What's Actually Wrong With DRM In HTML5? 447
kxra writes "The Free Culture Foundation has posted a thorough response to the most common and misinformed defenses of the W3C's Extended Media Extensions (EME) proposal to inject DRM into HTML5. They join the EFF and FSF in a call to send a strong message to the W3C that DRM in HTML5 undermines the W3C's self-stated mission to make the benefits of the Web 'available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.' The FCF counters the three most common myths by unpacking some quotes which explain that 1.) DRM is not about protecting copyright. That is a straw man. DRM is about limiting the functionality of devices and selling features back in the form of services. 2.) DRM in HTML5 doesn't obsolete proprietary, platform-specific browser plug-ins; it encourages them. 3.) the Web doesn't need big media; big media needs the Web."
Also: the FSF has announced that a coalition of 27 web freedom organizations have sent a joint letter to the W3C opposing DRM support in HTML5.
What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Insightful)
It exists...
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM in HTML5 doesn't obsolete proprietary, platform-specific browser plug-ins; it encourages them.
The only reason any thinking human ever made a conscious informed decision to install Silverlight was to watch Netflix.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason any thinking human ever made a conscious informed decision to install Silverlight was to watch Netflix.
I've always assumed the name "Silverlight" was chosen precisely because it was a platform designed primarily to allow you to watch movies.
DRM means I get to watch Netflix, so I'm all for DRM in HTML5. If it's not embraced in some way by the standard, it will happen anyway, and be platform specific and even more annoying.
There is no "movies without DRM" option available to the standards committee, sorry.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Funny)
Introducing Scarcity into Superrich worlds (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand that gold has a real price. I can understand that a house has a real price... because they are scarce. That is why there will be real-world poor a rich people.
Internet and the whole intellectual world was never meant to be driven by scarcity. The Internet was build to mitigate the real-world problems with duplicating resources. The Internet allows the main commodity - information - to be transferred, duplicated, created, shared... at virtually no cost. Internet is the attempt to create a world where there are no poor (speaking of knowledge) people but everybody share everything as much as possible for the good of mankind.
The scarcity complex is artificially introduced to this unlimited e-world by companies who simply failed so far to find a new business model in a world where everybody is already rich with information - everybody are already fed with information. Where there is no hunger/demand there is no traditional business model. So lets make those information rich people become poor so they will hunger for information and then we can feed them for a price.
Let's deny access to information using a copyrights, laws, DRMs... Let's artificially create once again information-rich and information-poor people because the existing real-world model proved to work so well.
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If it's not embraced in some way by the standard, it will happen anyway, and be platform specific and even more annoying.
And this is why circumvention is important and necessary.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Informative)
I've always assumed the name "Silverlight" was chosen precisely because it was a platform designed primarily to allow you to watch movies.
DRM means I get to watch Netflix, so I'm all for DRM in HTML5.
Have you read the proposed standard? All it provides for are some javascript bits and pieces for interacting with the 'CDM', a totally unspecified piece of software and/or hardware that handles decryption and optionally on-screen rendering.
They don't call it this, of course; but it's a plugin, albeit one that is invoked in the 'video' tag rather than the 'object' tag.
No CDM for your platform? No playback. That's the thing, this isn't even some 'well, pragmatic compromise to gain greater functionality' thing: it constitutes absolutely no improvement over the current 'proprietary plugin required to playback DRMed movies' situation, it just changes 'plugin' to 'Content Decryption Module' and slightly changes the mechanism for talking to it.
Platform independent? Absolutely nothing in the spec about that(indeed, 'CDM may use or defer to platform capabilities', so it's explicitly OK for CDMs to have design features that require certain platform specific features).
An improvement in the integration of video into the page, DOM access, etc? Well, requesting the encrypted video is handled in javascript and HTML; but the CDM blackboxes everything from decryption to (optionally, probably mandatory if anybody is worried about the browser just grabbing decrypted frames) painting onscreen. Totally opaque blob embedded in the page, just like a plugin.
