Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web • Hacker News Board

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#121

Post by agildehaus » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 2:35 AM UTC

fafner wrote: post #116

desireco42 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't share completely your assertions. In order for commercial companies to be able to use html5, they need some form of drm. This is just enabling them to do business. I believe that free and open, given some semblance of equal playing field will always win. Just to be clear, if they came and say, no drm in html, I would stand behind that as well. I just accept their judgement that this was necessary at the momen…

They don't need DRM. DRM does not work. Just go to pirate bay and you'll find every TV series, movie (with DVD/BluRay/Stream release), album immediately after their release. They think they need DRM. But in reality they don't. It doesn't stop piracy at all. It's a burden only to their legal customers and not to the pirates. It is all about easy and affordable access. If a company insists on using DRM then they should…

It stops plenty of piracy as without it piracy could be as easy as a single click from a place like Netflix, Google Music, etc.

Just because it's easy for you to circumvent doesn't mean it's easy for the everyday user.

But totally agreed that it doesn't belong in web standards.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#122

Post by surge » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 2:42 AM UTC

desireco42 wrote: post #120

fafner wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need DRM. DRM does not work. Just go to pirate bay and you'll find every TV series, movie (with DVD/BluRay/Stream release), album immediately after their release. They think they need DRM. But in reality they don't. It doesn't stop piracy at all. It's a burden only to their legal customers and not to the pirates. It is all about easy and affordable access. If a company insists on using DRM then they should…

And I agree with you completely. But they believe that they need it and will not release content otherwise.

Then they can keep it and they won't get my money, and everyone will just end up pirating it anyway.

You don't combat piracy by locking it down and making a pain to access your content, you compete/combat piracy by making sure its always easier and more convenient to obtain your content legitimately, not punish those that are legit for the few that will go pirate it anyway. As long as I can purchase a song for $1 DRM free and have it in 5 seconds at a high quality from iTunes or Amazon, I won't ever be tempted to find a torrent for it, even if its free.

DRM creates artificial scarcity, and scarcity breeds a black market. Those black markets may always exist, but if you make it hard enough to access your product on the device they want at the time they want, they will have more incentive to go to the black markets.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#123

Post by surge » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 2:44 AM UTC

agildehaus wrote: post #121

fafner wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need DRM. DRM does not work. Just go to pirate bay and you'll find every TV series, movie (with DVD/BluRay/Stream release), album immediately after their release. They think they need DRM. But in reality they don't. It doesn't stop piracy at all. It's a burden only to their legal customers and not to the pirates. It is all about easy and affordable access. If a company insists on using DRM then they should…

It stops plenty of piracy as without it piracy could be as easy as a single click from a place like Netflix, Google Music, etc. Just because it's easy for you to circumvent doesn't mean it's easy for the everyday user. But totally agreed that it doesn't belong in web standards.

It is now anyway, even with DRM.

Actually Netflix is easier then pirating, which is now why Netflix consumes more traffic than torrents.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#124

Post by chroem » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 2:54 AM UTC

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #119

doctoboggan wrote: post #78

Perfect timing, I just released a tool that enabled a more decentralized web. It used BitTorrent Sync to distribute files and I plan on implementing namecoin or colored coins for name resolution. As soon as an open source, stable btsync clone is released I plan on swapping it in. The biggest drawback is that you can only serve static content, although I think many websites today would be fine with this restriction. Y…

BitTorrent Sync is the wrong foundation for this revolution. It should be open source from top to bottom.

Free software; the term is free software. In other words, software that respects your freedom.

Refer to this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm...

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#125

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 3:02 AM UTC

chroem wrote: post #124

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BitTorrent Sync is the wrong foundation for this revolution. It should be open source from top to bottom.

Free software ; the term is free software. In other words, software that respects your freedom. Refer to this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm...

And it's not Linux, it's GNU/Linux!

