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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?"
So Google is trying even harder to keep Flash relevant on the web?
The dogcow says "Moof!"
Direct Rendering manager belongs in the kernel, not in a user process ;) ;) ;)
Why are we leaving the decision up to Chrome? iOS devices are a giant chunk of the mobile market and play H.264 fine, and so do Android devices and Palm's WebOS. I'm not sure about Blackberry, but it's odd that Windows Mobile doesn't support H.264 given Microsoft's support of it. Also sites like YouTube's Mobile site are using H.264.
In light of all this, why is WebM such a big deal? Are there any vendors (aside from Google) that have products out using it (or using only it)?
Funny, I thought DRM was theoretically impossible. Something to do with Bob and Eve being the same person.
PEOPLE WILL
PEOPLE DO
ain't that from the 70's?
DRM can be effectively and easily implemented by XORing a Copyright Notice on top of the data. it's as good a measure as any, costs virtually nothing in terms of performance, does not interfere with distribution mechanisms (IP Multicast for example), can be "claimed" to be "encryption" under the DMCA, and makes it bluntly, bluntly clear that anyone dumb enough to remove it and spread the resultant file around the internet is DEFINITELY violating Copyright.
even as a free software developer (apart from the stupidity of the DMCA itself, which destroyed opportunities for me to make money from some of my skills and abilities), i see no reason why such a simple broadcastable scheme should not be more widely deployed.
Flash will continue to persist on a large scale until such a time that HTML video is standardized and has acceptable DRM written into the standard. Until that happens, publishers simply aren't going to stop using Flash. Mozilla is shooting themselves in the foot, and Google will be doing so as well if they make the same decision.
DRM isn't evil, people. Publishers WANT you to be able to view their content, or they wouldn't be putting it online. They wouldn't implement some DRM scheme that would ruin your ability to watch it, or why even publish it? They are NOT, however, going to publish it without some sort of control mechanism. If Mozilla and Google don't realize this soon, then all the effort they've been putting into the HTML video standard is for nothing.
// ok, not that funny, but what can I say? I'm a karma-whore-wannabee.
So Mozilla wants everyone to switch to WebM, but also thinks that a company like Hulu would be happy if people were able to download it's content by looking at the source code and seeing ??? Really? Come on now. There's standing up for a "free" internet and then also making sure that people can't easily steal web video content with a simple click. NO business in their right mind would agree to something like that.
If you're confused by the fact that Direct Rendering Manager and Digital Restrictions Management share abbreviations, what name would you recommend to replace Digital Restrictions Management?
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.
For DRM to work(to the degree that it ever does) it has to be implemented in something that the user cannot successfully modify to be less user hostile.
Hardware, because it is comparatively difficult and expensive to modify, generally poses the greatest obstacles to the user.
Closed source software, if sufficiently crafty, can be comparatively difficult(but much cheaper, so it usually falls faster).
OSS, by design, is modifiable, so it would last mere minutes. Is it nice that Mozilla won't do DRM? Sure. Would Mozilla committing to DRM stop Iceweasel from being released in a 100% compatible except when it comes to shafting the user build about 20 minutes later? No.
That is what I don't understand about this "question". Obviously, it would be architecturally trivial to add a 'dontcopythatfloppy' option to the HTML5 Video tag. However, nothing short of the wholesale annihilation of the general-purpose computer and its replacement by a dystopian mass of tivoized appliances and TPM-backed "secure remote attestation" mechanisms would make it remotely relevant. Barring such an outcome, "DRM" would essentially be a polite request to the browser that it please hide the "download" button.
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.
In the long gap between Windows Mobile 6 Professional and Windows Phone 7, iOS rose to handily beats mobile Windows. Only recently did Android, a mobile environment using the Linux kernel, surpass it in installed base. In addition, with Google's failure to certify devices that aren't phones for Android Market access, iPod touch holds a virtual monopoly on PDAs that aren't phones.
Actual working DRM serves to somewhat slow down release groups operating in countries that lack a counterpart to the U.S. DMCA.
Without DRM support, they can only play non-DRMed content. With it, they can play both DRM and non-DRM content.
To most people, that's a win, and it's one of the problems limiting Linux adoption right now. People WANT to play their netflix streams an blu-ray disks. Linux can't do that, but systems with DRM support can.