Other than giving the "HTML5!" stamp of approval to absolutely whatever CDMs people wish to use, the proposal really isn't "in" HTML5 at all. The CDM, the only important part of the game, is 'HTML5' in the sense that Java Applets, or flash objects, or ActiveX controls, are HTML: they can be embedded in web pages using HTML tags. That's it.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is one reason I think HTML5 is just a joke. HTML used to be about presenting information, but in HTM5 it's being turned into an application platform. Sort of like the difference between a Postscript viewer and the latest Adobe Reader.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is fine, because it mirrors the use to which it's being put. People used to display information on websites, now they run applications on them.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Informative)
This is one reason I think HTML5 is just a joke. HTML used to be about presenting information, but in HTM5 it's being turned into an application platform. Sort of like the difference between a Postscript viewer and the latest Adobe Reader.
As someone who works with HTML5, I have no idea what you are talking about. Most of the things you may consider HTML5 are actually javascript + html5 + css HTML5 is litteraly about structure, with sane defaults, that's it. Javascript handles the client side decision making, animations, etc., css handles the styling and some animations (It's just beginning to delve into that). HTML5 is absolutely about presenting information in a simple, standardized way - you're bemoaning the marketing dept. of most web solutions companies, which are taking a leaf out of the 'Cloud' and 'Green' marketing handbook.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Interesting)
The CDM isn't necessarily even a plugin; it can be integrated into the browser. So for instance Microsoft could decide that Internet Explorer will have a built-in implementation of their PlayReady DRM as the only CDM it supports and that they won't allow other browsers to use that CDM or other CDM implementations in their browsers, and that'd be entirely compliant with the HTML5 ECE specification. It'd also be entirely non-interoperable with any non-Microsoft browser or platform.
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They don't call it this, of course; but it's a plugin, albeit one that is invoked in the 'video' tag rather than the 'object' tag.
No CDM for your platform? No playback.
So it sounds like we're replacing the current system of platform specific plugins, with a new system of platform specific plugins.
I fail to see the controversy.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Insightful)
HTML is supposed to be platform agnostic. This is explicitly balkanizing it.
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You're missing a key point. In order for DRM to work, everything needs to be a totally opaque blob, including your browser, your graphics drivers, and your operating system. Any sensible CDM (yes, Flash is not a sensible CDM) is going to require the browser be tested and signed that it will uphold the restrictions of the DRM. Your signed browser will require your operating system be signed before it allows the DRM bits to operate. Your signed operating system will require all your hardware drivers be si
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just so you can watch netflix, we ought to fuck over HTML5?
No, fuck you and your overly endowed sense of entitlement.
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That's not the truth. The truth is that a banal bunch in Hollywood think DRM is actually useful, and are trying to force their twisted view of reality on everyone else.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Fortunately, bits don't care about the law, so legally watching a movie and illegally watching the movie can utilize the same process.
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So as long as you get netflix, people can impose whatever restrictive scheme they want?
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The ability of people to impose whatever restrictive scheme they want persists regardless of the recognition of the existence of DRM in the HTML5 standard. There's nothing the W3C can to do prevent DRM on streaming video.
A standard is only useful and relevant to the extent that it standardizes what actually happens. Wishcasting has no place in a standards body.
Netflix streaming is a significant part of the internet. Netflix will have DRM, like it or not. A standard that simply ignores the reality of a s
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The issue is whether or not that DRM should be enabled by the standard, or even a part of the standard, or whether the standard should remain open to the original idea of enabling the viewing of content in an open manner.
Adobe Flash is a significant part of the internet, but it would be ridiculous to have HTML include it as part of the standard or to have a standardized "flash" tag.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:4, Insightful)
Eventually the content providers will just provide DRM free media anyways. Do you know why? For the same reason why they still allow content to be broadcast over the air DRM free:
In spite of making threats that they wouldn't permit broadcasts of their media without a broadcast flag, none was ever implemented so they permitted it anyways because it was too lucrative to not do so.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the video tag works just fine without DRM - go watch YouTube with HTML 5 and no DRM. The reality may be that there is no netflix in HTML 5 without DRM, but there will certainly be a netflix plugin or standalone app with DRM if it's not in HTML5. There really is no purpose for it in the standard - it's just a standard way to embed non-standard stuff in the web, and that's not good for anyone.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're mistaken and there's a standard which is over 20 years old. It works extremely well, better than HTML5 or Flash. It's called a "href" attribute of the "a" tag. I challenge you to put forth any movies-on-the-web solution which works half as well as that does.
