Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
defectivebydesign.org
Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
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Re: Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
#2I thought the general consensus amongst people, including the general HN crowd was that it was better to allow the w3c to specify a "black box" with well defined inputs and outputs. Allowing vendors to slot in their own (probably closed source) implementation than it was to slam the door in their faces whilst screaming "SCREW YOU, USE SILVERLIGHT OR FLASH".
Defective by design seems to be misinterpreting the "build the web for the users first" quote here, because the alternative to this proposal is not "no DRM", the alternative is a worse UX from a plethora of more hostile, wider reaching proprietary DRM implementations.
There's a time and a place to fight about DRM vs. no-DRM , but it's not here, this is the fight about how the DRM we will inevitably get works and interoperates.
Re: Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
#3I thought the general consensus amongst people, including the general HN crowd was that it was better to allow the w3c to specify a "black box" with well defined inputs and outputs. Allowing vendors to slot in their own (probably closed source) implementation than it was to slam the door in their faces whilst screaming "SCREW YOU, USE SILVERLIGHT OR FLASH". Defective by design seems to be misinterpreting the "build t…
If there is a plethora of hostile, wide-reaching proprietary DRM implementations, then surely this scenario will suck from the average end user's perspective, hindering the adoption of DRM. Helping the W3C create a standard, friendly and well-engineered DRM solution just means that the opposition to DRM will be reduced to a handful of internet freedom extremists who don't constitute a significant market segment anyway.
Re: Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
#4I thought the general consensus amongst people, including the general HN crowd was that it was better to allow the w3c to specify a "black box" with well defined inputs and outputs. Allowing vendors to slot in their own (probably closed source) implementation than it was to slam the door in their faces whilst screaming "SCREW YOU, USE SILVERLIGHT OR FLASH". Defective by design seems to be misinterpreting the "build t…
I wouldn't say there's concensus.
> because the alternative to this proposal is not "no DRM", the alternative is a worse UX from a plethora of more hostile, wider reaching proprietary DRM implementations.
Good. Everything which makes DRM easier to implement, more reliable/stable/cross-platform/interoperable/etc., more streamlined and simpler to use, just skews the cost/benefit in the wrong direction. Everyone should be Free to make whatever DRM system they like, but such anti-social behaviour shouldn't be encouraged, and I certainly don't want to see organisations (FSF, Mozilla, W3C, etc.) making that activity any easier.
Plus, the harder it is to obtain and set up a working DRM system, the easier it will be for me to avoid it. For example, online tracking is very easy to accomplish, and is supported by many Free Software browsers, which means I have to spend time maintaining black/whitelists, selectively enabling JS in NoScript, deobfuscating and reading through JS source, etc. to avoid it. In comparison, Silverlight and Flash can be avoided very easily by not installing them.
Consider an analogy to proprietary software. It still exists, everyone is Free to make it, and many say it has a better UX. That doesn't stop me from running pure Free Software systems. If, say, the FSF had caved in years ago, and accepted some proprietary software, then my choice to avoid proprietary software would have been much harder since I'd have to disentangle such blobs myself.
The point of the GPL is to make Free Software easier to write, without benefitting proprietary software.
> There's a time and a place to fight about DRM vs. no-DRM , but it's not here, this is the fight about how the DRM we will inevitably get works and interoperates.
If you've given up that's fine, but please don't get in the way of those of us still fighting.
Re: Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
#5I thought the general consensus amongst people, including the general HN crowd was that it was better to allow the w3c to specify a "black box" with well defined inputs and outputs. Allowing vendors to slot in their own (probably closed source) implementation than it was to slam the door in their faces whilst screaming "SCREW YOU, USE SILVERLIGHT OR FLASH". Defective by design seems to be misinterpreting the "build t…
Where did you read about this consensus? I certainly haven't seen one.
The EME stuff is a proprietary plugin by any other name. If evil Corp wants a root kit for you to watch movies evil Corp gets one. There is zero difference between EME and other plugin systems from the pov of the vulnerablility it exposed your system to to the depth it can infect your OS to enforce itself.
Re: Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
#6I thought the general consensus amongst people, including the general HN crowd was that it was better to allow the w3c to specify a "black box" with well defined inputs and outputs. Allowing vendors to slot in their own (probably closed source) implementation than it was to slam the door in their faces whilst screaming "SCREW YOU, USE SILVERLIGHT OR FLASH". Defective by design seems to be misinterpreting the "build t…
I wouldn't say there's concensus. > because the alternative to this proposal is not "no DRM", the alternative is a worse UX from a plethora of more hostile, wider reaching proprietary DRM implementations. Good. Everything which makes DRM easier to implement, more reliable/stable/cross-platform/interoperable/etc., more streamlined and simpler to use, just skews the cost/benefit in the wrong direction. Everyone should…
Try IceCat.
Re: Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
#7I thought the general consensus amongst people, including the general HN crowd was that it was better to allow the w3c to specify a "black box" with well defined inputs and outputs. Allowing vendors to slot in their own (probably closed source) implementation than it was to slam the door in their faces whilst screaming "SCREW YOU, USE SILVERLIGHT OR FLASH". Defective by design seems to be misinterpreting the "build t…
> the alternative is a worse UX from a plethora of more hostile, wider reaching proprietary DRM implementations.
But we're going to have a plethora of proprietary DRM implementations, each self-important vendor writing their own plugin targeting the EME API. And end-users will still have to track-down the correct combination of architecture and OS for each plugin, except multipled now for every streaming-media vendor that they use.
For example, look here at the most-deployed DRM plugin currently available:
https://www.widevine.com/supported_platforms.html
Nothing available for *BSD, Sailfish, FirefoxOS... whereas current users of those platforms at least have Flash.
The W3C's argument is that without EME, DRM-protected media will move off the open web into its own app-silos. But that's exactly what will happen with EME, too, except the apps will be hosted within browsers.
Wouldn't this be a good opportunity to draw the line with browsers-for-the-open-web and apps-for-secret-stuff?
Re: Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
#8W3C did this move because its biggest sponsors are the DRM makers (Google, Microsoft).
To make it acceptable they made it optional. But in practice all major browsers implemented it.
The right answer is now to standardized the W3C CDM black box by standardizing DRMs as ETSI has started (https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-media/2014F...). W3C should contribute to this effort.
Useful link on EME: https://www.w3.org/2016/03/EME-factsheet.html
Re: Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
#9I thought the general consensus amongst people, including the general HN crowd was that it was better to allow the w3c to specify a "black box" with well defined inputs and outputs. Allowing vendors to slot in their own (probably closed source) implementation than it was to slam the door in their faces whilst screaming "SCREW YOU, USE SILVERLIGHT OR FLASH". Defective by design seems to be misinterpreting the "build t…
Silverlight and flash both work on Linux. The youtube experience is today identical on linux, android and windows. Do you think there will be a open-source alternative to each of the new closed source DRM implementations done by different sites?
Welcome to the new world where depending on the number of users your system has, some websites will work and others won't. If its worth for the company to develop to your platform, you might be worthy the time. If not, well, thought luck, go out and buy a platform which is supported.
Games has had this wonderful (sarcasm) idea of platform exclusives. Publishers could not do that with flash, but with unique DRM platforms for each site, its both convenient and easy. Wonder how well Mozilla and Google can compete in that space with Microsoft, an entity well experience in platform exclusive dealings.
Re: Web DRM moves to next phase, Defective by Design to continue opposition
#10Why can't Tim Berners-Lee be fired?
We build the web, not corporations. We control the web, not corporations. Let's just take the power away from them and put their egos in check.