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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

#311

Post by kosievdmerwe »

hetman wrote: post #238
pdeuchler wrote: post #218

Seriously, who is building this DRM software/hardware? If you are a software developer you have no excuse but ignorance, and as someone who makes a living on a computer (where the Internet resides) that excuse is waning extremely thin. I harbor a hairs breadth more grace for the hardware engineers designing locked down chips, but that's no more than a rhetorical nicety due to the fact that I'm am not very familiar wi…

It's must be easy to tell others what they must sacrifice. Or did you take this stance your self and quit your job on moral grounds?

It's amazing how offended people get at other people for not martyring themselves. Especially in cases like the NSA scandal where they are demanding that people literally risk jail time for the ideals of the demander.

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

#312

Post by vpeters25 »

chris_wot wrote: post #42

So time to fork Firefox?

The first version of Firefox took the internet by storm because it was a 300kb download while Netscape was at a "massive" 4.5Mb. It was also way faster than any other existing browser.

I believe Firefox started by a group of Netscape developers who just stripped all the junk out of the sources. Since then, its size as balloned to a monstrous 34Mb download.

I personally would love a fork of firefox back to the basics of before v1.0: html, js, tabs and plugins.

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

#313

Post by dingaling »

azakai wrote: post #291
magicalist wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla has been different in philosophy. It's the only browser created by a nonprofit, and it fights for open web causes all the time. Just not, you know, this one. I understand why Mozilla is making this choice, but it's still the wrong one. I mean, seriously, DRM in the HTML spec , endorsed by Mozilla. I can't think of a bigger WTF. I'm very much in agreement with Cory Doctorow that all these assertions that Moz…

> I'm very much in agreement with Cory Doctorow that all these assertions that Mozilla will lose all its users if it doesn't implement EME have had no evidence to back them up. The reasoning is actually very sound in my opinion. It is true that EME is not a major force on desktop yet. But, Netflix - the most popular streaming video service - has written an EME player. It is moving towards that, and the hollywood stud…

> People will not use a browser that does not support Netflix. It's a simple as that.

Netflix ended 2013 with 44 million subscribers, by their own numbers [1], with a target of reaching and stablilising at 90 million.

That's it: 90 million out of an online population of around 2.5 billion, or around 4%.

Do you make business decisions on the basis of 4% of your potential ( non-paying ) audience?

1: http://business.time.com/2014/01/22/netflix-number-of-subscr...

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

#314

Post by magicalist »

shkkmo wrote: post #305
magicalist wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla has been different in philosophy. It's the only browser created by a nonprofit, and it fights for open web causes all the time. Just not, you know, this one. I understand why Mozilla is making this choice, but it's still the wrong one. I mean, seriously, DRM in the HTML spec , endorsed by Mozilla. I can't think of a bigger WTF. I'm very much in agreement with Cory Doctorow that all these assertions that Moz…

> At the very least doing this now instead of years from now when it might start mattering (like what happened with h.264) does not exactly demonstrate sticking to their guns. Ah, but the flipside: Doing this now, as opposed to years from now when the technology is established, gives Mozilla more influence over the form that this DRM takes, the protections that are available to consumers and the marketplace in genera…

This doesn't need to be hypothetical. We can look at that trade directly. We traded hardware fingerprints that aren't trackable across services for DRM in HTML. That's what we got.

So glad they got in on the ground floor instead of continuing to work to never have it enter the spec at all.

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

#315

Post by vpeters25 »

suprgeek wrote: post #9

Mozilla had to be dragged into this acceptance kicking and screaming (metaphorically). They were faced with a hard choice, Not implement EME (HTML5 DRM) and risk users moving to other browsers (user loss) or implement EME and risk looking like they are contradicting their core mission (trust loss). They figured a little loss of trust is worth keeping most of the users on the Mozilla platform - which in my view is the…

Why does a non-profit worry so much about users moving to other browsers?.

