EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM In HTML5 270
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a formal objection to the inclusion of DRM in HTML5, saying that a draft proposal from the W3C could hurt innovation and block access to people around the world. From their press page: '"This proposal stands apart from all other aspects of HTML standardization: it defines a new 'black box' for the entertainment industry, fenced off from control by the browser and end-user," said EFF International Director Danny O'Brien. "While this plan might soothe Hollywood content providers who are scared of technological evolution, it could also create serious impediments to interoperability and access for all."'
impediments to access? (Score:2, Interesting)
No DRM will mean no access for anyone!
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Re:impediments to access? (Score:4, Informative)
That sounds like replacing one plugin interface for another one.
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Re:impediments to access? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about what it takes to do that last part. These cannot be trivial programs. They will have to be essentially the same as those terrible video game DRMs that will not run if you have a debugger installed or if you use third party software to mount ISOs.
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Re:impediments to access? (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree, what this will lead to very quickly will be videos only playing on UEFI secure boot machines running only closed operating systems. Once that happens the banks and online stores will want similar stuff. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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Because that will make it easier. Right now it would require a lot of work.
If don't see that you do not value freedom and we simply will have to disagree.
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My OS does not support TC.
Once we go down this path, you will need TC to use all kinds of things on the internet. Make no mistake this will be used to kill FOSS on the consumer side.
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I agree that TC is coming. However I don't see HTML 5 DRM standardization as the primary method to propagate it since the capability already exists.
The thing that will make it more common is the natural attrition of older hardware. Almost all new hardware has some form of TC built-in. When it reaches a point where content providers are able to keep a significant portion of their subscribers, you'll see TC based DRM being required. Unfortunately our choice of OS has no real bearing on the outcome since the
Re:impediments to access? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's wrong with you people? How many times do you have to lose your entire music, e-book, or game collection, have your systems root kitted, and even be accused of piracy and shaken down, before you'll refuse to ever knowingly consent to this invasive DRM again? DRM has no value whatsoever. No, there aren't any good uses for DRM. The few examples of "good DRM" I've heard are not DRM, they're just straight encryption, cryptographically secure authentication, digital signing, and the like. DRM is a bad idea that, like some damned zombie, keeps on coming back for another sequel. DRM is an offense to our rights and freedoms, a denial of reality, and an unnatural and harmful restriction upon society. It's mental indoctrination and slavery. That so many people are half convinced that maybe DRM isn't so bad, or though evil is a necessary evil, is disturbing, as it should also be seen for the insult to our intelligence that it is. DRM will never be a complete success unless they can install devices in our very brains to force us to forget that movie we saw last month or that song we heard last year. Should we also standardize a protocol for a DRM/human brain interface while we're thinking about letting it into HTML5?
Trusted Computing will never arrive as long as these special interests keep trying to twist it against us, make it into Treacherous Computing. They're still trying to give us bull about how it's actually for us because it's for our own good and the good of society, hoping we're stupid enough to accept this bad logic.
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Which part? This: "I see nothing wrong with DRM for subscription based content." Well, I see everything wrong with that. DRM is categorically unacceptable.
You think it's okay to have DRM on, say, cable TV? And it's okay to implement this or a similar service on your computer, right down to the DRM? I disagree. Strongly. Either I must give up control of my computer to powers that have demonstrated time and again that they are not to be trusted with such control, or I must set up a sandbox, a totall
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Not very easily, if you have something like secure content path that windows has. Enforce UEFI secure boot as well and you pretty much are left recording the screen with a camera. At that point the folks who download this copy will have playback fail when the same system recognizes the audio without accompanying encrypted data.
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My concern is that we are making it harder for browser makers for no real benefit. Browser makers had to make a plugin API to accomodate for java applets first, then flash and silverlight. Now they will ALSO have to make that DRM API for the CDM, and the CDM is going to be a fullblown program, running as administrator. How are you going to sand box that?
You won't. The CDM will only be installed in closed down devices like tivos and chromebooks, yet the DRM API will need to be implemented and tested for any
Re:impediments to access? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:impediments to access? (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally have no problem with that. Open standards should be about ensuring as wide a interoperability as possible and DRM goes directly against that.
The other thing to note is that the DRM being talked about is not a DRM implementation, it's a common interface for DRM plugins, so we still have lots of different proprietary DRM plugins and we will still be no better off than we are now..
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Re:impediments to access? (Score:5, Informative)
No, they would just stick with what we have today.
