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EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

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Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#201

Post by lucian1900 »

sbuk wrote: post #171
w1ntermute wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do I. That way will mean that I will probably never be able to use it on my (Linux) laptop, but that's fine, because I don't want to use something with DRM anyway. Torrents work just fine until the movie industry learns what the music industry learned the hard way.

The minute you suggest torrenting media is the minute you lose the moral high-ground. You aren't owed this stuff, neither are you entitled to it. If you don't agree with the way media is distributed, don't consume it . By torrenting the media, you are playing into the proponents of DRMs hands.

I still think it's irrelevant. DRM doesn't stop casual copyright infringement anyway. It's only ever used to control distributors (in this case the likes of Netflix), but that doesn't make much sense to me anyway, since they have expensive-to-breach contracts with them.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#202

Post by belorn »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #186
josteink wrote: post #180

This DRM proposition definitely needs all the resistance it can get. We cannot allow DRM into our wonderful, open standards. This is not an option. Not at any price. I'm honestly surprised that Mozilla haven't been more vocal about this issue. Have they issued any statements what so ever? Seeing what amazing things the web have enabled the last few decades, purely by being open, who are we to deny the future the same…

"Open standards" are about documenting interfaces in such a way as that any person could develop a compatible implementation, nothing more. There is already a massive amount of proprietary tech running the web. From internet explorer to the secret algorithms used by google. Pretending that the web is some hippy utopia is not accurate. This proposal simply describes a standard protocol for a DRM system to be able to t…

> Pretending that the web is some hippy utopia is not accurate.

A typical example of when a comment deserve a downvote. Calling the refusal of adding DRM to an open standard, a standard that is about a network of cooperating nodes that any standard compliant software can parse, is not an hippy utopia.

> The sites that would want to do this are already implementing paywalls or existing DRM systems.

The methods used by such systems are very limited. The same web functionality that DRM wants are the exact same ones constantly being limited to reduce malware. Even flash, which wants to allow arbitrary code are being phased out in favor of more precise html 5 functionality. DRM in the standard would be a direct step backward and open up more maleware, more arbitrary code execution, and more control by third-party of the computation of users devices.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#203

Post by Drakim »

lambda wrote: post #18
bitwize wrote: post #4

The Web is going to get DRM one way or another. Now we can do this the easy way, with standards that are agreed upon across vendors -- or the hard way, with proprietary plug-ins that only work in Windows and Internet Explorer.

The Web has DRM, implemented in proprietary plugins: Flash (and to a lesser degree, Silverlight). And this proposal involves DRM implemented with proprietary plugins (known as CDMs). There is no requirement that CDMs be available across platforms, on open operating systems, available to license by any vendor. The CDMs are the new proprietary plugins, they just happen to do less than Flash, leaving more of it up to th…

The worst part is that Flash and Java aren't going to go away anytime soon either. You basically have to have both, and the web will be a lot harder to navigate on anything but a Windows machine.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#204

Post by belorn »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #195
josteink wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is already a massive amount of proprietary tech running the web. From internet explorer to the secret algorithms used by google. Pretending that the web is some hippy utopia is not accurate. That's a bogus argument and misses the point completely. That you have closed source systems deployed on the open web is completely OK. That you have closed sourced browsers interpeting markeup is also completely OK. As lon…

Not at all, your browser does not need to be sanctioned. Anybody can build a browser that speaks HTTP and can send HTML pages around. There is no mandate that you integrate DRM to be standards compliant, it's perfectly valid to write a browser that simply says "no" to any requests to perform DRM functions. https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med... You can simply implement a "clear key" system wh…

That misses the point. While anybody can built partial web-browsers, they can't build competitive alternatives to those sanctioned by DRM-vendors.

Just speaking HTTP and partially parsing HTML pages does not a web-browser make.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#205

Post by jiggy2011 »

belorn wrote: post #202
jiggy2011 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Open standards" are about documenting interfaces in such a way as that any person could develop a compatible implementation, nothing more. There is already a massive amount of proprietary tech running the web. From internet explorer to the secret algorithms used by google. Pretending that the web is some hippy utopia is not accurate. This proposal simply describes a standard protocol for a DRM system to be able to t…

> Pretending that the web is some hippy utopia is not accurate. A typical example of when a comment deserve a downvote. Calling the refusal of adding DRM to an open standard, a standard that is about a network of cooperating nodes that any standard compliant software can parse, is not an hippy utopia. > The sites that would want to do this are already implementing paywalls or existing DRM systems. The methods used by…

It seems that those making the most noise over this haven't spent the requisite 2 minutes reading the actual proposal.

https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med...

From the abstract:

"This specification does not define a content protection or Digital Rights Management system. Rather, it defines a common API that may be used to discover, select and interact with such systems as well as with simpler content encryption systems. Implementation of Digital Rights Management is not required for compliance with this specification: only the simple clear key system is required to be implemented as a common baseline."

