what's the big deal. How is it different from Flash or Silverlight?

Oh, and to everyone that proclaims that DRM is bad. Many of you are developers for startups. Is your startup all open source? Why not? Isn't compiling code or running it only on your servers just another type of DRM? Ask your self, would you have a job if your company was forced to share all the code you write? All of it, even the stuff that you write from scratch and only run on your servers.

I think many people hate DRM because of how bad it's implemented, not because of the fact that its there in the first place. Well implemented DRM should be completely transparent to the end user who paid for the content. Steam and Netflix do a pretty good job of it.

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

#113

Post by Zigurd » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 8:42 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #40

wdewind wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a place where the next Tim Berners-Lee or Mozilla, if they were building a new browser from scratch, couldn't just look up the details of all the "Web" technologies. They'd have to negotiate and sign compliance agreements with a raft of DRM providers just to be fully standards-compliant and interoperable. I may be totally naive here, but I'm not really sure why this matters. That there is a WC3 standard does n…

It matters because of two things: 1 - We'll lose the W3C. We'll have to either create another standards body, or go back to the 90's situation when nobody agreed on anything. 2 - There are a few places where actualy reading the data somebody sent to you is a crime. Despite the drawbacks on those kinds of law, some of those places are still very importantly economically, and we can't just ignore them, at least for now…

> Despite the drawbacks on those kinds of law, some of those places are still very importantly economically, and we can't just ignore them

Browsers have plug-in architectures. DRM systems are inherently proprietary. Leave them to implement proprietary plug-ins.

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

#114

Post by wavefunction » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 8:44 PM UTC

I'm just curious about what all of you opposed to this would offer as an alternative to companies like Netflix or other streaming sites. No DRM? That's simply not going to fly.

If you really want to undermine DRM in an honest and ethical manner, you should leave those DRM'd properties to their owners and support non-DRM media.

How many of you listen to itunes media and are raging about this...

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

#115

Post by jakeogh » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 8:45 PM UTC

W3C is on HAL's side... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYqkU1y0AYc

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

#116

Post by revelation » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 8:46 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #102

chadwickthebold wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between a closed plugin and a closed browser. Let the DRM content stay in their plugins in their paywalled sites, while the web in general remains open and benefits from the creativity and innovation that flows from that openness.

I don't think anyone said that the DRM code will be closed source. You don't complain when you can't decrypt PGP, even though PGP implementations are open source. This is the same thing.

If it's open source, I can just swoop in, inject some code and make a copy of the decrypted data stream for 'archival purposes'. Won't take a day for a PoC.

I can still do this with closed source DRM blobs, but it will take much longer. And there will probably be pointless anti-debugger tricks, system wide hooks that break countless other software, kernel drivers that BSoD your system..

That is precisely why this proposal is such a terrible idea. It writes into a standard that it is okay to produce software that is actively hostile to its user, while having absolutely no security gain whatsoever (because the concept is fundamentally broken: if the data is being decrypted on my system, I will get it).

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

#117

Post by wdewind » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 8:46 PM UTC

schoen wrote: post #80

wdewind wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I don't agree that this is true at all. The W3C is not created to destroy copyright, which seems to be the implication of your statement (ie: we will need a new standards body that does not provide a copyright-compliant standard). I don't agree with copyright law, but it is law. We currently have a web that provides the ability to companies to protect their data via implementation, this simply provides a spec to d…

There is no sense in which DRM is "copyright-compliant" and a lack of DRM is not "copyright-compliant", and there is no sense in which copyright requires anyone to help industry create or deploy DRM.

Yeah that's true. I chose my words poorly.

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

#118

Post by angrow » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 8:46 PM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #93

wdewind wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had my way we wouldn't have copyright at all. It seems idiotic to me for the same reasons patents are. But we do, and so just as you say there are "legitimate reasons" why someone may wish to save a video, there are too "legitimate reasons" someone may want to share their work in a protected manner. It's a product. If you don't like it don't buy it. There is no part of this that forces the user to view only DRM…

If I had my way we wouldn't have copyright at all. It seems idiotic to me for the same reasons patents are. Excellent news! So it's ok if I copy the images, CSS and HTML on your landing page for your employer for my competitor, then? Edit: I'm obviously not serious.

I wouldn't recommend it: the name and logo are trademarked, and even if you replaced those, if anyone noticed the rest of the copying, you'd be the laughingstock of the internet. Who'd want to buy your product then?

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

#119

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 8:51 PM UTC

jonahx wrote: post #65

jiggy2011 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit of an exaggeration, we have had content like this on the web for years with proprietary technologies like flash, silverlight ,activeX and highly obfuscated JS. Not to mention the amount of content locked into walled gardens and proprietary app stores etc. The W3 proposals suggested do not in fact mandate browser vendors implement any DRM scheme to remain 100% standards compliant. This is myth that gets…

> The issue is that some big name content providers don't want to sell you content unless they can also install things on your computer. This fact remains regardless of the technological implementation details. Sure, but we don't have to aid them in their quest > The overwhelming majority of content on the web is DRM free. These proposals do not mandate nor give any incentive for that content to be protected if it is…

It seems odd for HN to be in favour of making technology & content marginally less accessible simply to spite people.

Perhaps there exists a class of people who wanted to implement DRM on all of their content but were just waiting for the W3s blessing but such a class will be extremely small.

Most of the DRM you see comes from mandates from big content firms, most other people could give less of a shit.

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

#120

Post by wdewind » Thu, Oct 03, 2013, 8:51 PM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #93

wdewind wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had my way we wouldn't have copyright at all. It seems idiotic to me for the same reasons patents are. But we do, and so just as you say there are "legitimate reasons" why someone may wish to save a video, there are too "legitimate reasons" someone may want to share their work in a protected manner. It's a product. If you don't like it don't buy it. There is no part of this that forces the user to view only DRM…

If I had my way we wouldn't have copyright at all. It seems idiotic to me for the same reasons patents are. Excellent news! So it's ok if I copy the images, CSS and HTML on your landing page for your employer for my competitor, then? Edit: I'm obviously not serious.

It's not my company, and the things I'm saying don't represent the opinions of my employer.

To your question, is it "ok," I couldn't provide the answer as I don't own the copyright.

My statement was that I wish we lived in a world without copyright. The rules would be very different, and thus we would act and compete differently. As is, brand is an important asset for a company. I think you know all this.

I also think your argument is a bit sophomoric and I find it obnoxious that you are calling out my employer's name.