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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.
Barack Obama is a Stuttering Clusterfuck of a Miserable Failure.
It exists...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This is like the old DIVX argument from years ago. Just because your device is *capable* of playing protected content - it doesn't mean you *have* to play (or pay for) protected content. It would be nice to be able to offer the functionality for services like Netflix, Amazon, or whoever else you want to watch, in a standardized, cross-platform manner, without every media provider having to build some hokey Java or Flash player into every browser, TV, DVD player, Game console, etc etc etc - and still have wonky support for only half the devices, and no support for "new" services on "legacy" devices.
But I digress - I'm not trying to sway anyone's opinion on the matter - let's just call a spade a spade - it *is* about copy-protection.
This whining about DRM should end. how could "DRM in HTML5" NOT obsolete proprietary, browser-specific plug ins? The reference doesn't even say that. It's just another whining article.
As long as DRM is implemented in a way that doesn't make the browser plug-in itself binary-only, a standard, auditable source code just like we have with everything else, who cares? Oh my god, someone wants to ENCRYPT their video stream!! THE HORRORS!!!! WHO GIVES A FUCK?????????
I could care less about DRM in HTML5. It's better than having to install Flash or Silverlight! Let's get real here.
We don't need to hobble our technologies to make certain people money.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
...is that when I went back to the original Slashdot post on "Ian Hickson (author of HTML5 spec.) on the real purpose of DRM" - the enclosed link to the original article made me go through a sign-on to Google Plus" :-O
The reality of any petition is that the W3C will likely do what its (paying) members want (as it is after all an industrial consortium), and hence it is unlikely to care what others think provided it doesn't hurt growing the membership.
As a personal Mad Men fan, I do not direct any disgust towards advertising their way; today's advertisers are a whole other collective monster.
This, "Big Media" of yours, needs the web to spread word of mouth and not banner ads and pop-ups...
Is that what the Tard Party calls it when a loss of 700k jobs per month becomes a gain of 200k jobs per month, and the stock market hovers near all time highs, while the housing market picks up steam?
Let's be real here for a moment.
You have Down Syndrome.
You should have been aborted, but you weren't so please shut the fuck up.
Most of the web's video is streamed from Netflix. That's mostly streamed through Silverlight or browser specific plugins.
How does letting HTML5 natively stream Netflix encourage proprietary browser plugins!? If just Netflix switched over (and they've said they intend to once DRM is in the spec) then by definition the majority of HTML5 streaming will be using less not more browser plugins.
Digital Restricted Media is a repeatedly failed and broken system. There is zero need for it in HTML5 or anything else.
If you insist on DRMed content then nothing prevents you from wrapping your content in some digitally restricted format that current day HTML happily delivers. If you insist on DRM you can use it right now without any modification to HTML.
If you encumber HTML with the DRM du jour you not only unnecessarily encumber HTML, you also lock yourself into a system that is GUARANTEED to be broken in short order and completely useless for its intended purpose into the future.
The proposition of inserting DRM into HTML is as absurd as the proposition of inserting Real Networks .ram into HTML. If you want to use that shit, you can now. If you put it into HTML then you've only got more broken shit in HTML.
I need free entertainment. It is immoral to profit from this need.
It is so that media companies can quit their bitching.
Keep DRM as a plugin, keep it out of the web.
It is trivial to combine a plugin and HTML5 video and audio to playback secure content.
It can and will still remain trivial to also record said content for backup and/or sharing with others.
Whether it is by ripping the data directly or using a virtual audio and video driver that duplicates to a file to capture it directly as it is processed.
Doesn't flash already lock people out in HTML4? This is something that already happens.
What are we talking about here? An encryption layer, built in to HTML5 to enforce access, similar to DVD CSS?
It's something people can already do without HTML5, thus it doesn't really belong in HTML5, and it's something that can happen anyway, without it being built in.
DRM is bad.[1]
HTML5 is good.
If a bad thing is included in something good, that thing is still bad.
Therefore, DRM in HTML5 is bad.
[1] It should be obvious DRM is bad, but: https://www.eff.org/issues/drm
In fact, Consumer oriented DRM should be illegal. It's an anti-competive anti-consumer dangerous practice. (I'm totally fine with the military using DRM to protect confidential information, etc).
You have a choice. Either your platform allows the content providers to at least have an illusion of content control, or the content providers will NOT provide complete access to their products on this platform.