So it'd be foolish of anyone to promise they won't support DRM. If the next browser over supports it, then yours loses market share as people move to a platform that meets their needs.
i keep having to point this out to people, time and time again: broadcasting and DRM are mutually exclusively incompatible. Free Software people recognise this, and anyone who fails to recognise it is just plain dumb. or is being paid to pretend to be dumb. let's do a simple maths demo. go get your calculator, and hit the following buttons: type in 1, then hit "-". then type 1000, then hit 1/x, then hit equals. then hit "power (x/y)" and then 1000 again. press equals, and you should have 0.36769 or thereabouts. now do the same, substituting 10,000, then 100,000, then 1,000,000 and keep doing that until you reach the limit of the digits of your calculator.
the number displayed on your screen is 1/e (2.7818281828) which should mean something to you.
now do this: instead of 0.999999 to the power of 1000000, try even something like 0.9999998 to the power of 1000000. you should notice something VERY quickly: it's almost zero. now try 0.9999991 to the power of 1000000 - you should notice something even more startling: it's almost 1.
this demonstrates something very very simple: that it doesn't MATTER how complex the DRM is (0.0000001 or 0.00000001 probability of one person breaking it) - sheer weight of numbers of people around the world WILL break it, period. that really is the end of the matter. the sooner that people recognise and accept this, the sooner we can get on with something more constructive to do with our time, such as watching the next episode of Stargate on the device of OUR choice.
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.
because it's royalty-free for implementations of VP8 algorithms when those algorithms are free software implementations. this is HIGHLY significant when it comes to cost-sensitive products. even the MPEG LA group has recognised the importance of automatic royalty-free patent grants, in their call for contributions to the upcoming MPEG-2 algorithm. you should read slashdot, you know ;) or did you miss these stories last week, or did you not understand the significance?
Door locks don't keep burglars or determined attackers out, either. So, what purpose do they serve?
They make it hard to *casually* invade a room or building. They make it so there's at least a small hassle involved.
I think it's more or less true that carrots probably work better than sticks -- it's probably better to combat piracy with affordable prices, convenient availability, and a feelgood sense of legitimacy. But I can kindof understand why some content purveyors would also want to do something to stop casual piracy. And as long as DRM is optional -- as long as every codec that allows DRM also allows un-DRM'd content -- I don't see a problem with letting people see how offering restricted content works out for them.
Tweet, tweet.
Given the whole "living standard" shite re: HTML5, we're already fucked anyways.
Also, wtf is this tripe regarding "having to wait before posting short flames?" :-\
Anyone catch that?
Mozilla committed to not implement DRM in Fidonet
DRM is ONLY a factor for your LEGITIMATE customers.
And, eventually, that DRM will be out-dated and your LEGITIMATE customers will no longer have access to material that they LEGITIMATELY paid for.
I have CD's that I purchased 20+ years ago that still work.
How many of you can play content from a DRM limited product from 10 years ago?
I'm building a website where I hope people can either post videos or where at least they can embed open videos. DRM doesn't help anyone. It is important to have a free and open internet. A shopping mall is a closed space, where business people can have their mall cops do whatever. The internet is like a public park. Short of being drunk and disorderly, people are allowed to do what they like. Its a public space. DRM reaks of private space; it builds fences and borders, not an open public space. Its in the nature of microsoft to monetize everything they see. HTML is in the public space. Keep it DRM free.
HTML5 is a W3C standard. A standard can't be anything but open. A DRM scheme can't be anything but closed.
If web video is going to get DRM, the "client" will have to be implemented by a trusted party.
Google can play the role, but I don't think Mozilla can.
So if DRM is going to be implement it will need support from the OS - where the OS plays gatekeeper, and browsers relying on it for decoding.**
I don't see a problem to be honest with DRM for web video, it would be up to the content creators whether they want their video protected by DRM.
Those who don't want DRM can just post without it.
**Ya, I know, problem for Linux. Some day they will probably move it into hardware like on the video card itself.
like ... What is D.R.M. ?
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.
I can't help with your iPod, and in fact, Apple's poor support for free formats is part of why I bought a Samsung Pebble instead of an iPod shuffle and an Archos 43 instead of an iPod touch. But you can play WebM on your television with a home theater PC.
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.
because it's royalty-free for implementations of VP8 algorithms
It's free of royalties from Google, but third parties that Google doesn't yet know about may hold essential patents and join a patent pool that MPEG-LA is forming.
even the MPEG LA group has recognised the importance of automatic royalty-free patent grants, in their call for contributions to the upcoming MPEG-2 algorithm.