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#126

Post by betterunix » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 3:06 AM UTC

desireco42 wrote: post #100

fafner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash and Silverlight are dying anyway. So it's up to the movie industry and not up to us to bend over. And you know at least Flash was separated from the browser and ported to several systems. DRM in HTML5 will mean that Google, Apple, Microsoft will simply bundle their DRM modules and the free software world can fuck off. DRM in HTML5 is far worse than the status quo.

I don't share completely your assertions. In order for commercial companies to be able to use html5, they need some form of drm. This is just enabling them to do business. I believe that free and open, given some semblance of equal playing field will always win. Just to be clear, if they came and say, no drm in html, I would stand behind that as well. I just accept their judgement that this was necessary at the momen…

"In order for commercial companies to be able to use html5, they need some form of drm"

Not our problem. They can take the web or leave it. Why should we pander to them and screw up a good thing in the process?

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#127

Post by betterunix » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 3:08 AM UTC

agildehaus wrote: post #121

fafner wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need DRM. DRM does not work. Just go to pirate bay and you'll find every TV series, movie (with DVD/BluRay/Stream release), album immediately after their release. They think they need DRM. But in reality they don't. It doesn't stop piracy at all. It's a burden only to their legal customers and not to the pirates. It is all about easy and affordable access. If a company insists on using DRM then they should…

It stops plenty of piracy as without it piracy could be as easy as a single click from a place like Netflix, Google Music, etc. Just because it's easy for you to circumvent doesn't mean it's easy for the everyday user. But totally agreed that it doesn't belong in web standards.

"Just because it's easy for you to circumvent doesn't mean it's easy for the everyday user."

All it takes is for one person to circumvent it and the whole system crumbles. Which is the current state of affairs.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#128

Post by chroem » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 3:11 AM UTC

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #125

chroem wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free software ; the term is free software. In other words, software that respects your freedom. Refer to this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm...

And it's not Linux, it's GNU/Linux!

Ordinarily I think Stallman takes that way too far, but in this case the exact motivation behind free software was being described, yet it was still placed under the banner of open source. I think there's a time and a place for both terms, but when you're talking about resisting the NSA, you are (or should be) referring to free software.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#129

Post by archagon » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 3:17 AM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #55

Decrentralizing the web's software isn't good enough. We need to decentralize the hardware. Right now, connections to the web look like a tree, where a whole bunch of connections get funneled through an ISP. That ISP has the power. The power to throttle, the power to block, the power to record. And that ISP can be pressured by other powers. We need to decentralize so that instead of looking like a hierarchical tree,…

I sometimes wonder about this. Pretty much everyone already has a connected computer in their pocket. Wouldn't it be nice if we could use the phone without a cell provider? The web without an ISP? Connect to our friends without a social network? Exchange money without a bank?

Thinking further, what if all these services could be plugged into a well-abstracted peer-to-peer network, consisting of every connected device in the world? Services similar to Twitter or Facebook would no longer require a central host. Redundancy would be built in. Uptime would be pretty much guaranteed. Ads would go away. Freedom would be an implicit part of the system; no longer would profit motives sully (or censor!) services that people use and enjoy. And it would be more natural, too: pumping all our data through a few central pipes makes a lot less sense than simply connecting to our neighbors. Our devices would talk to each other just like we talk in the real world, only with the advantage of being able to traverse the global network in a matter of milliseconds.

New technologies like Bitcoin and BitTorrent would crop up naturally as part of this arrangement. It would put power back into the hands of the people.

Sadly, it seems a future of locked-down app stores controlled by a small number of large corporations is much more likely.

(Sorry, I realized this started sounding like a Marxist rant halfway through. And I'm not even a Marxist! It just sucks that this fascinating future is one that we're not likely to experience, even though we're almost at the point where we could actually implement it. I think.)

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#130

Post by RexRollman » Fri, Feb 07, 2014, 3:20 AM UTC

MikeTaylor wrote: post #27

It's great that Berners-Lee is saying this, but he'd have retained a lot more of his authority to pronounce on the future of the Web had he not thrown his weight behind the W3C's horrible plan to put DRM into HTML.

I was thinking the same thing. Thank you.