The W3C Sells Out Users Without Seeming To Get Anything In Return 348
An anonymous reader writes "Questioning the W3C's stance on DRM, Simon St. Laurent asks 'What do we get for that DRM?' and has a thing or two to say about TBL's cop-out: 'I had a hard time finding anything to like in Tim Berners-Lee's meager excuse for the W3C's new focus on digital rights management (DRM). However, the piece that keeps me shaking my head and wondering is a question he asks but doesn't answer: If we, the programmers who design and build Web systems, are going to consider something which could be very onerous in many ways, what can we ask in return? Yes. What should we ask in return? And what should we expect to get? The W3C appears to have surrendered (or given?) its imprimatur to this work without asking for, well, anything in return. "Considerations to be discussed later" is rarely a powerful diplomatic pose.'"
Re:Some questions (Score:5, Interesting)
So if they won't do this for a core economic interest (salary, working conditions) then how realistic is this idea that there would be some kind of coherent constituency agititating for something "in return" for DRM? Because as it turns out, quite a few programmers benefit from being employed by companies with a stake in DRM. And that is, on some level, almost every for-profit company on the internet which makes it business selling proprietary information (content, programs, web services). Which is just about everyone, besides the relatively small proportion of economic activity at companies relying on open-source business models.
This is not about programmers at all. If anyone is going to complain, it's "consumers." There are a lot more of them, and the population of potential complainers is much larger. Whether or not that means diddly squat in a major capitalist system where all the for-profit internet-connected companies really, truly ARE a significantly incentivized interest group that pretty much like the perceived benefits of DRM... well, color me skeptical about that.
Take it up with the Internet Society BoT (Score:5, Interesting)
The W3C used to be a member (i.e., company) driven organization, but in 2012 they took a large donation from the Internet Society [w3.org] and were basically brought under ISOCs umbrella (they were running out of money) :
This does not sound like "deep organizational change at W3C," or particularly open in nature. I think that interested parties should comment / complain to the ISOC Board of Trustees [internetsociety.org].
Re:Tone down your rhetoric (Score:4, Interesting)
It's pretty obvious the content owners (not makers, authors, or creators, by in large) will insist on DRM for all their content, when it benefits just about nobody except them. The DRM battle was nearly won, and now W3C is actively undermining this societal progress.
It's not about "your website", it's about your access to culture that is increasingly consolidated among a few large corporate players due to the chicanery of copyright law.
You make it sound as if I have a right to the content other people produce. I don't and never did. I don't consider it to be "culture" either.
DRM is about controlling the playback, locking out certain uses and users.
I'd say that this will just push even more traffic to the torrents, but the NSA will probably divulging the correlated info for torrents soon enough.
If the content producer hasn't given you permission to consume their content, then you have no right to seek it elsewhere. If I cannot watch a movie through legal channels then I don't watch the movie. Same thing with TV shows and music. I don't consider respecting other peoples' rights to be very onerous, and I don't think I'm missing out on much.
Re:Some questions (Score:5, Interesting)
How long before W3C's reputation is ruined?
The W3C's says themselves that their reason for existence is to standardize the Web to be "accessible to all users (despite differences in culture, education, ability, resources, and physical limitations)" http://www.w3schools.com/w3c/w3c_intro.asp [w3schools.com]
The reason for DRM's existence is to limit web content to those users who have the money (resources) to pay for it.
W3C's endorsement of DRM is antithetical to W3C's own clearly stated values, and shows that they are no longer a fit group to determine web standards. So yes, as you say by doing this, they have ruined their reputation.
Has W3C jumped the shark?
"Jumping the shark" is an idiom that describes the moment when a brand, design, or creative effort's evolution loses the essential qualities that initially defined its success and begins its decline into irrelevance.
So yes, since W3C has lost the "essential qualities that initially defined its success" as a result of their decision to endorse an internet segregated by wealth, they have clearly met the criteria to be shark jumpers.
time to fork W3C? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, does this mean it is time to fork W3C and have a more meaningful standards organization?
