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RMS Urges W3C To Reject On Principle DRM In HTML5
gnujoshua writes "In a new article, GNU Project founder Richard M. Stallman speaks out against the proposal to include hooks for DRM in HTML5. While others have been making similar arguments, RMS strikes home the point that while companies can still push Web DRM themselves, the stance taken by the W3C is still — both practically and politically — vitally important: '[...] the W3C cannot prevent companies from grafting DRM onto HTML. They do this through nonfree plug-ins such as Flash, and with nonfree Javascript code, thus showing that we need control over the Javascript code we run and over the C code we run. However, where the W3C stands is tremendously important for the battle to eliminate DRM. On a practical level, standardizing DRM would make it more convenient, in a very shallow sense. This could influence people who think only of short-term convenience to think of DRM as acceptable, which could in turn encourage more sites to use DRM. On the political level, making room for DRM in the specifications of the World Wide Web would constitute an endorsement in principle of DRM by the W3C. Standardization by the W3C could facilitate DRM that is harder for users to break than DRM implemented in Javascript code. If the DRM is implemented in the operating system, this could result in distribution of works that can't be played at all on a free operating system such as GNU/Linux.'"
He's against DRM in HTML5? Why didn't I see this coming?
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
I've never heard of a free operating system called "GNU/Linux!"
Is all for toejam in HTML5, though.
It's like a secret code, just for us: RMS Urges W3C To Reject On Principle DRM In HTML5
BlameBillCosby.com
There seems to be a false assumption that all DRM is bad. What about transient content. Say a sample, demo or rental that has a limited lifespan.
Such things are quite different from content you "own".
So many acronyms! It's a good thing I'm in the industry, or I'd have no idea what that headline means.
I imagine trying to communicate this to my friends and family: RMS (sounds vaguely British) urges WC3 (the successor to Warcraft II) to reject on principle DRM (Dr. Mario) in HTML5 (they've probably heard that buzzword by now)
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
If he's successful in preventing HTML5 from being adopted by Netflix, Amazon, etc., that's a big win for non-open technology like Flash and Silverlight.
Stallman is a good example of what happens if you don't pick your battles carefully.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
just use linux. it's more free.
Keep web tech free of DRM, leave DRM to be implemented in plugins.
There is NOTHING wrong with plugin-based webpages and people shouldn't think this way.
Trying to replace every single use-case for plugins is moronic.
And more to the point, it bloats the hell out of the codebases.
RMS is overestimating the amount of control that goes in to the whole DRM system. In any case, regardless of the browser solution, the system has to be secured and protected according to the specific instructions of the DRM maker (e.g. Microsoft). Without that, this EME browser layer is but a useless shell (only encryption) that doesn't do DRM anyways. As DRM will by default always be "security by obscurity", the risk of lowering the level of acceptance is low for any open system. Let's concentrate on more truly open systems instead, and refrain from using solutions that are not truly free. That is the best protection against DRM.
And should this not land in W3C now, I can predict it will land there in the future: it will become a de-facto standard supported by major players (Google, MS) and will land in any 'semi-open' solution out there. In fact, it carries another risk: by not accepting this into W3C, it could find itself being taken less seriously in the future by the same major players, leading to more de-facto standards and a return to past times: DOM0, more user-agent inconsistencies and more of these ghosts from the past.
(expert knowledge on this subject, and generally not in favor of any of such restrictions)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#On_sex
"On sex ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
[P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia
Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.
For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent's will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia (nasal sex with dead plants).
http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
Link
There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That's not willing participation, it's imposed participation, a different issue.
Link
I've read that male dolphins try to have sex with humans, and female apes solicit sex from humans. What is wrong with giving them what they want, if that's what turns you on, or even just to gratify them?
http://stallman.org/articles/extreme.html"
They won't rest until the web is like television. Unidirectional, full of corporate messaging, highly polished emptiness. Think back to the web in the late 1990's. They're already 80% of the way there.
-- "Oh. This guy again."
I'd be quite happy if they'd standardize the DRM in HTML5. That way there would be one common DRM to crack instead of everyone having their own peculiar variant.