Open source- free software- open standards: these are choices but NOT the only option for a given platform. Microsoft, and more importantly Sony are introducing game changing hardware later this year in the form of next generation consoles. The Xbox720 and PS4 (yeah, you idiots, I KNOW their release names will be different) have been designed from the ground up to be the world's greatest delivery services for media, and both incorporate very sophisticated DRM systems.
Increasing computer power and bandwidth make DRM systems ever easier and 'better'. 'Always on' makes the dream of continuous user authentication a completely achievable concept. DRM is going to get stronger, more powerful, and all pervasive- be in no doubt.
We have ZERO right to complain what others wish to do with what is theirs. What we DO have the right to be concerned about is keeping the generality of our computing platforms for OUR files. The presence of DRM should never mean we are lock out from using hardware acceleration for our files (files of our own creation free from DRM). The 'path' used for DRM encumbered files should always be an alternative to paths used by DRM free files.
Put simply, we should pay NO PRICE for the optional presence of DRM mechanisms on our devices. If we never wish to use a DRM encumbered file, we should be unaware of any issue to do with DRM on the device.
DRM does interfere with the old idea of lending to a friend, but sadly there is nothing that can be done about this when digital files can be replicated in ways books, VHS tapes and even DVDs never could be by the ordinary person expending an ordinary effort. On the other hand, DRM files sold as a product (non-continuous payment with unlimited life ownership) MUST be resellable under the first sale doctrine, and that is something those that create the DRM systems must ensure.
If those that maintain the web standards refuse to allow DRM, the 'everything within the browser' concept will fail, although I think this is a good thing. The current generation of clowns behind such standards think infinite levels of abstraction that mean even simple computing tasks need insane levels of computer processing is reasonable. We are told to be impressed when WebGl, for instance, renders more slowly than an 80386 could do using pure software, even when we have a powerful discrete graphics card.
With everyone that matters forking the code-bases behind the current browsers to provide code 'closer' to-the-metal, such 'principled' discussions about DRM from people like the FSF have become completely irrelevant. The rise of ARM as the new computing standard is bringing "real" back into the business. No-one making mobile, battery powered devices wants them to run like crap any more, because they 'respect' the ideas of people like the FSF. Open-source, open-standards and free software will always be great. Compromising what we can do with our devices because of loony thinking from people on either side of the argument, is not great.
Great.
If some other company or service started today - they'd have a VERY steep curve to go and create plug-ins for all such devices. They would NEVER work across any OLD/existing devices. So I'd argue the lack of DRM standards are helping incumbent services maintain their monopolistic market dominance.
W3C sent them back a letter in conjunction with ICANN sayng "Fuck you and Fuck the Interwebs. We want some of that internet money like the Canadians got!"
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
You can either run Netflix-on-Windows in a VM or run Netflix via wine....in both cases you could grab the unencrypted video output and dump it to a file for a pristine digital copy (well, as good as what you were watching anyway).
When peoples devices failed and they couldn't move content they paid for to other devices (even prior to failure). Or the moment someone bought a DVD while on vacation in another region only to find it didn't work when they got home. That's when it started, but I'm not sure just how slippery it is.
While I agree DRM is bad in the worst possible way, lets be pragmatic for a second:
Not including DRM in HTML5 isn't going to cause any change in Hollywood's persistent wrong-thinking about forcing DRM down everyones throats. They aren't simply going to give up on using DRM because HTML doesn't support it. Thats already the case and look what we have: a nightmare hodge-podge of multiple different platform-specific and badly written vendor-specific DRM plug-ins and other implementations all assuming you must be running Windows or Apple and all fighting to fill your memory and crash your CPU.
At least by including DRM in HTML5 we can eliminate the need to install all the buggy bloatware like Adobe flash etc. because the DRM implementation will be right in the browser.
Apart from a more lightweight system, it should also be more stable and also consistent across multiple platforms, thus forever putting an end to artificial platform-specific barriers such as those preventing Netflix on Linux.
That in turn would also mean one less artificial monopolistic advantage Microsoft have, so one less reason to be buying or running Windows, and one more reason to migrate to Linux instead, which I consider can only be a good thing.
I don't see why DRM isn't supported with HTML5, after all, the content creators should have a right to protect their material and consumers can always refuse to purchase a DRM protected product.
Having DRM with HTML5 should be an option.