HTML5 DRM cannot be implemented by any FOSS. If the blob returns video directly instead of writing to some DRM path like windows has it would be useless.
So this adds nothing, netflix would still be limited to close source operating systems.
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Re:impediments to access? (Score:4, Informative)
You do realize that Flash DRM is a joke right?
It requires hardware support. That is why it does not run on non-chromebook ChromeOS installations. It does not run on x86 chromebooks last i checked either. That means this is harder to port not easier.
Re:impediments to access? (Score:5, Insightful)
If W3C were to scrap the plans for HTML5 DRM the content providers would simply cling on to proprietary plugins and we'd be no better off than we are already.
So what? You act as though the internet needs Big Media to survive, when in fact it is the other way around. If Big Media feels the need to develop and maintain proprietary plugins in order to provide their content, fine with me - it's an added cost to them for no bother to me. Their business model is not viable, and it is now our job to keep it afloat? Why is that exactly? What is it the Big Media corporations provide that is so very unique that we're willing to protect it to this degree?
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Netflix accounts for ~30% of all US network traffic.
Re:impediments to access? (Score:4, Insightful)
And they achieved this without DRM as a part of the standards.
Re:impediments to access? (Score:5, Interesting)
Rubbish. If the movie industries continue to not provide access because of no-DRM then they'll continue to suffer piracy and have physical media and cinema as their only distribution methods instead. Even the music industry eventually figure this out - that DRM was doing more harm than good.
We don't need DRM, we don't want DRM and if we avoid it and they refuse to publish their content then so be it, someone else will gladly come and take their place because there are many other film studios across the globe other than Hollywood that will gladly rake in $10million instead of the $0million Hollywood opts for because it decided not to publish at all unless it could have $100million.
DRM is about pushing the rental model and preventing ownership of things you've bought. If I pay for a film I want to be able to keep it and watch it when and where I want, not when and where the music industry says I can.
You're a fool for playing into their trap and pretending there is any kind of validity to their arguments. There's still no firm evidence that piracy even hurts them so to suggest it's a pragmatic necessity is utterly stupid.
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If W3C were to scrap the plans for HTML5 DRM the content providers would simply cling on to proprietary plugins and we'd be no better off than we are already.
And if we start calling proprietary things that almost everyone is forbidden to implement "standards" then we will be worse of than we are already.
With the HTML5 DRM we could atleast shed all the excess weight provided by these plugins
That's it?!? That's all we get for making the term "standards" mean "proprietary thing that you are forbidden to imple
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Devil we know versus the devil we don't.
I'll take the first one and *not* corporatize the fundamental construct of the web, thanks.
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I swear EFF has being going off the deep end lately.
Their latest tirade against non-free javascript just makes me go "WTF?"
The EFF has said nothing of the sort - you're thinking of the FSF ;)
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FFS... So many 3-letter acronyms.
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Flash is a full display container and runtime engine. It's so bloated with features and yet it's main use is to play video. To play video though you must include a large number of classes for control logic, js interaction, network stack, etc. way more than should be necessary.
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Just like it did for music?
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The word is you not u. You are the one with brain rot it appears. You should find an MOOCS for English.
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http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/04/using-a-or-an-with-acronyms-and-abbreviations.html [apastyle.org]
It depends on how you say MOOCS.
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With netflix I feel my brain is dying It's like a drug if its easily available but all you get is brain rot.
Then look through the library beyond the Top 10 - there's loads of great stuff if you're willing to search for it. It takes, I dunno, a minute?
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Content moving to apps more of an impediment (Score:4, Interesting)
While I understand why they've taken this position, "The Internet" != "WWW". Increasingly content producers are publishing content through app stores because apps provide content creators with a piece of mind that distribution across the DRM free web does not.
We will get to see the result of the grand experiment of publishing content on the web versus through apps. Content follows the money. If there is more money to be generated distributing content over a DRM free web, that's where it will stay. But if there is more money to be made distributing it through locked down apps on locked down platforms - well there's no reason to think that people won't abandon any technology as quickly as they adopt it if the content that they want to view migrates somewhere else.
Re:Content moving to apps more of an impediment (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that the "Web" DRM doesn't actually solve the problem of 'content' being moved to nasty proprietary little silos, it just offers a way of embedding your locked-down platform of choice into a web page.
Because the only thing standardized is a few javascript hooks for interacting with the 'Content Decryption Module'(there is a single, toy, javascript-based CDM; but it fails even lax robustness requirements and is somewhere between a 'hello world' example and red herring), and the CDM is free to do whatever it likes for everything from the decryption step to actually painting the frames on the screen, the CDM doesn't replace the 'un-web' proprietary stack, it is that stack.
