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What's Actually Wrong With DRM In HTML5?
kxra writes "The Free Culture Foundation has posted a thorough response to the most common and misinformed defenses of the W3C's Extended Media Extensions (EME) proposal to inject DRM into HTML5. They join the EFF and FSF in a call to send a strong message to the W3C that DRM in HTML5 undermines the W3C's self-stated mission to make the benefits of the Web 'available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.' The FCF counters the three most common myths by unpacking some quotes which explain that 1.) DRM is not about protecting copyright. That is a straw man. DRM is about limiting the functionality of devices and selling features back in the form of services. 2.) DRM in HTML5 doesn't obsolete proprietary, platform-specific browser plug-ins; it encourages them. 3.) the Web doesn't need big media; big media needs the Web."
Also: the FSF has announced that a coalition of 27 web freedom organizations have sent a joint letter to the W3C opposing DRM support in HTML5.
This is one reason I think HTML5 is just a joke. HTML used to be about presenting information, but in HTM5 it's being turned into an application platform. Sort of like the difference between a Postscript viewer and the latest Adobe Reader.
The problem is that what you describe allows evil to fill in the cracks. If i vote with my wallet and abstain, but 50 other people still buy the Bad Thing, it doesnt mean that Bad Thing is moral or just or should be allowed to prosper. It just means 50 people parted with their money, allowing Bad Thing to grow. There are times when this philosophy breeds True Evil, and that is where capitalism needs to wane and social ideas need to surge.
* Bad Thing and True Evil are relative terms, set your own goalposts on those.
Good-bye
The CDM isn't necessarily even a plugin; it can be integrated into the browser. So for instance Microsoft could decide that Internet Explorer will have a built-in implementation of their PlayReady DRM as the only CDM it supports and that they won't allow other browsers to use that CDM or other CDM implementations in their browsers, and that'd be entirely compliant with the HTML5 ECE specification. It'd also be entirely non-interoperable with any non-Microsoft browser or platform.
The truth is that DRM actually is useful, but not for what most people are misled to believe. DRM is not to prevent piracy. Its long track record of being completely impotent in that regard is plenty argument for that fact. DRM restricts what the honest consumer is allowed to do with their purchased content. That allows the content producer to sell the same content to the consumer repeatedly. That is the ONLY purpose for DRM to exist, and the sooner the public begins to understand that, the sooner the public will refuse to accept DRM, and the sooner DRM will die.