Re:Anyone noticed (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, except that that's totally wrong.
How many people pirated Nintendo 64 games? I mean, back before they had computers capable of running the ROMs.
Physical cartridges prevented piracy; GameCube DVDs spin the wrong way to be read and written by consumer equipment; and eventually, they will be able to prevent piracy on PCs, by destroying them.
Piracy is not an answer. Piracy is worse than not an answer, it helps the enemy. Every time someone pirates a song instead of using a free one, it cements the copyrighted song's market dominance and prevent free songs from becoming popular.
If you must use proprietary software, or songs backed by labels, or mass-market movies, it's better to pirate them. But the only way to support freedom is to support freedom.
Out of the market (Score:4, Interesting)
Content owners that make their DRM not work for me (a Linux user) cannot consider me in their market. Therefore they would LOSE NOTHING if I crack the DRM and access their content privately.
Re:Anyone noticed (Score:2, Interesting)
What forced DRM out of the music industry was Apple's market dominance of the MP3 player market with the iPod. The record companies were afraid that the Apple iTunes store was going to become such a dominant player in the digital music business that they would loose all their power. The only way to break iTunes was to allow another competitor (in this case Amazon) to offer a music store that was DRM free (as only Apple can produce DRM audio for the iPod). Once Amazon was up and running the studios offered Apple the ability to offer DRM free (and IIRC higher quality) audio but they had to change the model (i.e. no more "one price for every song")
As for the situation with DRM video, if HTML DRM isn't possible all that will happen is that video providers will continue to use Flash, Silverlight or another proprietary plugin (or make their own app)
Re:Tone down your rhetoric (Score:5, Interesting)
And you know what? People are migrating away from the "open web"!
Ever complain that "everything is an app" and "why don't do they do a web site?".
Especially on iOS, which has supported web apps since it was iPhone OS 1.0. And it still does. Yet everyone wants apps.
You know what the result is? Try using iTunes Preview - it basically gives you a quick summary and wants you to do everything from within an app. Or take a look at Steam - SteamPowered.com is a bit more functional, but a lot of it is tied to an app as well. About the only one that isn't is Google Play - where you can do everything from the website.
Heck, try browsing the web on a mobile device, and half the time they ask you to install their app.
The "open web" is now more about hawking apps than providing content - the content is still there, but you use an app.
Eventually we'll just have stuff like iTunes Preview locking things up off the web, and if you're on any platform other than Windows, OS X, iOS or Android, that's all you get for web content.
This proposal is more about keeping the web relevant to content providers. We've already seen what happened when content provider's interests weren't taken care of - see HD-DVD which only had AACS to protect it. But content providers got angry because lack of region coding meant you could go to amazon.com and buy a HD-DVD of a movie that hasn't even come out yet. Or the Sony PSP where custom firmware was basically the reason why systems outsold games nearly 2-to-1.
The future of the web is already happening - on mobile devices.
Re:Anyone noticed (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple's DRM worked acceptably and looked great compared to the nightmarish DRM from other companies. The media companies realized that DRM was quickly giving Apple huge leverage over them and locking their customers into Apple-only --- and then Apple would tell them "you can only charge $0.99 cents for a song".
Then they realized The DRM was working great! Really great! For Apple. For the music companies? Not so much.
[Classic "Beware, you might get what you want!" Pie in the Face story.]
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Question their right to exist (was:Some questions) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Some questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I prefer the term "Human Rights Management" since the free and open communication of ideas is a human right. This right extends to the public domain and to fair use. But it is much easier to swallow if we "manage" those rights, rather than just violate them outright.
The problem with virtually every DRM scheme I have seen pushed by industry is that they make no provision for fair use or for the limited terms of copyright. DRM is seen as a way to protect from the vagaries and limitations of copyright by silently removing "copying" as an option.
Here's an option: if you want to use DRM, you no longer get copyright protection. It becomes a trade secret.