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Will Google Oppose DRM On HTML5 Video?
An anonymous reader let us know that "Mozilla has committed to not implement DRM in Firefox for WebM HTML5 video even though it is theoretically possible. Microsoft has asked Google and the WebM community several other questions that still have not been answered, but this one seems more important: will Google commit to keeping WebM in Chrome DRM-free? Does our community think that is important for the open web and free software?"
Funny, I thought DRM was theoretically impossible. Something to do with Bob and Eve being the same person.
Man, do you people think or do any research at all? Or do you just like trolling?
Mozilla Firefox (~30% of the browser market share) will never have support for H.264. Never.
Chrome (~11% of browser market share) no longer supports H.264.
H.264 cannot be the standard for HTML5 video because it is not royalty-free.
That's why WebM is a big deal.
I spent a long time opposed to DRM because of the lock in effect. Except that reality has pretty much rendered DRM as obsolete.
DRM does not and has not protected video game publishers.
DRM does not and has not prevented every significant song, movie, or other work from being easily, readily, and widely available on torrents.
DRM does not and has not generally resulted in an improved customer experience.
In a very real sense, it is frequently easier to use the pirate version of a game than the normal one. I love the GTA series on PC, and every single game I ever purchased I almost immediately installed the No-CD cracks. Yes, that's right. I bought all the games of GTA I ever played, and I cracked all of them just so I didn't have to dicker with the stupid DRM.
So, other than annoy the end users, what purpose does DRM serve?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Right now the BBC serves H.264 streams via flash and it has pretty lousy performance (Flash) or pretty awesome performance (via the same stream in XBMC). If they want to shed Flash entirely and still serve a large proportion of the web then a limited amount of content protection is almost inevitable because the content producers (ie, not the BBC but the people who own some of the shows they broadcast) demand it.
Sure, ideally there would be no content protection at all (it really doesn't affect the free distribution of the content at all) but right now that is just not a reality.
I would love BBC iPlayer to be able to serve H.264 with HTML5 (it already does to iPhone user agent strings) since it would free me from the flash performance hog that makes HD streams stutter even on a powerful desktop machine. It won't happen if a sizeable portion of the browser market won't support it.
I'm only talking about iPlayer here, but it applies to many video services across the web - trying to force the DRM hand too early will just perpetuate Flash.
There is no way to have standardized DRM... The whole idea of DRM relies entirely on security through obscurity, and if you publish a standard then that obscurity is gone.
Even with an obscured scheme, if it's worth it to anyone (ie there aren't easier ways to get the same content) then someone will reverse engineer the format and work out how to extract the data from it in a usable way. This will _ALWAYS_ be possible, because the player itself has to get the data into a usable format itself in order to display it.
All DRM does is inconvenience legitimate users, pirates will just download media that is not drm encumbered and have a better user experience.
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>>>H.264... is extremely unfriendly to open source.
So then - how do open source programs like WinAmp, MP Classic, Miro, and VLC Player get away with using it? If they can do it, Chrome and Firefox should be able to do it too. (And Opera - since they are not open source at all.)
More importantly, how do I get the WebM video I just downloaded to work in my iPod? Or my TV? They only do Apple and MPEG codecs.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
DRM does not and has not protected video game publishers.
Yes it does. The digital restrictions management on video game consoles protects established video game publishers from competition from smaller indie developers. Console makers have a history of not granting licenses to micro-ISVs, and "homebrew" software relies on fragile jailbreaks that the console maker can and does fix with an update to the console's firmware.
What about DRM on things you don't purchase but stream, like Netflix and Hulu? Since you don't own it, you shouldn't be able to download it, and DRM is necessary to protect those companies interest. Again, with content you OWN, DRM = evil because it limits rights. But with streaming content, it gives just enough rights so that in theory, prices should be cheaper (Apple TV rental being cheaper than purchase, despite it being the same bits sent to you).
DRM is, in fact, evil(even if you don't think that its objectives are.)