I fail to see the 'big' picture they are talking about, because in the end, as long as we have a 'for-profit' economy, people have a right to make a living. If someone choose to make a product and have DRM to protect it, when it is out there for consumers, they have a choice to buy it or leave it.
Will I be able to write one so I can decrypt the content for my NooBrowser I'm writing for my computer science course?
If no, then the CDM *cannot* be implemented by all browsers, contrary to your claim.
If yes, then I will be able to decrypt all internet protected content, which then negates the DRM entirely and makes the whole thing pointless, really.
When the W3C charter includes making: "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." that also includes making the benefits available to folk who would like to get paid for the content they create.
Let's just boil this down to what most of the current argument is about: Netflix.
Java is supposed to be cross-platform, and able to do all sorts of media stuff. Netflix already runs on a bunch of Blu-Ray players etc, presumably running on java-based software.
While Java browser-plugs are quite a PITA lately, I still have yet to discover why Netflix hasn't been made to run on PC's using Java. I'd assume there are DRM options available, code could probably be re-used, and if the browser-plugin is a security issue then I'm sure a dedicated application could be made available.
Why is HTML5 even needed?
n/t
They can benefit from the benefits of the web without DRM.
Just like I can.
It isn't there to support a business model. It's to support an internet.
They can open up a shop on the internet and sell "their" stuff (though if they insist on still calling it their stuff after they've sold it, I want to keep the money I'd otherwise be paying them for it). No DRM required to do that.
Open source implementations of DRM? you think the content mafia is going to allow you to use an open implementation of some DRM "standard"? 1st thing hundreds of C coders will do is dump the frame buffer into libmp4 just to snub the bastards!
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The W3C is the NRA of the internet.
They are, at best, out of touch academics who are high off 'web 2.0' bullshit. That's at best.
At worst they fully represent the military/industrial complex.
If it wasn't for WHATWG the internet would be a ridiculous clusterfuck of competing variations on HTML/CSS. Hell, CSS3 would still be 'in beta' if FOSS devs hadn't pushed it through.
I hate the W3C...despite my sig.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Remember ICANN ?
Remember ICANN's statement of interest when it first started ?
Remember what ICANN told us back then, that is was for all the netizens ?
It even opened its application to individuals --- I applied, and I even got a membership card mailed to me
What has happened to ICANN is happening to W3C --- they have been co-opted because of BIG MONEY
It's the BIG MONEY that they have sold their soul to --- to hell with the users, to hell with the netizens, to hell with the world
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
If there is a coalition of 27 web freedom organizations that have sent a joint letter opposing DRM support, should we (Slashdot as an entity) also write them expressing our opposition?
If you want DRM use the object tag. It is already supported. There is nothing stopping media companies today from from creating html5 web pages/apps to display DRM encombered video. They can use their proprietary, platform-specific browser plug-ins already with the object tag. If you are going to require DRM, I don't see a big difference between using the video tag and the object tag.
Asking why DRM is wrong in html5 is like asking why killing is wrong if it happens in Nicaragua.
The proprietary DRM requires a lot of jumping through hoops. Given that drm WILL exist, would it be better to have that DRM be as it is today, or to be standardized, so it works correctly on all platforms? I don't like DRM, but I'd prefer DVD-style standardized DRM, but openly discussed to avoid Sony dumbness, over proprietary plugins for each DRM scheme.
The typical net margin in the grocery industry is 2-3%. That's what a grocer makes if they are lucky enough to stay in business. It can't really go any lower.
Bonds pay 1% - 7%, so if grocery margins were any lower store owners may as well shut down and just get bonds - they'd get the same return without the trouble of running a grocery store.
For grocery shopping, you may well be right. But remember that minimum wage laws were originally enacted in a very different environment, where they immediately benefited huge swaths of the workforce (factory workers, miners etc) where the owners had much bigger margins.
As another poster noted in reply to your comment, minimum wage laws can be both beneficial and detrimental. It all depends on the wage being set and other market conditions involved. Most certainly, the simplistic view that minimum wage is always bad and should be abolished is wrong.
Red Herring, not strawman. Right?
If you don't like DRM don't consume the content it protects/monetizes. Who cares. Friggin open source turbo nerds pontificating about something they can avoid. Flash Sucks, Silverlight Sucks, HTML 5 Sucks ... let's just shut the entire internet down.. Let's face it, open source hasn't come close to producing something that can't be bitch slapped by closed source software...
Collapse away.. fairies..
