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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

#141

Post by jeroen »

wdewind wrote: post #63
saraid216 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). No, what he means is that, if we stop listening to the W3C because of this, the W3C will no longer matter. So either we won't have a standards body, or we will need a new one.

And why would we stop listening to the W3C because of this?

It was your own suggestion that spawned this thread.

You wrote:

"I may be totally naive here, but I'm not really sure why this matters. That there is a WC3 standard does not imply that browsers have to adhere to it." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6491428

marcosdumay is responding to that by saying "It matters because ..."

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

#142

Post by josteink »

mmcclure wrote: post #111

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 HTM…

It's DRM legitimised as a concept in a supposedly open standard. it's a slippery slope.

with video DRM having a foot inside, who dares to venture a guess at what the next victim will be? DRMed js? DRMed html?

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

#143

Post by PeterisP »

cheald wrote: post #98
stackcollision wrote: post #4

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.

Read the spec. This wouldn't work, specifically because EME is a set of interfaces to proprietary blobs which do the actual content decryption and optional rendering. Building a browser that ignores EME would be functionally equivalent to building a browser that can't use Flash.

A browser can save the data after it's been rendered. A DRM plugin can't tell the difference between an "approved" browser that doesn't do that versus a modified browser that just pretends to be an approved browser.

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

#144

Post by wdewind »

jeroen wrote: post #141
wdewind wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why would we stop listening to the W3C because of this?

It was your own suggestion that spawned this thread. You wrote: "I may be totally naive here, but I'm not really sure why this matters. That there is a WC3 standard does not imply that browsers have to adhere to it." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6491428 marcosdumay is responding to that by saying "It matters because ..."

Sorry, fair point. My point that you quoted was that anyone could roll a browser that did not include the DRM standard (or any standard for that matter). And many do already. I don't think this implies that the W3C is dead.

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

#145

Post by cheald »

PeterisP wrote: post #143
cheald wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the spec. This wouldn't work, specifically because EME is a set of interfaces to proprietary blobs which do the actual content decryption and optional rendering. Building a browser that ignores EME would be functionally equivalent to building a browser that can't use Flash.

A browser can save the data after it's been rendered. A DRM plugin can't tell the difference between an "approved" browser that doesn't do that versus a modified browser that just pretends to be an approved browser.

The CDM may render directly to the underlying platform; it doesn't have to pass decrypted content back to the browser for rendering.

Seriously though, everyone should go just read the spec. Or at the least, take a looksee at this: https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med...

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

#146

Post by maxerickson »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #32
oonny wrote: post #20

Isn't this good news for video distributors who haven't converted over to HTML5 (native video support) because of lack of support for DRM?

Sure, but is it good news for the users?

Yeah, sure. Some sort of somewhat effective anti digital copying mechanism is a great way to enable video rentals on general purpose computers (especially given the pervasive copyright regime of modern video content).

There are issues to come when consumers only have access to encumbered media, but at the moment, they pretty clearly benefit from the access.

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

#147

Post by PeterisP »

cheald wrote: post #145
PeterisP wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A browser can save the data after it's been rendered. A DRM plugin can't tell the difference between an "approved" browser that doesn't do that versus a modified browser that just pretends to be an approved browser.

The CDM may render directly to the underlying platform; it doesn't have to pass decrypted content back to the browser for rendering. Seriously though, everyone should go just read the spec. Or at the least, take a looksee at this: https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med...

Yes, and the underlying platform (OS) can cooperate with the browser to allow easy one-click saving of the rendered data after it's been rendered. Unless the whole stack from hardware through to the DRM plugin is locked down.

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

#148

Post by ferongr »

PeterisP wrote: post #138
ferongr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source OSes will probably not have CDMs available, except when prepackaged into a proprietary widget (Android, ChromeOS, B2G is Mozilla decides to play ball)

If an open source system can run the CDM and is packaged in a proprietary widget; then I am allowed to take that open source system out of the widget, modify it to behave exactly as if it is still in the widget (so that it can still run the CDM) and redistribute the system to everyone.

It's very hazy. If the userland (running atop of the Linux kernel) is closed source then there's few things you can do. Also, you can't just rip out binaries and redistribute them at will, EULAs usually forbid it.

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

#149

Post by oscargrouch »

This is a clear sign that the W3C now is hostage of the big corporations.. say goodbye to the dream and vision created by the founders of the Web, and what the WWW was meant to be for us all: a democratic place of freedom, education and shareing to all the world.. a world without frontiers, without borders.. infinite as it could be..

All i see now is the corporate internet.. people may not remember this but AOL and the like tried to create privates corporate internet's and lose in the long term.. the world was too big to be contained.. to be controlled..

This is the beginning of the end of what internet was supposed to be?

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

#150

Post by cheald »

PeterisP wrote: post #147
cheald wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDM may render directly to the underlying platform; it doesn't have to pass decrypted content back to the browser for rendering. Seriously though, everyone should go just read the spec. Or at the least, take a looksee at this: https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med...

Yes, and the underlying platform (OS) can cooperate with the browser to allow easy one-click saving of the rendered data after it's been rendered. Unless the whole stack from hardware through to the DRM plugin is locked down.

Certainly, but that's always true of every non-trusted computing platform. You can do that with Flash or Silverlight or any other video DRM system today. I rather suspect it's a very big part of the reason that CDMs don't get published for Linux, because it would be trivial to modify the system to just jack the content on its way out to the display.
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