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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

#281

Post by jeltz »

toyg wrote: post #218
jiggy2011 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this the same with all software? There is never anything mandating that anybody supports your OS or browser of choice. If I want to watch netflix or play GTA5 on my haiku box I'm SOL as it is unless there is a business case to be made for doing the port. This actually makes things easier. For example netflix currently uses silverlight for their streaming, this means that in order to watch netflix you need somet…

Much smaller, I don't think. It will still have to grab the screen and render directly onto it. It's basically the same thing a regular plugin would do except a little bit of identity validation, from what I understand. Technically speaking it's almost the same as the status quo, but a little bit of DRM principles have now been enshrined in the foundations of our web. Depending on what your view of DRM is, of course,…

Indeed, this changes nothing technically. But what it does is harm the idea that standards should promote the the open web. You may or may not agree to this idea of course.

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

#282

Post by acdha »

camus wrote: post #256
jiggy2011 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything in the TCP/IP spec that ensures compatibility with more than one OS?

TCP/IP is an open standard, DRM are not.

Your statement is as wrong technically as stating that encryption cannot be open source. What matters are the keys, not the code.

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

#283

Post by makomk »

schoen wrote: post #234
makomk wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, you could run a binary through an obfuscator after compiling in a decryption key -- from source code that had been published and distributed under an open source license. Of course, if you do that you may as well just not release the source code at all, because there's no way for the user to tell that the binary does actually correspond to the source without also being able to extract the encryption ke…

I think that verifiability is an important security benefit from publishing source code and I hope to talk more about that soon. Some people think that publishing source code is first and foremost a way to get other people to collaborate on its development, not to ensure any particular rights or knowledge or safety for people who end up using the software. For example, you could imagine a consortium of people who eac…

I've certainly noticed some people do that, but in essence isn't that just a way to get other people to do their development work for them for free, without giving those developers any of the benefits that come from true open source software in exchange?

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

#284

Post by pgeorgi »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #119
jonahx wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

DRM'd content isn't accessible and that's the entire problem. Adding a standardized hook for DRM modules to use creates the illusion that things got accessible that previously weren't.

Try exercising your fair-use rights on those DRM'd bits for example.

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

#286

Post by danesparza »

cyrus_ wrote: post #33
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…

The W3C is the guardian of the world wide web, a system for disseminating information publicly and globally to all those who may benefit from it. By standardizing DRM for video, they are giving legitimacy to a technical kludge that is designed specifically to prevent the dissemination of information. There are legitimate reasons why someone may wish to save a video to their hard drive, just like they can save an imag…

"The W3C is the guardian of the world wide web"...

I completely disagree. You are the guardian. Every one of us is the guardian.

"Guarding the web" isn't in the W3C's mission at all: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission.html They design standards used internationally. That's it.

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

#287

Post by da_n »

grimtrigger wrote: post #104
chadwickthebold wrote: post #29

I think that many people are drastically underestimating the effect this may have on the open web. The response "oh, well we'll just build a browser that will avoid the DRM" isn't going to work quite as well as one might hope. It's not such a stretch of the imagination that content providers will detect such browsers and refuse to supply any content at all. This would be similar to what many sites do now for users of…

Impossible, browser detection is easily spoofed. Some browsers come built with the ability to spoof other browsers since its valuable for developers who need to test how their sites appear in other browsers.

But you could easily do feature detection, much like Modernizr, simply changing the user agent is not going to fool anyone.

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

#288

Post by ryanthejuggler »

nitrogen wrote: post #196
dubcanada wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually mostly Netflix wanting this. They don't want to rely on SilverLight forever.

At least Sliverlight works in Linux with netflix-desktop.

That stopped working for me several months ago... IIRC Netflix needed an updated version of Silverlight. Have they patched it?

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

#289

Post by dublinben »

shitlord wrote: post #242
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…

What I don't understand is that if these companies want so desperately to enforce DRM, why are they using the web? A native application is better suited to what they want to do, and they are going to end up writing DRM modules in native code anyway. So why are they targeting the web at all, and why do they insist on getting something that is fundamentally closed (DRM) put into something that was meant to be open (HTM…

Content providers want to be on the web, because that's where the audience is. If they're made to feel unwelcome on the web, they certainly will take their content away. This makes the web less useful and harms users.

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

#290

Post by dublinben »

wdewind wrote: post #224
waqf wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do brands have to do with copyright law? Or are you also advocating for changes to trademark law?

You're right, I'm conflating the two. I mean to be saying intellectual property law in general, which I am not a huge fan of.

If you're against "intellectual property" then you shouldn't use that propaganda term. Refer to the specific legal protections at issue, like copyright, patents, or trademarks, because they are all have very different functions and purposes.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html

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