DRM is, inevitably, simply cannot be done any other way, a class of methods and mechanisms whereby my computer is placed under a 3rd party's partial control in order to make it obey their interests, rather than mine. Even if I happen to agree with the particular rule being thus enforced(which is hardly assured, most DRM users go beyond the rights copyright law allows), it is the change in the ultimate controller of the system that is the inevitable and unacceptable consequence...
The fact that any system sufficiently robust to allow for effective DRM also allows for effective censorship is just icing on the cake...
I think the point he's making is that if there's no standards-based mechanism for delivering DRM-protected video, content providers will simply keep using Flash to do it, reducing interoperability and leading to inferior user experience.
Which is a fair point.
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Problem is, there can't really be a standards-based mechanism for delivering DRM anything, at least not in the sense of open standards on the Web.
Right now, if I stick to HTML5 and stuff like WebM, there is the theoretical possibility of me taking nothing but existing open source stuff, or even starting from scratch, and writing software that can consume that media. Pretty much any DRM which allowed me to do that wouldn't really be doing its job as DRM.
The better route is to suck it up and leave the DRM behind.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I hate DRM on purchased music/video downloads. But for streaming services it is absolutely necessary, and not to keep dedicated pirates from stealing content. For streaming services such as netflix it keeps honest users honest. Netflix allows 5 devices per account and you can only stream when you are paying the subscription fee. If there was no DRM, then there would be easily available programs that would let you download movies to your computer to be watched after canceling. And remove the 5 devices per account limit.
Honest users would do this, but with DRM they would not. It is in some ways similar to anti-shoplifing measures at retail stores. Sure a professional shoplifter can avoid this, but it provides enough security to keep the honest shoppers honest.
H.264 cannot be the standard for HTML5 video because it is not royalty-free.
That is not a true statement.
no, DRM makes things not searchable... there's no way Google wants that. Most of what's on YouTube doesn't NEED DRM...
The whole point of HTML5 video is so that "everyman" can use video services... for family videos... i.e all the crap that's on YouTube, Flickr, picassa, etc. HTML5 video isn't about SELLING videos... it's something that should have been done ten years ago... why should every browser not support a modern video format, like they support gif, png, jpeg? That's what everybody misses in this discussion. Everybody has their own DRM versions... I don't really see those going away, there's no reason the big guys like Apple, Microsoft, Adobe will have their own anyway...
The whole thing is bogus anyway... the big guys aren't going to give up their private DRM schemes anyway... all they're doing is stalling the process to fuck over the little people. Once Open HTML5 video hits and Google and Mozilla start implementing it then Apple and Microsoft will come along. Hell, if Adobe was clever they'd tack Vorbis and WebM into the next Flash and all the enterprise businesses would be none the wiser and keep using IE6!
You mean if there's no way for movie studios to control everyone's computers? That's what it really is. We are much better off without such adoption.
Correct. My definition of "inferior" refers to the actual quality of the codec itself. Your definition is meta. It has absolutely no bearing on whether the codec, as a codec, is better or not.
What matters is whether the loss in quality, among many other benefits of H.264, is worth the gain "freedom" offered by WebM. For well over 99% of the people out there, it's not.
Nobody anywhere thinks "I want to initiate some 'dominoes' and make my DVD player be living room policeman". Nobody wants restrictions, nobody wants unskippable bullshit, nobody thinks what you're thinking that they do when they push play on the dvd player. You're totally confusing what people *want* versus what they *tolerate* because they have to. What they want it for it to play when the push play, skip when they push skip. That's it.
If you don't believe me try asking some other people "do you WANT your DVD player to refuse to skip FBI warnings or do you merely tolerate it because you have to?". I bet you not one single honest person tells you they WANT FBI warnings.
As for the page setup dialog being displayed, most of the time I do, as do most people. This concept of studying people to make software that does what they want intuitively is called "usability" (though I don't think it is practiced much anymore, sadly). And as you pointed out, a lot of software allows this to be customized, unlike DVD players in the US.
As for the annoying printer drivers, well good thing it isn't illegal to sell less annoying printers. We can't say the same for DVD players.