If, by some magic, this proposal actually were magic-interoperable-web-based-DRM, it'd at least have pragmatic virtues going for it; but it isn't. It's as 'web based' as a site that consists of nothing but a java applet inside an Object tag, or a site that wraps a win32 program in an activex control.
Re:Content moving to apps more of an impediment (Score:5, Insightful)
Content follows the money.
Pardon me, but like hell it does.
A lovely example is Game of Thrones. Apparently the most pirated show in history. So why is it basically impossible to just buy the eposides as they come out?
Content seems to follow the principle of maximum fear. It seems that they are so afraid that people might pay to download an unencumbered version and then pirate it, they'd rather they can't buy it at all (so they definitely pirate it!).
I guess perhaps they can't stand the doubt.
Re:Content moving to apps more of an impediment (Score:5, Interesting)
I know someone who pays for the channel that shows Game Of Thrones but still downloads it so that he gets to watch the show without adverts.
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I haven't had HBO since I was a kid, so maybe things have changed, but isn't it commercial-free? Isn't that the whole point of paying the premium for it?
Re:Content moving to apps more of an impediment (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that's the really stupid thing. The studios are not only competing with free, they're competing with vastly better as well.
Compare what I could do if I used the pirate bay:
* Download a file to watch later
* Not worry about my crap DSL connection (I live in London, not out in the sticks) causing stuttering, drop outs, etc.
* Be able to watch it in my living room which has wi-fi blocking walls, preventing the possibility of streaming.
* Be able to watch it on my big external screen (the laptop came with a VGA adapter, and nothing for the micro HDMI port) so I use analog.
* Be able to use my favourite media player that has a user interface that I like.
* Be able to transcode it and stick it on a USB stick, and then play it on my in-law's set top box which seems to be able to play such things. Actually many TVs can now play things directly from USB sticks. This is not a rare feature.
* Be able to watch it on my phone.
* Download using a nice client which allows me to be able to set priorities for downloads etc so that the earlier shows download first, and seems to be able to reliably saturate my connection.
And if I paid for it, then I could do:
* None of the above.
The thing is that the current options for paying are essentially worse in just about every measurable way than pirating. It's not just the cost. Actually, I'd happily pay £2 per week to watch an episode of series I follow, but I'd never spend £50 on the 25 episode DVD set. And I'd love to pay and just get a nice AVI or MKV or MP4 (really, do impossible proportioned women really want to date my testicles?) which I can save to my hard disk and then view at my leisure.
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>So why is it basically impossible to just buy the eposides as they come out?
But it is, Advertisers pay for the content just as it comes out. Your eyeballs are NOT the main clients of HBO, you are a commodity HBO sells to its real clients.
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Because HBO sees more money in pushing expensive monthly subscriptions than it does in a pay-as-you-go model ala iTunes.
ummm and how's that working out for them? They get plenty of subscriptions and... the most pirated show in history.
In other words there are vast quantities of people out there who want to watch it but have no mechanism to buy it.
If you think they haven't done extensive analytics, you're nuts.
If you think all businesses are engaged in the ruthlessly efficient search for profit, then you are
Re:Content moving to apps more of an impediment (Score:4, Informative)
Content does not follow money.
I cannot get "Game of Thrones" recent seasons. It simply is not legally available online. Even if I was ok with itunes I could not get it. So people pirate it. Many of them would be happy to pay, I would be thrilled to pay for DRM free versions.
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Content does not follow money.
I cannot get "Game of Thrones"...
Don't confuse short term with long term. The issue with Game of Thrones is due to all kinds of tail wagging the dog problems like the inertia of the cable industry, foreign distribution contracts, etc.
Here's a more long-term example -- DIVX. [wikipedia.org] DIVX isn't just missing Game of Thrones, it is missing just about every movie and every TV show ever.
Re:Content moving to apps more of an impediment (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Content follows the money."
Really? So why has the music industry pursued a decade of decline by completely ignoring what customers want?
The whole reason DRM exists is because the content industries have tried everything but following the money and it's taken technology firms (Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Last.fm and so on) to slap them about a bit and drag them and their content towards the money.
Content certainly wont follow the money by itself.
Re:Content moving to apps more of an impediment (Score:4, Interesting)
While I understand why they've taken this position, "The Internet" != "WWW". Increasingly content producers are publishing content through app stores because apps provide content creators with a piece of mind that distribution across the DRM free web does not.