The reason we didn't just settle on that solution and move on, is that various parties decided they hated the standard, because the standard is too pro-user. It works too well. But don't pretend it doesn't work and isn't available. It's Netflix's fault they didn't use the right tool for he job, not the standard body's fault. You can make excuses and rationalize it if you want to, but at least lay this blame where it truly belongs.
Actually, though it's rare, some people do use the standard. Louis CK's website uses the standard. And as a result, Amazon and iTunes ("technology" giants!) are relative usability nightmares, trivially one-upped in the tech game by a comedian. Louis CK is hilarious, but effortlessly beating the tech giants at delivering a bullet-proof web for-pay video site is especially hilarious.
Seriously, go to the web site, pay the $5, and tell me Netflix isn't a totally anachronistic embarrassment next to that.
The reason "DRM means I can watch Netflix" is that you didn't say "no" when you were supposed to. If you had abstained from Netflix, you might have modern tech today, and be wathcing your movies using that. Instead, you've got some bastardized proprietary software that nothing else can talk to, doesn't integrate with any other components, and whose feature list is made up of the dreams of the whole inter-- oops I mean -- the dreams of one single marketing department. Not even techies. Not movie-lovers. Just some group who makes decisions about what you're allowed to do.
You can begin today, though. Just say no. Pirate until they open for real business, and throw your money at the few who actually deal in good faith and deliver the very best video products. LCK showed it can be done. Who else wants some money? Nobody? Ok, we'll keep our money for now. It's here and waiting for whoever uses the video standard: the "a" tag.
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Insightful)
The legitimate technical goal of any standards committee is to describe what will happen in the field in such a way that anyone can interoperate. You have the power to be descriptive, but you lack the power to be proscriptive. The vendors will act in in their self interest, and if the common result is something that doesn't match the standard, you've written a bad standard. The W3C has a bad track record for doing exactly that, when compared to your typical ISO/ANSI technical standards committee.
Here's an example of a good standard. In the early days of PCs, Shugart Associates had a nifty interconnect protocol: SASI. INCITS formed T10 to standardize it, and insisted the name be changed, and so it became SCSI. That change worked, because it conformed to the vendor preference not to use a standard named for a competitor (plus it's a basic rule of ANSI). Then Apple came along and did their own thing, making their own flavor of SCSI that wouldn't work with a standard device. Apple proceeded to dominate that market. The standards committee, lacking the arrogance of the W3C, and having the blessing of Apple revised the standard to conform with reality. They knew they couldn't force Apple to change, nor should they, so "SCSI 1b" was born. They changed to standard to conform to the preference of the dominant vendor, and SCSI went on to be one of the most successful technical standards in computing history.
For the portion of HTML5 that relates to streaming video - DRM will be common. Netflix and company don't have a choice here. Ignoring that reality because you don't like it is just childish, and inappropriate for a standards committee.
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Fine with that. But please make a DRM _standard_. Not an API to access DRM but the DRM itself.
That means, describe the DRM standard so that anyone can implement it. Even in Linux I can implement any DRM, just like I can implement any encryption, but give me a standard.
All EME is doing is to describe a API to access DRM. That's it. Don't believe me? Go to the EME proposal [w3.org]. See that big one: Content Decryption Module (CDM)? That is the DRM. All around it is the EME.
Just to make it clear: the EME will not sta
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If only there were some way to hook a computer to an HDTV, but that would be impossible right?
Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with that snark is that web based video streaming on a PC still sucks. It's a variation on the "Flash sucks" meme. Silverlight isn't much better. You're still going to be going about the task in the least efficient manner possible. You will need more machine than what's really necessary.
This is why a $60 speciality appliance can manage the task better.
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I think you need to brush up on your logic statements... a converse is not equivalent ;)
"If you have installed Silverlight, you must watch Netflix" != "if you watch Netflix, you must have installed Silverlight"...
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> It's "nerd" to watch movies on a computer?
Pretty much.
You can set up an HTPC but it's still something that's intended to behave like a Tivo or a Roku. Anything else is going to get end user resistance from "normal people".
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Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
This is like the old DIVX argument from years ago. Just because your device is *capable* of playing protected content - it doesn't mean you *have* to play (or pay for) protected content. It would be nice to be able to offer the functionality for services like Netflix, Amazon, or whoever else you want to watch, in a standardized, cross-platform manner, without every media provider having to build some hokey Java or Flash player into every browser, TV, DVD player, Game console, etc etc etc - and still have wonky support for only half the devices, and no support for "new" services on "legacy" devices.