"The "org.w3.clearkey" Key System indicates a plain-text clear (unencrypted) key will be used to decrypt the source. No additional client-side content protection is required. "

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#206

Post by jiggy2011 »

belorn wrote: post #204
jiggy2011 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all, your browser does not need to be sanctioned. Anybody can build a browser that speaks HTTP and can send HTML pages around. There is no mandate that you integrate DRM to be standards compliant, it's perfectly valid to write a browser that simply says "no" to any requests to perform DRM functions. https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med... You can simply implement a "clear key" system wh…

That misses the point. While anybody can built partial web-browsers, they can't build competitive alternatives to those sanctioned by DRM-vendors. Just speaking HTTP and partially parsing HTML pages does not a web-browser make.

Yes, you can.

You are free to support whichever content protection systems you want to support. The only DRM mechanism which is part of the standard is clearkey which is DRM in the same way that SSL is DRM, i.e not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5791579

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#207

Post by gordaco »

mortenjorck wrote: post #128
shmerl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the Steam platform has demonstrated, if you make paying the easy solution and piracy the hard one, the target audience (viz. people willing to pay money) will choose the easy one. Steam is still DRMed and can be annoying enough. Try to get Loom there to play on your Scummvm and good luck with that. I don't use Steam since I don't want to support DRMed approach. I use GOG and other DRM free distributors for gaming.…

Steam has a unique market position, with an extremely loyal user base. The really interesting thought experiment I see is this: What if Steam quietly went DRM-free tomorrow? What would change? What wouldn't?

Surely a single data point is not much, but in that case they could count me as another consumer in their extremely loyal user base.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#208

Post by belorn »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #205
belorn wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretending that the web is some hippy utopia is not accurate. A typical example of when a comment deserve a downvote. Calling the refusal of adding DRM to an open standard, a standard that is about a network of cooperating nodes that any standard compliant software can parse, is not an hippy utopia. > The sites that would want to do this are already implementing paywalls or existing DRM systems. The methods used by…

It seems that those making the most noise over this haven't spent the requisite 2 minutes reading the actual proposal. https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med... From the abstract: "This specification does not define a content protection or Digital Rights Management system. Rather, it defines a common API that may be used to discover, select and interact with such systems as well as with simpler…

Such API will encourage more DRM to be access through the browser, which in turn lets malware exploit such vectors in similar way that Java applets, active X and flash has been plagued by remote code exploits. The amount of money and greif caused by such malware is very high, and was a major incentive for moving to HTML 5. The draft in question would rather move so we had 10-20 more such lovely (in)secure plugins all being accessed through the API provided by the standard.

But you can believe that anyone objecting to that just hasn't read the draft if that makes your life easier.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#209

Post by josteink »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #205
belorn wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretending that the web is some hippy utopia is not accurate. A typical example of when a comment deserve a downvote. Calling the refusal of adding DRM to an open standard, a standard that is about a network of cooperating nodes that any standard compliant software can parse, is not an hippy utopia. > The sites that would want to do this are already implementing paywalls or existing DRM systems. The methods used by…

It seems that those making the most noise over this haven't spent the requisite 2 minutes reading the actual proposal. https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med... From the abstract: "This specification does not define a content protection or Digital Rights Management system. Rather, it defines a common API that may be used to discover, select and interact with such systems as well as with simpler…

The fact that you can build a browser which doesn't support DRM doesn't alter that fact that if we allow this in, W3C has officially sanctioned that the web, one bit and one platform at a time, can and shall be DRMed.

So sure. You can build a browser which only supports clear key. And that browser will not be a fully supported browser on this new encrypted and DRMed web. No FOSS-based platform will be a viable option to consume the web.

Now you can say that we have the same situation today, with Flash and Silverlight, so what's worse about this? Well: The fact that it has W3C's seal of "standard" approval written on it.

Congratulations: You just fragmented the WWW and to top it of you claim its a standard.

If we let this pass, in a year or two we will be having the same debate for and for and for . This is the beginning of the close-down on the web, and the only reasonable place to stop it, is at its root: No DRM, no EME and no CDMs in HTML5.

You can belittle those who disagree with you, saying they don't know what they are talking about. But it may just be that they are not so short-sighted about where this is heading as you seemingly are.

Right now Hollywood needs the web, more than the web needs Hollywood. Hollywood cannot afford not to be on this train. If we say "no DRM" enough times, they will come eventually. The music industry did. Everyone else did. Hollywood will.

Lets not sacrifice our open standards needlessly.

Re: EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM in HTML5

#210

Post by josteink »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #206
belorn wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That misses the point. While anybody can built partial web-browsers, they can't build competitive alternatives to those sanctioned by DRM-vendors. Just speaking HTTP and partially parsing HTML pages does not a web-browser make.

Yes, you can. You are free to support whichever content protection systems you want to support. The only DRM mechanism which is part of the standard is clearkey which is DRM in the same way that SSL is DRM, i.e not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5791579

You mean you are free to implement a second class citizen on this new, closed down and Hollywood-driven web.

Yeah. That sounds really sexy. That sounds like the pinnacle of achievements for open standards.

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