Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Approve Work On DRM For HTML 5.1 307
An anonymous reader writes "Danny O'Brien from the EFF has a weblog post about how the Encrypted Media Extension (EME) proposal will continue to be part of HTML Work Group's bailiwick and may make it into a future HTML revision." From O'Brien's post: "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 a Web where user agents—browsers—must navigate a nest of enforced duties every time they visit a page. It's a place where the next Tim Berners-Lee or Mozilla, if they were building a new browser from scratch, couldn't just look up the details of all the 'Web' technologies. They'd have to negotiate and sign compliance agreements with a raft of DRM providers just to be fully standards-compliant and interoperable."
Re:Open source browsers? (Score:4, Interesting)
How does this affect open source browsers like Firefox? If something is open source you surely can't enforce any sort of DRM restrictions; someone can just build a hacked version of the browser.
As I understand it the thing they've just approved is some sort of 'standard' API with which Netflix etc. can tie their necessarily-proprietary, platform-specific, native-code, obfuscated-media-player plugin (DRM), into the browser (which may or may not itself be Open Source).
How this thing works technically, I don't know. I don't think it's just a C API.
Is this possibly the beginning of the end for open source browsers?
Why in the hell are they even THINKING of approving this bullshit?
Amen. 'They' (Netflix and co) need the web, not the other way round.
Say it ain't so! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Open source browsers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Open source browsers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the security aspects are laughable. The potential legal follow ons are not. For instance, the next logical step is to insist on digitally signed browsers and declare non-complying browsers illegal as "circumvention tools" under the DMCA or somesuch. You might not be able to detect hack browsers, but you could sure as hell sue anyone distributing binaries or patches. You might have a hard time claiming non-infringing uses as well.
That would pretty much make any new browser impossible to distribute, and potentially puts enough regulatory red-tape on people like mozilla that they'd have difficulty continuing in their current open source form.
Then there's the possibility to pressure ISPs to only allow encrypted content (call it an anti-terrorism measure - that works for most things) and eventually to start chaging for access on a per web-page basis for all content.
From the point of view of some media and content cartels, that's a very desirable outcome. The genie would be back in the bottle.
On the other hand, if we don't have EME then the problems don't arise, so on balance I'd say better not to have it.
I don't see why that's a problem. There are DRM formats that work with PDFs so it's not as if your content dudes can't publish under DRM. They just can't try and make it apply to the whole web. Nothing of value is being lost here.
Mine the keys illegally I think you mean. Possibly with disproportionate penalties as used by the recording industry in their anti p2p lawsuits.
Let's just not go there. Less effort + less risk == Win
Re:Missing the big picture (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see your argument, but on the other hand I look at the example set by digital audio. The same balkanization occurred there, until finally things got so bad that finally the media caved to pressure and now I can finally buy legal audio in formats that really are interoperable. There were several lousy years where I basically gave up buying new music while the industry figured out that the reason I wasn't buying what they were selling was because DRM didn't work for me.
So there is precedent that delaying adoption of really interoperable DRM has resulted in better media access in the end. On the other hand, I can't think of any precedent saying that having relatively painless DRM has resulted in better media access. Of course it's possible, but I think precedent weighs against you.
On the other hand, maybe you're right and the battle is already lost; with digital audio it was really Apple's closed distribution model that finally broke the camel's back-- there was no way for anybody except Apple to encrypt music for iPods, and music encrypted for iPods wouldn't work anywhere else. Nobody was able to put together a deal that would bridge that gap, and although Apple's market share was significant it wasn't big enough to standardize the entire market on, and consumers knew that they would be screwed one way or another if they opted for any of the then-available DRM flavors, so enough of them stayed out of the market that eventually the markets were forced to open up. With digital video, that hasn't happened. All of the major media playback manufacturers support the same DRM flavors, so most of the market can be served with relatively little pain.
On the third hand (ha ha), while I have started buying music, I've stopped buying videos. I bought a lot of DVDs after CSS was cracked so I could actually play them on my other devices; it was essentially an interoperable format in practice if not in law. I stopped when Blu-Ray came out because DVDs became second-class citizens, but Blu-Ray was too locked down. Streaming rentals work for me because the DRM only has to work once, but I'll never actually trust that streaming companies will still be there, supporting "my" content years from now after they've made their buck today.
So I still think that there's an effectual struggle to be made, that there's a chance that big media can be convinced to accept open standards. I'm not super optimistic, but I think it's possible, and so I'd oppose any attempt to make DRM more seamless and interoperable for the masses (easy for me to say, since they never seem to interoperate with MY devices anyway. Hazards of running Linux I guess).
Re:Open source browsers? (Score:4, Interesting)
>>Amen. 'They' (Netflix and co) need the web, not the other way round.
>(All DRM is purposely designed to break content. It provides absolutely no benefit to the user)
These are the two most relevant comments I've seen, and excellent short'n'sweet arguments against having DRM in an otherwise open standard.
Re:Open source browsers? (Score:3, Interesting)
And if you think it's so easy to crack, then why do you care?
Because it gives the cops probable cause to bust down your door, shoot the dog, and steal your equipment under the mere suspicion there's something illegal going on. Then you are declared an unfit parent for child endangerment because the kids were there during the bust and could have been gravely injured, so the DFS comes and takes them away, and puts them into a foster home...
That's why I care...
And you?
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Interesting)
Chromebooks come with instructions on how to both:
a) unlock the bootloader and boot into a version of ChromeOS that gives you access to the Linux file system, allowing you to run arbitrary binaries including a modified kernel or Chrome executable, and
b) install alternative operating systems including Ubuntu, as well as running Ubuntu in a chroot (see: Crouton) so you can switch between ChromeOS and Ubuntu without rebooting.
There is nothing user-hostile down about Chromebook's boot protection. They just come with the security enabled by default (and make it a bit tricky to disable it so that an ordinary user does not accidentally flip the switch off). That is totally different from hardware that physically does not let the user install custom binaries.