But I digress - I'm not trying to sway anyone's opinion on the matter - let's just call a spade a spade - it *is* about copy-protection.
Re:Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
For DVDs, at least, it's about forcing makers of DVD players to respect the "can't skip commercials" features of commercial DVD discs.
That way the commercials are force-ably watched. (at least on hardware players)
As copy protection goes, it's as good as ROT-13 for encrypting text.
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If you don't like the ads - don't use the service - but don't think you're going to prevent the publishers/distrubutors/whoever remove them altogether
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This will not change that. The CDM will still be hardware and likely OS specific.
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DVD's had DRM built into their standard just like they're proposing to do with HTML5.
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So big media sits in a vacuum in the web for your argument to hold water? Sounds pretty flimsy.
Put another way, if media companies didn't care about controlling media in any sort of effective way, why not remove all artificial limitations on skipping and have unlimited region support for the media in question? By your argument, these mechanisms cause zero benefit for them, and substantially reduce the enjoyment of their viewing public.
When we have the panacea of web DRM, will that mean I'll have first day a
Re:Bias (Score:4, Insightful)
If making sure the video stream was encrypted was the big deal, it can just as easily be down with javascript. AES is not some mystical impossible to implement technology. The purpose of DRM in HTML5 serves only one purpose, to add a "black box" to websites. So how is this DRM actually implemented by the browsers? Who the hell knows. If it relies on software, then it will simply be cracked instantaneously. There will be no point to it. Firefox is open source, you can just recompile it to direct DRM streams into a file or something. If it instead redirects the DRM stream to hardware, well, then you are basically fucked. It will only work with certain computers/devices. You end up in a situation similar to websites requiring flash currently, where some sites simply don't work with your tablet or such.
The implementation they seem to want is to have the browser redirect the DRM stream to a software blob that will decrypt it and do "something". God knows what. But it will work on most devices, provided they cross compile plugins. This is the same crappy situation as activeX, where you will are forced to install plugins where you have no idea or control over what they do. If you don't install them, entire pieces of websites will not work. And they will pop up EVERYWHERE.
This is the worst possible outcome, there is a good reason people are fighting this.
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So let's call a spade a spade, and admit that it *is* about copy protection
If it was about copy protection, you would expect DRM to actually protect things from being copied. But I can find copies of anything I want easily, no matter how much DRM has been piled on. Therefore, it cannot actually be about DRM. QED.
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The difference is that gun control has actually been shown to reduce gun violence, whereas DRM has never actually prevented anything from being copied.
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Re:Bias (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the thing. It takes one guy, anywhere in the world, to break DRM and post it somewhere. Does your DRM eventually decode to a format that a human being can see and hear? Then it will be broken. Someone will use audio/video capture devices if nothing else and all you've done is piss a bunch of people off. DRM for movies and music is fundamentally broken because at some point you've got to end up outputting all the information to the user (at least with SW it is theoretically possible to prevent unauthorized access).
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If the services deem this as "sufficient" protection, give them a way to do it. If you're "pissed-off" by the way a particular service choose to implement it, and the r
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> . But if a service elects to use it anyway - why not just give them a standardized way to do it - that will work across all devices
That's a nice fantasy.
Unfortunately, the reality is much less ideal.
It is not standardized. I will not work across all devices.
It's really just like the current solutions (Flash, Silverlight).
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Re:Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
Big media cares about a lot more than copy protection. They care about reselling you the same content in multiple formats. They care about restricting where, when, and how long you can access content. They want to limit sharing of content. They want more rights than what copyright gives them for longer than the already insanely long copyright term They want to force there content to check in so they have an idea who and where somebody is accessing it. They want control over what operating system and what hardware you access the content on.
DRM is not just copy protection it's a slew of rights the content owners that they never had before. Copy protection can be as simple as watermarking each copy sold, that gives them about what they had in the dead tree age. It's flawed sure but keeps the status quo.
You have to realize that you can keep adding more and more security along the path but it just hampers lawful users. Today's best consumer DRM is still vulnerable to "simple" attacks like emulating a LCD display since that's after the HDCP decoder. Watermarking only gives you a good idea of who to sue not all the rest of the bits.