Why not incorporate a viewing cost in the standard? Make it a mandatory attribute in the HEAD tag or something, And couple all browsers to MC and VISA right away. That way we're all set to make some real business happening on the Internet! Because this is what is needed to get business happening, right?
A modern browser should be able to serve most user's common needs without plugins. Don't let your politics impede technology. Plugins should be optional, only for esoteric things.
If the DRM is implemented in the operating system, this could result in distribution of works that can't be played at all on a free operating system such as GNU/Linux.
Aren't both of the above the *desired* configurations for closed-source and/or media/content providers - and possibly the government?
[ Now, where is my tin-foil hat? Okay! Who took my frelling hat? ]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
As far as I understand it, DRM in HTML5 would be like the Video tag; no actual specific format specified, just a standardized method for declaring its existence. Just as people can put proprietary, patent-encumbered video formats in an html video tag, so too could they with the DRM standard in HTML5. Folks would still have to install or have proprietary DRM blobs/programs of sorts for any of this to work. Ironically, this puts DRM in webpages potentially even less tied to web technologies, as they'll be passed through to OS-provided methods.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Neckbeards.
If we standardize it in the browser (HTML5) - we won't have to implement it in the OS.
I don't like DRM either - but I would like my services like Amazon, Hulu, Netflix or whatever to work across all my devices. As much as I would love to have these services simply unprotect all their content - I don't think they'll do it, and I wouldn't if I were them. If they choose to bog-down their services with anti-ad-skipping technologies and nasty things of the such (which Amazon and Netflix do NOT btw) - those service who don't will win out.
I usually find his views a bit extreme but in this case I believe that DRM will be the thin edge of the wedge. Suddenly a huge amount of perfectly open content (say government data) will be DRM'd as a reflex. Plus the DRM will come out on Monday and be cracked on Tuesday resulting in just having a new buggy and useless layer to deal with. So now you will invite a whole new audience to the cracking party. So people will all start downloading FirefoxK'd.
Most people think that DRM is about them as if it is supposed to keep movies from appearing on The Pirate Bay. It's ineffective at preventing this as it takes just one leak, any leak of a cracked or "analog hole'd" to be shared to render the whole scheme as ridiculous. And it is, ridiculous, as evidence by the fact that movies and the like are generally more easily obtained via TPB than commercially.
But that's not really the point of DRM. DRM prevents 3rd parties from being able to make a buck off the content being protected. Companies are extremely averse to liability, and even though cracked content is widely available, trying to make a buck off of it is nearly impossible to do without opening you up to legal liability.
DRM isn't really about you, it's about irritating you in order to prevent other companies from improving your experience with accessory services.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Bad is a subjective concept, and DRM can't be it (at least, not for everybody). The following are objective characteristics that do apply to all forms of DRM:
1 - It doesn't disturb pirates in any way
2 - It destroys value for your paying customers
3 - It makes the communication channels proprietary
Rethinking email
Must be some way to kill this fucking nerd with some sort of logical paradox (like they wanted to do to Hugh, but Picard wouldn't allow it).
DRM is also quite effective at controlling what features appear in playback devices. For example, try to buy a 'region-free' DVD player from a major consumer manufacturer ... they don't make them, thus the end consumer has little choice but to accept the 'region' policies put in place by the content makers.
While it's technically true that content existed before DRM, it's not actually meaningful the way you phrased it.
DRM used to exist in the form of the natural laws of the universe. Copying a book by hand with a pen pretty effectively meant you weren't going to be distributing it very widely. Copying a TV before the advent of the VCR was effectively impossible for almost everyone. Moreover, the inherent physical impediments to copying data was a far more effective form of DRM than anything that exists now. Technology has broken medium-inherent DRM, and now content producers are trying to build it back up in software. That's not meant to be a judgment on whether DRM is good or bad, just pointing out that in the general sense of something that prevents information from getting around, DRM has always existed.
Of course it should be rejected, you don't include something that doesn't work because it is impossible.
You might or might not like the man, but RMS tends to have a clear view of long-term dangers to personal freedom, as they relate to the flow of information. "The right to read" struck many people as crazy when it was written, yet today it describes a plausible world.