We will get to see the result of the grand experiment of publishing content on the web versus through apps. Content follows the money. If there is more money to be generated distributing content over a DRM free web, that's where it will stay. But if there is more money to be made distributing it through locked down apps on locked down platforms - well there's no reason to think that people won't abandon any technology as quickly as they adopt it if the content that they want to view migrates somewhere else.
That's fine with me, but the major difference is that those who want the DRM should have to pay for it, either by developing and maintaining it or by paying someone to do so. DRM is a Red Queen's race; you have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are. Universal, Sony, etc. want to stay where they are without running the race, so they're trying ride in a sedan chair carried by browser developers.
Objection to the formal objection. (Score:2)
I don't want to be slave of plugins.
I don't want to be slave of browsers.
I don't want anymore to be slave of ECOSYSTEMS making me have three or four platforms just to be able to access content.
I prefer if HTML includes provisions to allow optional cross-platform DRM instead of having to rely on plugins/stores/apps.
Optional!? (Score:2)
optional cross-platform DRM
LOL optional DRM is simply (mandatory) DRM, you either are one side or the other. I personally think that *software* should never contain any DRM.
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DRM is always optional. You don't have to buy the product with DRM.
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But once W3C makes it part of HTML5, then anything w/o DRM support is not standards compliant. or will you show me a fully standards compliant browser that gives me this choice ... and is available in pure source code that I can compile and use the compiled result?
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what he said!
When we rented videos from Blockbuster did we bitch and moan about having to return it?
One of the main gripes about DRM is lack of transferability or consistency due to everyone using their own incompatible DSM standards. Standardising on this should mean someone with a Netflix account will get to stream videos on not just Windows (hopefully without Silverlight) but also their standards compliant Linux desktop, Mac and possibly phone and tablet all via the browser.
If the DSM is too invasive, th
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Standardising on this should mean someone with a Netflix account will get to stream videos on not just Windows (hopefully without Silverlight) but also their standards compliant Linux desktop, Mac and possibly phone and tablet all via the browser.
It will not mean that. At all.
You might want to actually get the details about what you're speaking out in favor of, before you actually put your support behind it.
This is anything but unified DRM.
Re:Objection to the formal objection. (Score:4, Informative)
This standard doesn't standardize the DRM, it just standardizes the interface for interacting with the DRM module...
The 'Content Decryption Module' itself is not part of the standard, and there are no requirements as to it being cross platform, consistent, transferable, or anything else except that it provide a few javascript interfaces to twiddle. That's it.
It's "Standardized" in the sense that Silverlight, Flash, and Java are "standardized" because they can all be embedded with the 'object' tag...
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Because it is pointless.
The end result is the same as today. You would have a netflix and an itunes CDM instead of plugin and they would only work on Windows and OSX, since those offer protected content paths. The OSX version would of course lag behind.
So just to rename plugin to CDM you want to pollute the standard?
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Like how Flash/Java/Silverlight pollute the HTML standard? Oh wait, they don't - they all use the object tag.
Besides, a CDM is simply a validator and decryptor. No need for a full-scale runtime environment. The entire module could be written by one person in a couple of days. If well-designed, porting would be a case of throwing a couple of compiler switches.
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So why not just stick with the object tag then?
It cannot fulfill its role if that is all it does. In that case copying its output would be trivial.
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My OS does not have such a protected path. Thus I gain nothing, in fact I lose since this means soon flash will not be what plays these videos anymore.
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Actually it cannot.
There is no way to provide such a thing when I can build my own kernel.
Less intrusive DRM is always better than more intrusive.
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If such a module existed there would be nothing preventing me from modifying it to dump into a file.
Unless you think I am going to be loading a closed source kernel module for DRM. That would be even worse.
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Re:Objection to the formal objection. (Score:5, Informative)
I prefer if HTML includes provisions to allow optional cross-platform DRM instead of having to rely on plugins/stores/apps.
That would be fine if that was being proposed. However, what is being proposed is that HTML have a tag that calls something that will have to be written for each platform (and thus will only be written for those platforms the content producers consider worth their while to support) in order to decrypt video that is sent with DRM. Of course that thing that is called by the tag (it is no longer called a plugin, but it looks just like one except that it is called from a different place in the code) will be different for every content provider (unless we are lucky and they all decide to use a third party DRM module. Which is unlikely, since most of the content providers are likely to write their own DRM module which they will try to sell to everyone else).
Re:Objection to the formal objection. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't want to be slave of plugins.