As to HTML5 it should include a robust media streaming framework. That frameworks must be open. All the DRM systems I know of can not exist without some sort of secret that's obfuscated from the end system but still accessible, that's the antithesis of open.
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Big Media cares about piracy, slightly. DRM does slow down piracy, slightly. However what scares Big Media is that loss of control, and DRM is designed to fix that. DRM is all about preventing you from reselling media that you have bought, or lending the media out, or making backups, or viewing it more times than you are authorized for, or viewing/listening/playing on media that's not properly locked down to prevent illicit copying, etc. Piracy is just the excuse Big Media uses to get naive people to ac
Re:Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
"If they provided me with good cheap DRM'd service, they'd have my dollars."
And I guess that's where this is really irritating. Because, as of yet, there hasn't been a "good" nor "cheap," let alone "good and cheap" DRM service. Really, DRM has been about making sure you have to fit a very specific set of conditions to view content that you probably paid for. Usually those conditions involve "viewing from Device P, running Operating System Q, with Browser R," even though it has nothing to do with the content you're viewing.
So, we look at Netflix as the opening case. To watch a movie in Netflix on my laptop that is running Linux, I have to jump through a large number of hoops... Or, I can fire up my Xbox 360, or my PS3, or another machine running Windows. Why is that? Certainly it's not about stopping piracy... Because I can still jump through those hoops and get there.
DVD regions... Why did they exist? It was certainly not to prevent piracy, because you could easily copy the bejeezus out of them. Rather, it's to prevent you from buying a copy cheaply in one region, and bringing it home... Because their content is overpriced here. BlueRay? Same deal right? Again, not about piracy.
Really, DRM has always been about soaking legal users as much as possible, or it's been about shady corporate deals to force users onto particular platforms to make them have to pay their partners. That is all it accomplishes, and that's perfectly fine with them.
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Hey guys - we live in a global capitalist economy, what else do you expect?!
These are money-making enterprises, and they can and will do everything in their power to squeeze as much money out of us poor consumers. I actually don't have a problem with this, even though I'm politically on the left - it's the flip-side of being able to have cheap shoes and clothes imported from China, and so I can buy cheap consumer electronics.
What always interests me is exactly how consumer sovereignty gets lost from this de
Re:Bias (Score:4, Interesting)
* Bad Thing and True Evil are relative terms, set your own goalposts on those.
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Have you actually ever bought a DVD in a "poorer market"? Not a pirated DVD, but one properly licensed and imported? You actually think it is cheaper than the $5 bin at Walmart?
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If they provided me with good cheap DRM free service, they'd have my dollars.
Re:Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they don't. Web has been a major thorn in their side for many years. Big Media wants 100% control or they want it to die.
That may or may not be, but netflix, amazon, hulu, apple, microsoft, google, etc disagree with you. I think all of 'em would love to ship you copyrighted data over a standard DRM'd channel supported by many browsers.
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However, if someone wants to have a video service that let's you do all that - maybe you'd elect to patronize them.
Give people the choice and the means to create and offer products and services that will work in a standardized way. Then it's up to the consumer to device what they'll use.
Finally a group that gets it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finally a group that gets it! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Finally a group that gets it! (Score:5, Insightful)
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This will not change any of that.
The CDM will still be platform specific. It has to be. Otherwise I can just write the output to a file. That makes the DRM dead as a door nail. So instead it will have to use protected path on windows, whatever OSX calls it and that will be it. There will no support for anyone else.
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No, my critique is that DRM is bad and adding it to the spec is useless. It means compromising ideals for absolutely no gain.
There cannot be a standard CDM, DRM implementations have to be hidden and blackbox like. Else they will fail. If the same plugin just took in encrypted files and output them via normal methods capture would be trivial. Hell, linux users could redirect the output to a file.
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Yes, it is true.
Hell, just think about it. There is no way in an opensource browser and opensource OS to do this. Even if there were some magic keys, I could sniff them out of the kernel with GDB.
HLS requires a locked down OS. It requires OS that conspires against the user. Read the damn spec for it.
Even if DRM were not bad, why bother putting it in the spec when the CDM has to still be a proprietary third part plugin? What gain is there?