Flash sucks, Silverlight sucks, HTML 5 sucks, DRM sucks... just turn your internet off and read the paper ... brought to you specifically by the agenda spewing media.. I for one cannot fathom the amount of whining that goes on in this place..
Well, if Javascript were fast enough and if it were itself secure, people could simply implement their own DRM solutions directly in Javascript. Which illustrates that there is a bigger problem with HTML5 than the lack of DRM.
For grocery shopping, you may well be right. But remember that minimum wage laws were originally enacted in a very different environment, where they immediately benefited huge swaths of the workforce (factory workers, miners etc) where the owners had much bigger margins.
As another poster noted in reply to your comment, minimum wage laws can be both beneficial and detrimental. It all depends on the wage being set and other market conditions involved. Most certainly, the simplistic view that minimum wage is always bad and should be abolished is wrong.
I don't see any other replies to my comment. You mentioned "when minimum wage laws were originally enacted". When federal minimum wage was enacted in the US, it was 25 US cents per hour. I agree, a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour is okay. :)
Adjusted for inflation, that 25 cents is $4.02 in today's money. That's probably about what a stoned high school student who shows up 15 minutes late is actually worth. So $4.02 is about right - a minimum wage for a minimum employee. On the other hand, the gas station near my house starts people at $10.50 / hour because they don't want minimum employees, they want people who show up on time. That seems to be about the going rate to show up on time, sober.
So what of the people not worth $10.50, the kids who haven't learned how to show up time, the helpless drunks, and the sociopaths? Should they be allowed to work for $8 / hour? Obama's proposal says no, if you're 17 and not ready to be responsible, you're not allowed to start at $8. His proposal is that if you're not worth more than $10.10 / hour, you're stuck on government handouts - you won't be able to work for less than $10.10. Is that a good rule? You decide.
Without it, greedy corporations will enslave many poor postdoc compsci people and force them to make an unnecessary fork to get it in. It is better to accept DRM in HTML5 and simply boycott its usage in the hope that one day it will be deprecated, so that if future corporations demand it's undeprecation they will be accused of taking the p*** and laughed out of the room.
John_Chalisque
They should just make browsers cost money.... 120€ per browser and 60€ per update, and gief half to hollywood. Problem solved.
Since the described mechanism is not specific to video,
and since the CDM plugin will be able to acess all input and output devices the browser offers, the proposed DRM opens the door for a custom Web.
The CDM plugins that will be created will be like Flash: they will offer not only video but custom programming languages, widgets and other components that will allow for rich interactive applications.
But this time each company will have their own custom implementation, allowing companies to create their own version of the Web, which runs on their equipment only.
This will be the deathbed for Linux on the desktop, since none of these plugins will work on Linux by default.
This will also be the death of any small laptop and tablet manufacturer that cannot cut a deal with these big companies. They will not be able to offer cheap products since these products will not run the content that MS and Apple devices will run.
If the WWW committee allows this, they might stop HTML development alltogether, because a browser's task will be simply the task to run the CDM plugin of the owner vendor.
if DRM is added to the 'HTML5' standard, then there is no problem on all devices which support 'HTML5' standard, so what the hell are they talking about. Also, if DRM is available in the 'HTML5' standard, it doesn't mean you have to use it..
It's simple, if DRM isn't part of the 'HTML5' standard then external plugins are still mandatory for certain webservices, so you won't be able to watch stuff through certain devices since plugins tend to be platform specific..
DRM is sadly a necessity which you just have to learn to live with.. people are so lame these days, they want everything for free.. If DRM in 'HTML5' is standarized it shouldn't be a problem to watch any content you like on any 'HTML5' device.. And as I said in other topics, let's not forget 'HTML5' is still not finalized, it's still in development, so even features of 'HTML5' which are already finalized are still missing from some browsers..
Yes, DRM is sadly needed, but if implemented correctly there shouldn't be any problem on any HTML5 device.. I say, just give people the option, it's better to have it in the standard than forcing people to use a plugin to get the same result but with fewer people being able to use it on all their devices..
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.
This is a spurious statement. DRM is a technology. What it's "about" is what people use it for. DRM is used to protect copyright. So claiming DRM is "not about" protecting copyright is a lie. Also, learn what "straw man" means.
2.) DRM in HTML5 doesn't obsolete proprietary, platform-specific browser plug-ins; it encourages them.