MPEG and MPEG-LA are separate organization, and MPEG-2 is the codec used for DVD and US digital TV, not the new royalty-free MPEG standard effort.
Once Google states no DRM in WebM, Microsoft will win the battle and get hollywood on their side by offering DRM in whatever they cook up. That's the only reason they're asking this question. Without DRM there is no Netflix in HTLM 5 and for that matter any number of video options that may exist because the xxIA's require it.
A MSN blog? No way I am going to read that crap!
... so whether or not it has DRM is unimportant.
Which current web standards require a license fee to implement?
Which of the two video formats would require a license fee to implement?
Which would be better suited for the web?
Besides, why would MS have a say in interoperable web video formats when their next browser won't even work on a large portion of their users' systems? They have demonstrated being incapable of making even their own product interoperable with their other products.
Microsoft's usage share is dropping every month and with far superior competitors out there (all the other major browsers) that actually have a decent track-records for playing nice, I hope it's just a matter of time before MSIE is dead and gone. Long live !
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
How the hell would firefox and chrome implement drm? For it to even work they'd have to keep it closed source, or else any one could just read the source code to find the keys or read decrypted data. DRM on the desktop has always been dependent on obfuscation. Spend enough time starting at a disassembler and you'd get bluray keys, for example. TPM isn't close to protecting media. I can't see google or mozilla publishing a closed source library to decrypt video content. Even if they did, it would have to have a public interface like get_decrypted_frame. It would be super easy to attach a debugger and get the decrypted data, or just write your own program that links against the drm library to decrypt your data.
A video decoder needs the raw video bytes in order to update a frame buffer for display on the graphics card. Therefore somewhere between receiving an encrypted stream of bytes and processing a raw stream of video bytes, the decryption needs to happen.
In classical cryptography the objective is to protect a message that Alice sends to Bob from a man in the middle. However, with DRM, there is no man in the middle. To address this conundrum, a secure channel of communication between the provider and the consumer of a stream is setup such that the private key of the consumer is assembled from some unique hardware parameters. If the user knew the private key, then the secure channel would be broken.
Hence the objective in DRM becomes an absurd exercise in obscuring the client private key. The entire "security" of the DRM process relies centrally on obscurity. The "obscure" part is exactly how the private client key is built and what methods and protocols of encryption are used.
With open-source however, no protocol will be obscure and no method to assembly a client key will be obscure. Therefore it is impossible to implement DRM in open source, because the whole premise of DRM relies on implementation obscurity, and the whole premise of open-source relies in implementation transparency.
Experiments and other stuff
WebM is inferior. It's almost as bad as viewing MPEG2
No, MPEG-2 is several steps down from VP8. From most to least efficient, as I understand it, quality comparisons have run as follows:
The intent of WebM is not to be the end all and be all of codecs and containers. It is meant to be an open standard that can be utilized by any one, not that has to be used by every one. Even if you included some form of DRM in WebM not every one would adopt it because some will want a different form of DRM or more specifically their form of DRM. IMHO adding DRM to WebM would be a death knell for it. You can't have free DRM it has to be closed and propriatary or it will be quickly bypassed. I'm not saying making DRM closed and proprietary saves DRM from being bypassed. Just that it can extend the length of time until it is cracked. And if you put DRM in WebM and it gets cracked what then? We abandon the standard for some thing else and every thing stops working? Is that how the internet is supposed to work?
But basically what DRM has succeeded at doing is keeping casual users from being able to pirate games (on consoles at least)
It's also succeeded at keeping casual users from being able to create what on PCs would be considered legitimate mods to the single-player or local multiplayer game, such as new characters, new campaigns, or fixes to game-breaking defects. This sort of digital imprimatur has thrown the participatory culture baby out with the copyright infringement bathwater.
because it's royalty-free for implementations of VP8 algorithms
It's free of royalties from Google, but third parties that Google doesn't yet know about may hold essential patents and join a patent pool that MPEG-LA is forming.
The same applies to h.264 incidentally - free from royalties from known patent holders that are members of the MPEG-LA, but third parties that they don't yet know about may hold essential patents. Same is true of almost anything in computing these days, sadly.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb975643.aspx
My book: Friendly F#, fun with game development and XNA; my game: Galaxy Wars by VSTeam; my gamedev language: Casanova.