I don't want to be slave of browsers.
I don't want anymore to be slave of ECOSYSTEMS making me have three or four platforms just to be able to access content.
I prefer if HTML includes provisions to allow optional cross-platform DRM instead of having to rely on plugins/stores/apps.
This proposal doesn't free you from plugins, or provide 'cross-platform DRM'. It just renames 'plugins' to 'content decryption modules' and provides absolutely no requirement as to how cross platform they are or aren't(indeed, they explicitly state 'CDM may use or defer to platform capabilities' and may handle all steps from decryption to actually drawing on the display).
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I prefer to have browsers that are NOT made by corporations. Browser developers will have to choose between making a browser without DRM and not be considered HTML5 compliant, and paying tens of thousands of dollars to corporations just to get a license key to decode the DRM. Putting DRM is HTML5 as a standard locks out all but corporate made browsers. It also locks out full browser source code that you can compile for yourself and end up with a fully standards compliant browser.
Let corporations come up
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There is no technical reason why the decryption modules could not be cross-platform. They could be implemented in an 'intermediate' language such Java Bytecode or UCSD p-code which can be run on (almost) any platform.
Re:Objection to the formal objection. (Score:5, Informative)
Sure there is, the decryption module can only output to some sort of content protected path. Otherwise recording its output would be trivial.
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In all likelihood only certain browsers and platforms will be able to play videos from certain sites by default (mainly Chrome and IE on Windows).
That would be true if the EFF have their way. But not true if the HTML standardization happens. Yes the DRM is always of necessity a proprietary blob. But with HTML standardization the same blob can work for all browsers on a given OS.
Impediment to interoperability... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, because the current scheme of using proprietary playback plugins that have their own set of security flaws and performance issues, if they exist at all for your platform of choice, isn't an impediment to interoperability at all.
Hollywood isn't going to go DRM free (yet). DRM as a standard in HTML5 is a better place then where we are today. These things must change over time. See: all the stores now selling DRM free music, which would have never happened if the stores of yesteryear hadn't first gotten the RIAA comfortable with digital distribution, then weaned them off the DRM teat.
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Hollywood isn't going to go DRM free (yet). DRM as a standard in HTML5 is a better place then where we are today. These things must change over time.
What Hollywood is or isn't going to do should be largely irrelevant to the discussion. The web is not their domain.
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The web is not their domain.
No, it's much bigger [techcrunch.com] than the web.
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The web is not their domain.
It would seem that someone forget sending them the memo.
Did that Happen!? (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM as a standard in HTML5 is a better place then where we are today...stores of yesteryear hadn't first gotten the RIAA comfortable with digital distribution, then weaned them off the DRM teat.
I am confident that DRM should not be a standard, and the argument that DRM being dropped will happen because companies will get *comfortable*; They don't they would have you electronically chipped if they could get away with it. The reason why DRM was dropped was because customers simply were not happy with it.
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I am confident that DRM should not be a standard
Then you can clearly explain why there should not be a standard way to manage the discovery of media type variants handled and to allow the codec and the service provider to communicate securely. While I would agree that there should not be a particular type of DRM-enabled codec mandated, there ought at least to be an official mechanism for the presence of optional software plugin modules capable of doing a particular task (e.g., video playback) and to determine that of the ones that are available, all, som
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Yeah, because the current scheme ... isn't an impediment to interoperability at all.
Careful of two wrongs make a right [nizkor.org].
which would have never happened if the stores of yesteryear hadn't first gotten the RIAA comfortable with digital distribution, then weaned them off the DRM teat
Yet we've already been through all this, know that DRM-free distribution is the most successful sales model, and nearly all the movie companies own record companies and know this already. So it's not the same situation - this time
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Careful of two wrongs make a right.
But there is a lesser of two evils. Given that DRM will happen regardless, making things a bit more standardized and easier for all is better than leaving it more fragmented and harder for all.
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First you complain that:
using proprietary playback plugins that have their own set of security flaws and performance issues, if they exist at all for your platform of choice,
But then you go and say:
DRM as a standard in HTML5 is a better place then where we are today.
Seriously, can you read TFA, or at least *some* of the comments in any of the previous thrads?
The DRM standard precisely requires a proprietary, unspecified non standard CDM with every flaw you already listed.
The ONLY thing that the "standard"
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The ONLY thing that the "standard" offers is a vague air of legitimacy.
And a vastly reduced attack surface, since there won't be a full-scale run-time, just a simple decrypting module.