It encourages small plug-ins which handle encryption and authentication, and which are easily ported. Rather than large plug-ins that decode video and may or may not need or use a GPU and which are buggy behemoths.
3.) the Web doesn't need big media; big media needs the Web.
What does this even mean? The Web is not a person, so it doesn't need anything. Big media doesn't need the Web either. There is instead a situation whereby media companies (big and small) would like to use the web to make money, and (some) web users would like to use the web to access their products.
If those are their axioms, who the fuck cares what theories they can derive? Cart, meet horse.
I would add an objection 4.) In the full communications stack, of which HTML is only one layer above transport, why is ANY notion of content ownership being grafted on? Blurring the lines that have so successfully provided a "division of labor" factoring of data communications is NOT helpful. You have proprietary content? Fine, provide an application to decrypt/display it and leave what was once a vendor neutral tool alone.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Dear W3C, if you want to facilitate encryption/decryption of contents of HTMLMediaElement, isn't it a good idea to extend it further to element? http://useful-linux-tips.blogspot.in/2013/04/drm-in-html5-defective-by-design.html
I can understand that gold has a real price. I can understand that a house has a real price... because they are scarce. That is why there will be real-world poor a rich people.
Internet and the whole intellectual world was never meant to be driven by scarcity. The Internet was build to mitigate the real-world problems with duplicating resources. The Internet allows the main commodity - information - to be transferred, duplicated, created, shared... at virtually no cost. Internet is the attempt to create a world where there are no poor (speaking of knowledge) people but everybody share everything as much as possible for the good of mankind.
The scarcity complex is artificially introduced to this unlimited e-world by companies who simply failed so far to find a new business model in a world where everybody is already rich with information - everybody are already fed with information. Where there is no hunger/demand there is no traditional business model. So lets make those information rich people become poor so they will hunger for information and then we can feed them for a price.
Let's deny access to information using a copyrights, laws, DRMs... Let's artificially create once again information-rich and information-poor people because the existing real-world model proved to work so well.
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
The only problem with DRM is the attempt to enforce the decisions made by the system.
I would have no problem with a DRM system which indeed *managed* rights. ie: allowed you to register your right to watch movie x because you own it and would like to format-shift. I would even be okay with it all connecting to a central database to notify you that "you have license for viewing this from a single screen, but it looks like your wife is watching it at home right now. Our system does not believe that you have the right to do this". So long as it didn't also include a system for taking over your computer to ensure that your viewing habits agree with its opinion of your rights.
I would absolutely *love* that kind of system
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The "Encrypted Media Extensions" that is in draft at the W3C says, "This specification does not define a content protection or Digital Rights Management system. Rather, it defines a common API that may be used to discover, select and interact with such systems as well as with simpler content encryption systems. Implementation of Digital Rights Management is not required for compliance with this specification: only the simple clear key system is required to be implemented as a common baseline."
The Encrypted Media Extensions is just a mechanism to insure that data that is on client systems are secure. Looking forward to using the Encrypted Media Extensions in systems to ensure data security.
The people that are against the Encrypted Media Extensions need to read the draft document. Of course they don't have to use it either, and stop messing it up for the rest of us.
Lies.
If it's a product, then I own it after I have paid for it, and can do with it as I please.
If you are instead insisting on ownership of the *idea* and not a specific representation thereof, as copyright does, then this is an artificial, novel, and harmful construction.
I might add, you have no idea what socialism is, and the 'free market' types generally don't like government-enforced monopolies.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
If html 5 gets DRM then I'm switching over to gopher protocol.
Funny you mention that. In a post last week I mentioned something I noticed while working with felons, which also applies to some other people. They'll spend two months looking for a job. Then when their parole officer says "get a job by Tuesday or I'm filing for revocation", they suddenly go get a job that same day. Don't worry, keep looking. Soon enough your parole officer or probie will put their foot down and you'll go get a job. One tip - do NOT lie about your felony. In fact, the best approach seems to be to address it right up front, before the potential employer finds out about it.
The good news is, the sky is the limit. The first job is hard to find / not the job you want. After that, it's amazing. The head of our county probation office is a friend of mine, and a multiple felon. Another friend, also a felon, is now now an assistant dean at a university.
Thanks, but this advice doesn't apply to me. I was just making a point.
Like you say, get that first job and employers will trust you. I say, pay that guy well and treat him with respect. You can turn (almost) any employee into hardworking, trustworthy employee.
Cheap storage VM.