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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

#61

Post by AlexanderDhoore »

dublinben wrote: post #52
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…

HDCP does a 'pretty good' job of achieving that. There's a protected path all the way to the display, that can't be accessed by other software.

If it's encrypted all the way to the hardware, then it get's a bit more believable. But that really can't be done on the web, can it? "You no have DRM chip? No tubez for you!"

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

#62

Post by fafner »

wdewind wrote: post #42
cyrus_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If some copyright holder wants his stuff DRMed then they are free to implement their own DRM plugin or App. But I don't see why we should support them. Especially when it makes our nice open web depend on proprietary closed source binary blobs.

The idea was that HTML5 gets rid of Flash and similar plugins and not that HTML5 turns into a vehicle for "yet another Flash".

Next thing we are adding a spy module feature because advertisers and the NSA demand it? Well at least the spy module could be free software unlike the proprietary closed source binary blobs needed for Digital Restrictions Management.

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

#63

Post by wdewind »

saraid216 wrote: post #58
wdewind wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I don't agree that this is true at all. The W3C is not created to destroy copyright, which seems to be the implication of your statement (ie: we will need a new standards body that does not provide a copyright-compliant standard). I don't agree with copyright law, but it is law. We currently have a web that provides the ability to companies to protect their data via implementation, this simply provides a spec to d…

> The W3C is not created to destroy copyright, which seems to be the implication of your statement (ie: we will need a new standards body that does not provide a copyright-compliant standard). No, what he means is that, if we stop listening to the W3C because of this, the W3C will no longer matter. So either we won't have a standards body, or we will need a new one.

And why would we stop listening to the W3C because of this?

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

#64

Post by pkulak »

I don't understand why everyone is up in arms about this. Some content cannot go anywhere without DRM. That's not going to change. Do you think the Universal is just 6 months away from streaming the latest blockbuster with VP8 in a video tag?

Right now we have Flash and Silverlight everywhere and it's a PITA. How open are those two? This adds the option of moving this stuff out of plugins. If you want to live in some everything-is-free utopia, just never visit netflix.com.

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

#65

Post by jonahx »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #38
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…

This is a bit of an exaggeration, we have had content like this on the web for years with proprietary technologies like flash, silverlight ,activeX and highly obfuscated JS. Not to mention the amount of content locked into walled gardens and proprietary app stores etc. The W3 proposals suggested do not in fact mandate browser vendors implement any DRM scheme to remain 100% standards compliant. This is myth that gets…

>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 not already.

The practical effect of being able to deliver DRM'd content to every non-technical web user, without first having to get that user to download and install your proprietary software, is just massive. This is one of the biggest falloff points in the conversion funnel, so it makes this new delivery method highly attractive. As it is now, businesses have to balance the cost of losing customers against the cost of not being able to DRM their content. Take that dilemma away and I think you certainly have a new incentive. The practical effects of this are far reaching imo.

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

#66

Post by hayksaakian »

dublinben wrote: post #49
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.

That's how it is now without a standard. We don't need a standard for stupid anti-UX features like built in DRM

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

#67

Post by fafner »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #38
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…

This is a bit of an exaggeration, we have had content like this on the web for years with proprietary technologies like flash, silverlight ,activeX and highly obfuscated JS. Not to mention the amount of content locked into walled gardens and proprietary app stores etc. The W3 proposals suggested do not in fact mandate browser vendors implement any DRM scheme to remain 100% standards compliant. This is myth that gets…

If Digital Restrictions Management gets added to HTML5 then it makes it far easier for content hosts to add restrictions. This is a huge risk.

But more importantly the idea of HTML5 was to get rid of proprietary closed source plugins like Flash. Adding DRM to HTML5 will make it rely on proprietary closed source plugins.

I hope the W3C reconsiders. If somebody feels the need for DRM then they should implement their own stuff outside of the open web.

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

#68

Post by oonny »

davexunit wrote: post #28
oonny wrote: post #20

Isn't this good news for video distributors who haven't converted over to HTML5 (native video support) because of lack of support for DRM?

And terrible news for all users.

how so? I really don't get it. how is moving from a plugin (flash/sliverlight) to html5 a bad thing as long as you can protect your content?

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

#69

Post by [deleted] »

Touche wrote: post #30
AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The website targets specific DRM schemes that they approve. Since your open source OS doesn't have any DRM schemes you're SOL.

[deleted]

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

#70

Post by wmf »

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #61
dublinben wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HDCP does a 'pretty good' job of achieving that. There's a protected path all the way to the display, that can't be accessed by other software.

If it's encrypted all the way to the hardware, then it get's a bit more believable. But that really can't be done on the web, can it? "You no have DRM chip? No tubez for you!"

"You no have DRM chip? No tubez for you!"

That is actually their plan.

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