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Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

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Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#261

Post by dchichkov »

wolfgke wrote: post #230
dchichkov wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. So literally, what we see here is Google pressing Mozilla to support DRM... Google... Don't be evil. Please? Pretty please?

> So literally, what we see here is Google pressing Mozilla to support DRM Could you give a source (it doesn't sound implausible, but for statements with such a scope I'm interested in reliable sources)?

Do I need a source? AFAIK main Encrypted Media Extension advocates were Netflix and Google. See https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/lowering-your-standard... and such. Google has a dominant user share of browsers, so just by supporting DRM Google already creates pressure on all browser developers to support DRM as well. But aside from that, Google is also a major (90%) funding source of Mozilla/Firefox.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#262

Post by zimbatm »

CHY872 wrote: post #235
zimbatm wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me one site whose videos you can't watch on Firefox for Windows or Mac currently. The only real contender is Netflix but only once the Silverlight plugins reaches EOL. At that point Netflix will have to choose if they want to risk loosing 16% (est.) of their Firefox customers. Of course if Mozilla decides to implement DRM right now it won't be an issue for them.

That's only if in the toss up between losing Netflix and changing browser, they pick changing browser every single time. Which they won't. One thing you might not have thought about, is that at the moment, we have Flash, Java, Silverlight, etc which all periodically are found to have mahoosive security flaws - because they can do general purpose things. If Firefox moves to supporting a plugin which is used for exactl…

What is the proportion of Firefox users using Netflix. Most of Firefox users are in other countries than the US which typically don't have access to Netflix anyways. As soon as DRM becomes accepted by all major browser vendors nothing prevents other site from adopting the same thing which then spreads the usage of DRM. I don't think this is desirable.

For DRM to work it needs to have direct access to the hardware. Otherwise it's too easy to run the plugin in isolation and capture the output. So while the API surface is smaller it's still problematic because DRM bypasses all the sandboxes. Issues like cross-platform support still aren't resolved because DRM providers don't typically provide linux runtimes. I really don't see where this is an advantage versus no DRM.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#263

Post by couchand »

gress wrote: post #211
azakai wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla has no real power over the web. Google, Microsoft, and Apple have the power (look at the names associated with EME DRM - what a surprise). That's not right either. It's the users that have the power. Users can pick which browsers they use and which sites they visit. There was essentially no boycott of EME-shipping browsers (Chrome and Internet Explorer). That shows that we, the people on the internet, did n…

Given that most Chrome users installed it because of the deal with flash or advertising on the Google home page, and updates are silent, it's safe to assume very few of them have any idea what is being introduced or when or what the implications are.

That's pretty much Google's business model, as it was for Microsoft before them: get more market share by making it just a little bit harder to use your competitors.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#264

Post by kijin »

DigitalSea wrote: post #111

This is most certainly the wrong choice, but people need to understand they essentially had no choice. Their options were rather limited: Option 1) Stick to your laurels and refuse to implement DRM. Other browser vendors implement DRM, certain parts of the web become inaccessible via Firefox as DRM is implemented into more and more web services (think Youtube, Vimeo, Netflix, Hulu). Firefox's lack of DRM means its us…

Option 3) Stick to your laurels and refuse to implement DRM in the browser, but let people install a third-party plugin that adds the DRM capability. Keep your own hands clean, let Adobe do the dirty work (the DRM blob was written by Adobe after all), and keep all your users too!

The greatest thing about Firefox is the add-on/plugin ecosystem. Why not take advantage of it to give users a real choice? Firefox already does the same thing with Flash, a proprietary but easily installable plugin.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#265

Post by ZachPruckowski »

IgorPartola wrote: post #189
msbarnett wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps the whole existence of Mozilla was leading up to this point where it could commit ritualistic suicide and take this DRM proposal with it. Except, if Mozilla had committed "ritualistic suicide" over EME, it wouldn't have taken EME with it. Users would move to every other browser with HTML5 DRM implemented, Mozilla would die accomplishing nothing. A world with entrenched HTML5 DRM & Mozilla strikes me as stri…

Or, by forcing developers to provide a DRM-free alternative Mozilla would bring about a competing technology that would at a later date come to dominate and kill the DRM proposal.