I don't know that they would. Netflix hits a pretty sweet price point for what they're offering. I'd actually say it's much more likely that the convenience of the service keeps dishonest users honest. I could very well go out and download whatever movie or television programs that I want, and often I do. But if it's available on Netflix streaming I won't even bother because I can just turn on the Xbox or PS3 and watch it whenever.
[AVC is] free from royalties from known patent holders that are members of the MPEG-LA, but third parties that they don't yet know about may hold essential patents.
Due to the cost of hiring lawyers and the lack of "statutory damages" in patent law, the economic bargain for an AVC patent holder outside MPEG-LA's pool is in favor of joining the pool rather than tossing lawsuits around left and right the way record labels have. A group of companies that discover patents that they hold that cover VP8 would form a similar pool and advertise it in cease-and-desist notices sent to a bunch of prominent VP8 users. Because the whole gimmick of VP8 is that it is royalty-free, this would kill VP8.
What I said still applies to Sony and Nintendo consoles.
Even considering XNA, how does one port an existing game written in standard C++ to XNA? The XNA environment runs only verifiably type-safe IL, and I'm not aware of any automated way to translate code written in standard C++ into any language that can be compiled to verifiably type-safe IL. There exists something called C++/CLI, but its verifiably type-safe subset is a syntax error in standard C++.
Well... :)
Patent holders DO have the right to prevent use/distribution of infringing "devices". So an" AVC patent holder outside MPEG-LA's pool" could use that right to force users, distributors and implementors into paying ridiculous, perhaps even retrospective, license fees, to continue operating. Given in many fields h.264 is so entrenched it would be almost impossible to change, some relatively large customers would just have to pay up. Plus - not all litigiously-minded companies decide that the sane economic approach is best, as some have proven in the last few years
is to be DRM free!
That would be about as effective as DRM.
from the /. FAQ http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml
Note that being moderated Funny doesn't help your karma. You have to be smart, not just a smart-ass.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Err... no. No one pirates from Netflix because all of their material is already on Pirate Bay before NetFlix gets it.
I'm not sure about Netflix, but the DRM that Hulu and BBC's iPlayer use, RTMPE, was broken a long time ago. However, while it's possible to find programs for saving the streams from these services, but there don't seem to be widely distributed, user friendly programs to do so. I don't see why the situation would necessarily be any different if there were no DRM at all. People seem sufficiently happy with the service Hulu and iPlayer provide that they're not going to the trouble of downloading software to get round the services terms and conditions.
And you know this for sure, how? Or are you just spreading (paid-for) FUD?
c++;
StreamTransport I'm not sure how much more user friendly you can get.
I've gone to bat for content providers before, and stood up for DRM as a best effort by content providers.
Knowing that though, given that HTML5 needs to be an open standard, attempting to implement DRM would be even more pointless. DRM video would be nearly impossible to implement in a meaningful way. Given that the content keys would have to be transmitted via http, a greasemonkey script, a proxy, firefox/chrome/safari/IE addon, etc. would all make implementing this incredibly difficult. Even if they used websockets or some other malarky, I think similar techniques would be able to easily defeat DRM systems implemented for HTML5.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I believe in the power of the market.
If customers want a harsh and unforgiving DRM increasing their costs for hardware and media, then they'll ask to buy it.
Right now, there are a lot of videos that are poorly labeled ("Hey, this is funny, watch it"), so I'd imagine Google is investigating searching the content of video. DRM would make this far more difficult, if even possible (legally). However, DRM would ensure sites like Youtube have more content from the major studios. It's a tricky position, as DRM would hurt Google's primary product, but perhaps increase ad-revenue in some of their others. I'm not sure which is the better move, since the latter is more profitable in the short-term, but the former promotes long-term relevance. Google is financially well off enough to be thinking long-term, but their investors might not be...
This decision won't change a thing. If Hollywood can't do what they want in HTML5 they will just stick with Silverlight or some other 'screw-the-user' solution.
The only certain thing about this decision is that it for sure will not achieve is its apparent objective of making DRM itself any less attractive to people that want to use it, like Hollywood or their bitches like Netflix.
All that will happen as a result of this decision is that Linux and other opensource users will be even more denied access to services implementing DRM. Netflix have already demonstrated that they don't give a crap about what their Linux customers think or do, including leave. Other websites are and will just adopt the same stance.
