Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

boingboing.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 314 posts

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

#41

Post by pslam »

The W3C hasn't been a good "guardian" of HTML for a very long time. This is pretty much why they're not even the only guardian around - there's also WHATWG.

For example, 12 years ago W3C attempting to push "RAND" patent licensing into HTML:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment...

This was 100% against the concept of a free, open web, and it took a huge effort to stop it happening. It's crazy that it even got that far.

So it's no surprise that they're pushing industry interests again today. I lost all confidence in that group safeguarding HTML a long time ago, and it looks like the they haven't changed.

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

#42

Post by wdewind »

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…

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 protected websites. As far as I can tell this only increases the rights of copyright holders, which, again, I think is stupid, but seems completely legal and a reasonable thing to do under our existing legal framework. Edit: it also does not seem like it will fundamentally change the user experience of the web since the things that it allows are mostly already doable, just not with an HTML standard.

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

#43

Post by gnoway »

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #22
Touche wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM is not in the browser. The browser just acts as a gateway to allow the website to talk to a DRM component in the OS (or potentially in hardware).

Take for example a DRM protected video. That video is being send to the framebuffer of my video card. If I use an open source OS and open source Browser, what on earth is stopping me from capturing that video output?

Nothing, which is why this whole proposal even exists.

With this standardized, we will continue to be legally and/or practically blocked from native consumption of protected content on general purpose GNU/Linux distributions.

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

#44

Post by jgraham »

Supermighty wrote: post #6
cyrus_ wrote: post #3

The EFF has strong words about where this is taking the open web [1]: "A Web where you cannot cut and paste text; where your browser can't "Save As..." an image; where the "allowed" uses of saved files are monitored beyond the browser; where JavaScript is sealed away in opaque tombs; and maybe even where we can no longer effectively "View Source" on some sites, is a very different Web from the one we have today. It's…

What is the WHATWG's position on this? They represent the browser makers. If they support DRM then it's game over. Another break-away standards group won't be able to do anything to sway the browser makers. What could they do?

The WHATWG doesn't really "exist" in quite the same way that the W3C does. There isn't Process for obtaining an opinion that you can then ascribe to an organisation rather than one or more individuals. It only represents the browser makers insofar as the specs hosted at whatwg.org accurately reflect what browsers implement. Sometimes this is achived by adjusting the browsers to match the specs; oftentimes the opposite occurs.

It is certainly the case that several individuals editing specs under the WHATWG banner have set out their opposition to DRM. It seems unlikely that Hixie will include it the HTML spec he edits unless, of course, we end up with something implemented in browsers that is both interoperable and open. Since "open" rather defeats the point of DRM, it's difficult to imagine that happening, however.

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

#45

Post by marcosdumay »

Supermighty wrote: post #6
cyrus_ wrote: post #3

The EFF has strong words about where this is taking the open web [1]: "A Web where you cannot cut and paste text; where your browser can't "Save As..." an image; where the "allowed" uses of saved files are monitored beyond the browser; where JavaScript is sealed away in opaque tombs; and maybe even where we can no longer effectively "View Source" on some sites, is a very different Web from the one we have today. It's…

What is the WHATWG's position on this? They represent the browser makers. If they support DRM then it's game over. Another break-away standards group won't be able to do anything to sway the browser makers. What could they do?

Most browsers are free software nowadays. Their makers opinion is important (yeah, forking is hard work), but not that much.

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

#47

Post by dexen »

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #37

Can someone PLEASE explain to me the following: If my computer is playing the video and playing the audio. How on God's green earth can they stop me from capturing that? ... It's playing right in front of me... I can hear and see it. It's not hidden or secret. Look. If you ask me, the only reason DRM has worked up to now, is because code/file formats/protocols were secret. People didn't have access to the source. But…

Ever heard of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia ? Sure you can record in the analog hole, but the playback of copies will becut or limited.

Imagine a browser refuse playback video or audio clip based on Cinavia DRM plugin, and also a website requiring such plugin -- via the DRM API -- to provide any content.

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

#48

Post by bcoates »

Here's the membership list of the W3C: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List

It would be great if anyone opposed to this would contact an organization on this list, ask them why they're endorsing and funding DRM and the end of the free Web, and if not, when they will be resigning from the W3C.

Every name you can get stricken from the list is up to around $70,000 per year defunded from what is now most effective driver of DRM in the world. [1] Getting some public statements from the membership would be educational, if nothing else.

[1] http://www.w3.org/Consortium/fees?countryCode=US&quarter=10-...

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

#49

Post by dublinben »

Pxtl wrote: post #21

Funny how some of the largest sites on the internet can base their entire business model on stolen pictorial content - completely with stripping off the identifying information of the original artists - and nobody at the W3C bats an eye. But the moment the MPAA muscles their way into the debate, suddenly we're all about DRM. If you want DRM, you use a plug-in or a separate application. There's no reason that an app l…

>If you want DRM, you use a plug-in or a separate application. There's no reason that an app like Netflix or whatever can't use pure-HTML for everything but the video-stream and use a plug-in based object for the stream.

That's exactly what this standard would allow.

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

#50

Post by mikeryan »

Pxtl wrote: post #25
mikeryan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DRM isn't actually implemented by the browser its more of a plugin architecture (Encrypted Media Extensions) which commercial closed source DRM plugin can fill.

If it's just going to end-up plug-ins, I don't understand why DRM is being treated specifically at all instead of tweaks to the existing general-purpose plug-in architecture. If you want DRM, deal with Microsoft Silverlight or Adobe Flash or roll your own.

You can, of course folks have, but then you can't use the video/audio tags. (or you need a pretty significant js shim)
Post reply on HN