In this case, RMS is right. DRM is all about control, and it should not be the business of the W3C to provide ways to restrict the freedom of web users.
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For example, try to buy a 'region-free' DVD player from a major consumer manufacturer ... they don't make them, thus the end consumer has little choice but to accept the 'region' policies put in place by the content makers.
Or buy a $20 Chinese player which couldn't give a crap about region-coding and other DRM measures.
This whole "standardization" thing is a joke anyway, and I think the people dishonestly referring to it as standardization, ought to be called on their bullshit. They're standardizing an API, and people (even here on Slashdot, where you're supposed to at least pretend you're modestly informed; fake it if you have to)are getting the weird impression this somehow "solves" the problem of Flash, Silverlight and other proprietary nonstandard plugins. That is incorrect: you will still have a proprietary plugin, it still won't be maintained by your browser or OS people, it'll still be unaudited, and it'll still be very specific to dealing with one type of content and incompatible with competing content. You'll still have a bunch of flakey plugins written by the same usual suspects, assuming your computer is allowed to have them. The only thing these things would have in common from a standards PoV is an API.
Saying this is somehow "standardized" DRM is just plain bullshit, and they are doing that only for the purpose of hoping people will draw totally incorrect conclusions about it. It's a lie. Every time some misinformed person says "at least I'll be able to get rid of Flash" as though that amount of flakey code from untrusted-but-you-have-to-trust-them parties will change (it won't), the people who called it a "standards" push smirk, knowing their deception is working.
Furthermore, having W3C involved in this, is truly a mockery. Standards bodies exist to make things work with each other. But the entire purpose of DRM is to make things not work! The whole point of these proprietary plugins is that they can sometimes say NO, because you don't have the right kind of TV or something. If the plugins never said NO and refused to work, then nobody would be trying to make you use them. Keeping things from working, is practically the opposite of the entirety of the rest of the HTML spec.
So Stallman thinks that if DRM is a standard part of HTML, it will be "easy" and "convenient" and so smaller time web sites will end up using it. Which they wouldn't do anyway because DRM is hard? Because they didn't think of it? Is it really that easy to piggyback on a standard method of embedding decryption codes? How much cheaper is it really to do this with web standards than with Flash or Silverlight? Cheap enough to make a brand new market catering to all of those video sites that don't already use DRM? Which ones are those again?
What I really want to know is that if these web site owners are so stupid that they will start using DRM because it's more convenient, how much could they possibly understand about DRM? Couldn't we as open source evangelists just make something open source and call it DRM and hand it out to those dumbasses? It doesn't matter that it isn't really secure (was it ever secure in the first place?). It sounds like Stallman's concern is that once DRM is standardized it will become popular. All that being popular means in the technology world is that the name turns into a buzzword and everybody gets to claim they do DRM now.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
Seriously, the guy has outlived his usefulness by this point, and now I think he's just talking to hear himself talk.
Bullshit. The player manufacturers long ago so the writing on that wall.
Pretty much all of them but sony are easy to defeat (by design).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I Even mispelled his name on purpose .
And those content producers can either write their own damn browser plugin, or app for mobile devices.
The major problem with this stance, which is why it bothered me when RMS voiced it, is that we are increasingly moving towards thin client front ends with cloud back-ends in order to reduce front end costs. You can call this "the mainframe model", if you want a computing analogy, or "the POTS" model, if you want a communications analogy. The evolution of HTML has been strongly vectored in this direction, and continues to be vectored in this direction. The idea that plugins or apps are even supportable on the thinner and thinner client front end is becoming less realistic.
See this is WHY it's a problem. So let's say that I buy 2000$ worth of movies, music, ebooks from some BIG CONTENT provider, and then BIG CONTENT provider is bought by another one, and sells off the music business to some other content provider. Now when I visit their site or use their app I no longer have access to the music I already paid for.
THAT is the why DRM is bad and needs to go away.
This is not significantly different than when singles came out on 45RPM records, and you had to re-buy them on 33 1/3 RPM albums, and then re-buy them again on 8-Track tapes, and then re-buy them again on cassette tapes, and then re-buy them again on CDs.