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

#317

Post by magicalist »

ewzimm wrote: post #193
azakai wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a case where Mozilla thinks that by sticking around they can do more good than by killing this particular attack on the free web. How can Mozilla kill it? It simply doesn't have the power, faced with Google, Microsoft and Apple implementing EME. Yes, Mozilla could have taken a pure, principled stance and avoided EME. Perhaps some thoughtful people would use Firefox for that reason. But those same thoughtful…

This is the truth. There has been no effective movement against DRM. The EFF is more guilty than Mozilla in this case because fighting DRM is a core function of the EFF's, while adapting to established web standards is Mozilla's primary function.

You are completely and utterly wrong here.

I don't even know how you arrived at this conclusion. The EFF was fighting this with education of the public, procedural maneuverings within the W3C itself, and with invited commentary to the relevant standards groups. Mozilla was also doing these things, and, contrary to what you might assume living in our tech bubble, has a pulpit with far greater reach than the EFF.

But then they implemented the damn thing--which, by the way, is not a standard yet--in their browser.

But, please, tell me exactly what the EFF is guilty of. They might have failed, but that's a very different thing.

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

#318

Post by yp_all »

suprgeek wrote: post #9

Mozilla had to be dragged into this acceptance kicking and screaming (metaphorically). They were faced with a hard choice, Not implement EME (HTML5 DRM) and risk users moving to other browsers (user loss) or implement EME and risk looking like they are contradicting their core mission (trust loss). They figured a little loss of trust is worth keeping most of the users on the Mozilla platform - which in my view is the…

Mozilla is an organization that has hundreds of millions in revenue but does not pay taxes?

How many employees?

What are their salaries?

Whatever, I don't care about that stuff.

Here's my question: Does Mozilla still portend to be "open source"?

Because if it was "open source" in the sense to which I am accustomed, then I could simply compile a Mozilla browser without DRM.

For example, if I never had any need to watch DRM, then it would make sense that I could compile the browser without the DRM code.

One beauty of open source is that the user can modify it.

She can trim off what she does not need.

Your comment repeatedly refers to "trust".

How does one achieve "trust" through closed source (e.g., the binary blob from Adobe)?

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

#319

Post by swetland »

jgraham wrote: post #121
chris_wot wrote: post #42

So time to fork Firefox?

So I've seen this reaction in a few places, and I'm genuinely interested in what people think that it would achieve. You take the code of a browser that allows, but does not require, you to use a DRM system* and change it so that you are no longer able to install a DRM system. What's the value proposition of the new browser? You won't be tempted to install the DRM component when you find yourself wanting to view medi…

Yeah, I am baffled by the reaction to this. Don't want to use DRM, don't install the plugin, no DRM, done.

Long-term I can't see how video would end up being any different than audio (and I can buy non-DRM-encumbered mp3/flac/etc from any number of sources).

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

#320

Post by azakai »

dingaling wrote: post #313
azakai wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm very much in agreement with Cory Doctorow that all these assertions that Mozilla will lose all its users if it doesn't implement EME have had no evidence to back them up. The reasoning is actually very sound in my opinion. It is true that EME is not a major force on desktop yet. But, Netflix - the most popular streaming video service - has written an EME player. It is moving towards that, and the hollywood stud…

> People will not use a browser that does not support Netflix. It's a simple as that. Netflix ended 2013 with 44 million subscribers, by their own numbers [1], with a target of reaching and stablilising at 90 million. That's it: 90 million out of an online population of around 2.5 billion, or around 4%. Do you make business decisions on the basis of 4% of your potential ( non-paying ) audience? 1: http://business.tim…

1. This isn't a Netflix module. It's for anyone who views DRM'd video content.

2. This is a growing area - we don't need to care just about current numbers but the trend. The trend is clear: Hollywood wants EME DRM on all content.

3. 44 million out of 2.5 billion sounds like a little, but is not the best way to calculate things. Netflix doesn't even sell a service in most of the countries those 2.5 billion are in. In countries like the US, Netflix is large and growing, and especially heavily represented among younger internet-savvy people (who are the heaviest browser users). So your calculation is very much an underestimate.

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