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Actually I have read the spec for HLS and it does not specify any restrictions on the operating system, handling of keys, or handling of decrypted content.
The fact still remains - your issue here is with "DRM" as a concept, which is perfectly fine. I honestly don't think it matters to most consumers.
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Yea we want to make technology that no one will use or adopt!
Sorry life requires compromise.
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We don't need to hobble our technologies to make certain people money.
As long as you're not the guy complaining down the road that Netflix still hasn't come to Linux.
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We don't need to hobble our technologies to make certain people money.
No. What you're actually advocating is making legal content inaccessible only to the niche you're in, by exclusion, for the sake of ideology.
DRM will exist in most legitimate channels. That's a fact of life for the next 5+ years, yet. The option right now is whether or not you want it to work everywhere.
Re:Finally a group that gets it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. It will not work everywhere, it cannot.
If the plugin was universal then there is nothing stopping us linux users from writing the output to a file instead of the display. That means the DRM would be useless. Instead it will need a CDM for windows to use protected path, one for whatever OSX uses and that will be that. Nothing else will get support.
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We don't need to hobble our technologies to make certain people money.
Half of prime time Internet traffic in the states was a licensed Netflix download before Netflix offered a download-only service.
Standard Definition, No multichannel theater sound. No captioning,
The only thing you accomplish by keeping content protection out of the browser is to shift focus to the walled gardens of the OS branded app and app store.
Subscription services?
No problem for OSX and Windows, the Intenet enabled HDTV, the Dennon home theater receiver, the Roku set top box. The Xbox, Playstation or
Even worse than DRM... (Score:3, Insightful)
But the W3C is a Industrial Consortium! (Score:2)
The reality of any petition is that the W3C will likely do what its (paying) members want (as it is after all an industrial consortium), and hence it is unlikely to care what others think provided it doesn't hurt growing the membership.
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Much unlike MPEG, there are no trade requirements that requires these specifications to be followed. They throw them up, and the organization lives and dies by adoption, not because we have to. If W3C wants to release yet another specification that members or the general public decide not to adopt, nobody gets sued, and the specification most likely stick into the vestigial category of web crap thrown in that seemed like a good idea at the time, like VRML or the likes.
Now as stated, W3C is essentially as re
HTML5 vs Silverlight (Score:2)
Most of the web's video is streamed from Netflix. That's mostly streamed through Silverlight or browser specific plugins.
How does letting HTML5 natively stream Netflix encourage proprietary browser plugins!? If just Netflix switched over (and they've said they intend to once DRM is in the spec) then by definition the majority of HTML5 streaming will be using less not more browser plugins.
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Because the plugin will still be proprietary and OS specific. It has to be, else we linux users can just fire the output into a file. So instead it has to use some CDM for the OS it is on that only outputs to protected path hardware.
can already do that (Score:2)
You can either run Netflix-on-Windows in a VM or run Netflix via wine....in both cases you could grab the unencrypted video output and dump it to a file for a pristine digital copy (well, as good as what you were watching anyway).
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Sure, and with this plugin you will be doing the same exact thing. Well probably not the first one, since I think protected path fails on VMs.
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Most of the web's video is streamed from Netflix. That's mostly streamed through Silverlight or browser specific plugins.
How does letting HTML5 natively stream Netflix encourage proprietary browser plugins!? If just Netflix switched over (and they've said they intend to once DRM is in the spec) then by definition the majority of HTML5 streaming will be using less not more browser plugins.
well then whole browser would become the silverlight plugin. just think about it for a second.
but this spec is more like about speccing out another plugin interface, because maybe they had at least the decency to think that doing the whole browser into a closed black box that needs to run isolated from the users own programs was a bad idea and a can of worms. sooo.. none of the implementations using it would be using native html5 streaming as implemented on variety of devices/browsers - and if it did then
This is easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM is bad.[1]
HTML5 is good.
If a bad thing is included in something good, that thing is still bad.
Therefore, DRM in HTML5 is bad.
[1] It should be obvious DRM is bad, but: https://www.eff.org/issues/drm [eff.org]
In fact, Consumer oriented DRM should be illegal. It's an anti-competive anti-consumer dangerous practice. (I'm totally fine with the military using DRM to protect confidential information, etc).