The problem is not that there's no DRM-free alternative, it's that major content owners would prefer no HTML5 solution to a DRM-free HTML5 solution. There is literally nothing Mozilla can do about that. People who want to do DRM-free HTML5 video already can, but that's not the problem.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#266

Post by BigChiefSmokem »

couchand wrote: post #244
BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla was compromised the day they started taking money from Google.

While I appreciate the sentiment, I have to disagree. Mozilla has real power because they have a real revenue stream, which is (unfortunately, but realistically) almost entirely from Google.

The thing about money (and in turn, power and influence) is that it doesn't have to come from one source.

Diversify your sources and wean yourself off the Google teat. Even if Google does outbid everyone, profit shouldn't be the primary motivator at the Mozilla Foundation.

Wikipedia might not be the most glamorous of sites but they are a shining example of what it means to not compromise on your values. Those people are starving while Mozilla employees go to the bank - that is true courage and power. The power to not let profit be the absolute driver of your ambitions and values.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#267

Post by Daiz »

shkkmo wrote: post #215
Daiz wrote: post #169

Oh, so the web has given up and is now genuflecting at the altar of video DRM. Next up: picture DRM, because since we're protecting videos we should naturally protect still pictures too. You know what? We also have all this professional writing on the web, and anyone can just copy & paste that! That clearly shouldn't fly in our brand new DRM-protected world - authors should be able to control exactly who can view and…

>>Giving in to HTML DRM will only make the situation worse than it currently is Except if you use the new Firefox you may have better privacy and security than you currently do with flash and silverlight. I haven't seen anybody on here argue for DRM, so I don't see the point in this FUD. Instead, lets find more ways for Firefox to fight DRM and reduce it's negative impact. I particularly support one of Doctorow's sug…

>Except if you use the new Firefox you may have better privacy and security than you currently do with flash and silverlight.

"May". We're still changing a closed plugin to an even more closed black box (or actually multiple black boxes), which could be doing god knows when you're not looking (and even when you are looking). And even if Mozilla manages to negotiate some promises of privacy for Firefox users, what about other browsers - will their users get it just as good when they switch from Flash/Silverlight to some DRM black box? You might say that "it'll happen anyway" since other browser vendors are already in bed with Hollywood on this but Firefox hopping in surely doesn't help the situation any.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#268

Post by ZachPruckowski »

ep103 wrote: post #138

There are so many people here claiming this is the wrong choice, and yet I wonder what percentage of the commenters here are using chrome? By most sources I've seen, Chrome has 2x the marketshare, and actively pushed FOR EME. Perhaps if FF had Chrome's current marketshare, they would have been in a position to say no, but its the users who made that impossible. Mozilla should be commended for fighting as far as they…

>Perhaps if FF had Chrome's current marketshare, they would have been in a position to say no

It still would have accomplished nothing, because websites would just have a "this site doesn't work in Firefox, try switching to Chrome or IE or Safari" block page. And no amount of Firefox marketshare could make them not have that block page, because if they let Firefox access the content DRM-free the sites would lose their licenses on the content.

Re: Can This Web Be Saved? Mozilla Accepts DRM, and We All Lose

#270

Post by jiggy2011 »

pessimizer wrote: post #206
tzs wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If HTML5 video is going to rely on buggy third party DRM plugins, we lose the benefit that was the whole point of HTML5 video Only HTML5 video that has DRM will rely on EME plugins. We've lost nothing. In fact we've gained. HTML5 video now has a strict superset of the capabilities it had before. Without EME: Flash HTML5 +------+--------+ non-DRM video | yes | yes | +------+--------+ DRM video | yes | no | +------+-…

All video will now have DRM. We have lost video that did not have DRM. It will now be almost as easy to implement video with DRM in production as it is to implement HTML5 video without DRM. Every provider will now use DRM. Netflix will use fancy DRM, which mostly works. Everyone else will pay $19.95 for theirs. Never thought we were going to bring back the age of Realplayer (and the million others.)

If you aren't already using DRM , why start now?
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