A digital-rights-"managed" web is not an open web. So it's essential to keep the common web DRM-free. DRM Is ok for deliberate use in payed communities or the like, but the general web is not vendor specific (as DRM for online content generally is).
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
As many times as ive been called a dork,i still cant help but find the posts funny(sarcasm reigns)but still so ever intelligent..
DORKS and NERDS Rock!!!
Whem Microsoft "asks" something, the only appropriate response is "Fuck off!". What, I believe, Google, Mozilla, and even Apple are well aware of.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Evidently you missed the 'wannabee' part of the above.
A nerd left a rude comment on a website !
Some lessons will have to be learned the hard way. How about this for a lesson? Multiple generations raised upon the demonstrated idea that they can't be trusted. Anyone with secrets want to hire individuals with a lack of respect for others?
Google is primarily driven by ad revenue so they will oppose anything that threatens their ability to make money on advertising and data mining your information.
All of those "free" services that Google offers are not actually free. You have to be willing to give up your freedom and anonymity to use them.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Does our community think that is important for the open web and free software?
Do the editors think that no-one will see through their loaded questions???
then they wouldn't need to encrypt their content. After all, only people that encrypt stuff have something to hide, right?
Be seeing you...
True, but indie game devs usually do not have the man power to develop in C++
My experience differs. And even you disbelieve that it does, please replace "C++" in my comment with "any language not known to compile to IL that 1. is verifiably type-safe and 2. doesn't use Reflection.Emit". One situation is that someone has an existing game in an "unsafe" language working on one platform and wants to port it to 360. Or that a scripting language engine works on the DLR but the 360 doesn't support the DLR because the 360 lacks Reflection.Emit (source). Just as your team has skilled F# coders, my team has skilled Python coders, but IronPython uses facilities that aren't present on the 360.
And even beyond programming language barriers, the Xbox Live Indie Games review policy bans any written or spoken text in a constructed language. This would appear to ban the plot device of a community that speaks a foreign language until you get a plot coupon representing having learned that language, after which the translation convention sets in and you begin to see or hear that foreign language as English or whatever other language you're playing the game in.
An order of magnitude means a factor of ten. Three orders of magnitude are a factor of 10*10*10, or a thousand. "A few orders of magnitude" sounds like three orders of magnitude. Three orders of magnitude over last June's iDevice count would be a hundred billion. I have trouble believing that there are a hundred billion PCs in use, fourteen for every man, woman, and child in rich and poor countries.
As far as I can tell, the following represents the truth.
Google recently (December 2010) bought Widevine, a technology company on the massive DECE consortium (the largest industry-wide effort ever summoned for interoperable DRM), who have a large number of DRM patents and have developed what apparently amounts to a connected, polymorphic DRM system. The notion of their system is that the algorithm required on the clients to decrypt content frequently changes, disabling any known hacks and probably giving the ability for the centralised authority to disable/reject individual endpoints. Whilst the specifications for this system remain unpublished, initial implementations have been made and are in limited distribution.
The usual holes still remain, as with any DRM system the thing is ultimately flawed. However, the question is whether Google will place Widevine DRM support in to ChromeOS and Google Chrome on other platforms, in an attempt to market secure (cheap, paid for) on-demand distribution of premium content (feature length films, TV shows, etc.). Google also recently purchased a new Los Angeles office (the home of Hollywood) with little or no explanation.
For more information on DECE see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECE
For more information on Widevine see: http://www.widevine.com/
Keeping the bastards honest.
And Android is beating the crap out of it.
Android on four carriers is beating the crap out of iPhone on one carrier and iPod touch on no carrier. Once iPhone service begins on Verizon Wireless, watch iOS's share rise again. Besides, the fact that several apps are paid on iPhone but ad-supported on Android indicates that iPhone owners are more likely to actually buy something online than owners of an Android-powered phone.
Sometimes it forces you to buy this years edition of the game because the multiplayer server is turned off
Why would multiplayer on a console need a server? Can't you just plug in another gamepad or three? I thought support in games for multiple gamepads was the big benefit of consoles.
And MPEGLA have third party problems too. There may be third parties who hold patents on their work (e.g. Google). Bummer, huh?
DRM is THEIR lock on YOUR door. It's a lock to keep you out of your house, not a lock to prevent someone walking in to your home.