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In fact, Consumer oriented DRM should be illegal. It's an anti-competive anti-consumer dangerous practice.
How is it any more anti-competitive or anti-consumer than copyright in general? If your issue is with copyright why not just come out and say it?
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How is it any more anti-competitive or anti-consumer than copyright in general? If your issue is with copyright why not just come out and say it?
I do have some problems with copyright in the US, but I don't really see why it's relevant. (It is way to long, this mickey mouse copyright we have in the US).
I'm fine not having the right to copy your content, except for purposes considered fair use. I'm not fine with you enforcing that I don't have my fair use rights and that you will are able to follow me around and make sure I don't break your interuption of copyright law.
How is DRM not anti-consumer?
I guess it could theoretically be less anti-competi
Reply was... (Score:2)
W3C sent them back a letter in conjunction with ICANN sayng "Fuck you and Fuck the Interwebs. We want some of that internet money like the Canadians got!"
Re:And who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
how could "DRM in HTML5" NOT obsolete proprietary, browser-specific plug ins?
Because, uh, "DRM in HTML5" is merely a framework to allow sites to require specific proprietary, browser-specific plugins to display their content?
I could care less about DRM in HTML5.
Probably because you don't understand it.
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Because, uh, "DRM in HTML5" is merely a framework to allow sites to require specific proprietary, browser-specific plugins to display their content?
That's the way it ALREADY is. Standardizing HTML5 is exactly what is supposed to *END* that.
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If you look at the proposed standard, it quite specifically doesn't end that. It just replaces the world 'plugin' with "Content Decryption Module" wherever it appears...
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Re:Downs Syndrome is no joke, but you are. (Score:4, Informative)
The top 1% of the US captured 121% of the wealth generated during the "recovery." The bottom 99% actually got poorer.
http://boingboing.net/2013/02/13/economic-recovery-in-the-us-ac.html [boingboing.net]
That's why, despite record stock gains, real wage growth is flat. Improvements in the unemployment rate overall are much smaller once you count the number of discouraged workers or consider the underemployed. The jobs being generated don't pay as well as the ones people lost, and they don't include the same level of benefits.
Facts. They kick ass.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Aside from this being off topic (and annoyingly so) those studies never look at actual wealth, rather they look at money, while those who plaster them all about (like you just did) foolishly use them as an indicator of wealth. Wealth and money are not one in the same.
That article makes a specific mark against Obama, which you'd figure somebody who is anti-Obama such as myself would support, however I don't because it's a BS statistic that somebody is pulling out of their ass to rally "the cause" against the
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Funny that you don't mention the bush tax cuts that keep getting extended.
You mean those tax cuts that lapsed in January of this year? The ones where my wife and I probably wont get a tax return above 1500$ this year?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Whatever the increase in total wealth was, the top 1 percent got 121 percent of that number. This means the other 99 percent lost 21 percent of that number. So if there was 1 trillion dollars in new wealth, the one percent got $1.21T richer and the 99 percent got 210B poorer. In otherwords the 1 percent had structured their investments/the rules/whatever such that they tend to accumulate wealt
W3C has capitulated, just like ICANN (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember ICANN ?
Remember ICANN's statement of interest when it first started ?
Remember what ICANN told us back then, that is was for all the netizens ?
It even opened its application to individuals --- I applied, and I even got a membership card mailed to me
What has happened to ICANN is happening to W3C --- they have been co-opted because of BIG MONEY
It's the BIG MONEY that they have sold their soul to --- to hell with the users, to hell with the netizens, to hell with the world
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well apparently this isn't as much of a encryption suite as it is a new name/tag for a plugin.
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I just noticed you are just a Holywood shill. Took me a while.
You make very stupid arguments. Like, really stupid arguments. Ok let's say EME goes into HTML5 and now every browser in the market has to implement restrictions on who (and when, where and how) a piece of media is loaded into your browser.
Does that help you mythical Netflix competitor? Nope, your device is lacking the required CDM game over. The CDM has to be provided some other way, either by hardware (like TiVo) or software (like silverlight).
Linux? Not for 1 second (Score:3)
Open source implementations of DRM? you think the content mafia is going to allow you to use an open implementation of some DRM "standard"? 1st thing hundreds of C coders will do is dump the frame buffer into libmp4 just to snub the bastards!