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And a vastly reduced attack surface, since there won't be a full-scale run-time, just a simple decrypting module.
Oh yeah, like BD+ which contains an entire VM and runtime so it... wait what was that about a reduced attack surface?
Basically, the CDM is an interface to a binary module. That can contain anything. Therefore any claims you make about the contents of that module are entirely unjustified.
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A single decrypting module that runs completely arbitrary data.
In an environment that can isolate and sandbox it.
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In an environment that can isolate and sandbox it.
And then snaffle the decrypted data...
Yeah that'll work well.
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In an environment that can isolate and sandbox it.
And then snaffle the decrypted data...
If the design/implementation is flawed.
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Re:Impediment to interoperability... (Score:5, Informative)
This changes nothing. They are simply renaming plugins to CDMs. Those will still be only available for limited platforms and each store/site will have its own.
Go back to roots. (Score:2)
W3C should not be including anything like DRM. They should remember that is is HyperText Markup Language. All they need to define is the usage of the 'a' tag, and left some IETF working group define the transport type for video etc. rather than using HyperText Transfer Protocol.
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This is not about the DRM or the protection of their content, this is about the massive victory it is to have W3C buckle and accept the bleak world view that Big Media pushes: "everyone is a thief unless we preemptively shackle them". Never mind that the HTML standard has nothing to do with their content, nor is it the right place to define what happens to their content; it is all about winning the argument to be able to build on it further.
What about the next industry? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is being done at the behest of the Entertainment Industry. What happens with the next industry that wants something added to a standard? Where does it end? I have no problem with Netflix, or some other entity, saying that "if you want to use our fee-based service you must use this." But I don't want these add-ons polluting a standard. This is what we have plug-ins for. If you don't like the plug-in, don't use it and don't bitch about not getting a fee-based service.
We can thank RMS for this (Score:4, Informative)
This is great work by EFF.
But I get the feeling that if Stallman hadn't kicked up such a stink about this, other organisations wouldn't be jumping in to help now.
If EFF's objection is successful, some people will look back afterward and say that RMS's petition and public denouncements achieved nothing and only the later campaigns by others were useful, but they'll be missing the point that RMS is the one that whips those other groups out of inaction. He knows he usually can't win battles on his own, and he knows how to highlight a cause and set an example so that he isn't left on his own.
So thanks, EFF, and thanks, Richard.
Re:Scared of evolution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pragmatism vs Compromise (Score:2)
How come every time someone talks about pragmatism. It is about me sacrificing something, or me compromising, and we know what happens next...we are expected to do it again..and again.
Lets call pragmatism what it is Users being hit on.
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Last time I posted on the issue I made the point that the pragmatic approach was for the W3C to reject any attempt to have it have anything to do with digital restrictions management tech. Why? Because they gain nothing from it except ire from people who truly want an open web. DRM is the exact opposite of open, and can't be implemented in an open fashion.
It is a misguided principle (everything should be on the open web), that is behind this push. Except that the principle, while nice and all, is actually w
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It's a nice symbolic gesture, but symbolic is all it is. The major studios will never allow streaming services live Netflix to stream their content without DRM, so whether it's built into HTML5 or not, DRM *will* be added. They'll just do it with a 3rd party app. It's either that or kiss any mainstream content goodbye.
Re:Finally ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a nice symbolic gesture, but symbolic is all it is. The major studios will never allow streaming services live Netflix to stream their content without DRM, so whether it's built into HTML5 or not, DRM *will* be added. They'll just do it with a 3rd party app. It's either that or kiss any mainstream content goodbye.
It was a nice symbolic guesture of Amazon to offer DRM free MP3s, but the RIAA and Apple will never allow their content to be available DRM free and Amazon will have nothing to sell... oh wait.
I see a lot of cowards in this thread and it surprises me. Do the smart thing and say, "No". Which entertainment group recently suggested they should be able to remotely disable your machine for suspected piracy. I forget... had something to do with media... movies maybe...
But you know, let's give them a standard "plugin" interface. Instead of "bloated Flash" I hope you all enjoy the 50 separate implementations of DRM you get, with variable stability and attack vectors.
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Where are you gonna post it to make money? Whatever site does that I won't be visiting at all, because there's too much good free stuff to bother with a pay site. And if everyone does this and posts to the pay site, it will end up costing too much and the whole idea of viewing online videos is dead other than for the big companies that have all that marketing to bring in the numbers for their big movies. And besides, if I can see it, I can rip it off, anyway, as can most others (the HDCP technology to fe