What has changed with digital, and to be honest, for the music industry, it changed with the CD format, is that the medium on which the digital data is stored is fungible, which means the end of re-buying.
The music industry fought this in a number of ways, and we can easily see that: the DAT standard was perverted to ensure the recording frequency was at a beat frequency of the CD recording frequency to prevent non-buffered direct digital copying from CD to DAT being playable at the original recording frequency without artifacts, there was a Canadian DAT tax, and they were initially successful in causing DRM use on iTunes, but eventually unsuccessful, since CDN requirements meant that DRM had to be handled on equipment under the end-user's control.
The movie industry has been following this same trajectory, with the difference that they got into the game much later. Just as the music industry fought first the 8-Track, and later the cassette, the video industry fought consumer-recordable media in the form of VCRs. They are currently in the midst of attempting to go down the DRM path with Blu-Ray, which is having a difficult time, since forced firmware updates by new Blu-Ray DVDs coupled with running their code on your hardware to decode their content, which is how Blu-Ray DRM works, still has a lot of technical issues that are practically unfixable. On the network connected front, they are attempting to DRM the content streams, and, again, using client-side software under their control, decode the content only for playback.
Having a standard DRM mechanism in HTML5 dooms this effort to ultimate failure in the long term, even if you dislike the short term consequences. By disallowing the plug-in model, at some point, when (not if) the particular DRM is broken, it will be Game Over, just as it was for the music industry. And like the music industry, the movie industry will survive this event.
What is eventually dead, in this scenario, is the re-buy model that the music industry used to rely upon, and which the movie industry is still desperately trying to keep in place, even as the tent they are attempting to prop up turns to chewing gum around them.
If we take RMS' (and your) position, with proprietary plugins, this does two damaging things: (1) it litters the universe with incompatible plugins and transcoded content which is not portable, even should the DRM of a particular plugin be broken, and (2) it deflects the HTML vector from its eventual destination, good or bad (but without corresponding DRM required on the server side, there's no reason you couldn't run your own clo
Ah, here we go again. The myth that technology and technological standards can be politically neutral. A convenient myth, since it we can then absolve ourselves from any responsibility for how that technology is used.
I am thankful that RMS is a zealot devoted to fighting things like this. I know that I and others don't always agree with him, but other times I am profoundly grateful for his good arguments.
It may be that W3C's pronouncements have moral content. That still doesn't mean that they are binding on Netflix and Amazon.
Is that it is simply replacing one set of binary blobs (Flash, Silverlight and a host of dedicated non-web apps on mobile devices, smart TVs, games console etc) with another set of binary blobs (the content decryption plugins).
It does nothing to make the content work on more browsers (the content decryption plugins still have to be ported to a given OS/browser combination). In fact, if those who create content decryption plugins do browser sniffing to block browsers they dont like (or browsers that contain bugs, vulnerabilities or features that could allow access to the decrypted content) it may reduce the number of choices to view specific content.
It will likely increase the number of DRM solutions out there as different content providers will want their own DRM solutions. (e.g. what Netflix uses may be different to what Google or Microsoft or Hulu or Amazon uses).
as in National Rifle Association. It's not about gun safety/open internet standards...it's about corporate $$$
The W3C is the general 'tech industry' representative in this fight. I know that technically of course W3C is a non-profit, but their statements and general position on DRM and HTML5 (which **W3C opposed, remember?) show they are practically working for teleco's and 'content providers'
If it wasn't for WHATWG as an alternative working group HTML5 would not exist. And CSS3 would still be in trial fucking beta.
Ditch the W3C. They are trolls in this discussion.
Ditch the DRM notions while you're at it.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Where's Tim's outrage at the wholesale corporatization of his creation???
The fact that Tim Berhners-Lee isn't setting his hair on fire over this is telling. He should at least speak out against it in an Op/Ed or on a blog post. Fuck a tweet...anything.
IMHO, TBL did not 'create the internet' and does not speak for those interested in an open internet with cross-platform standards.
Thank you Dave Raggett
From looking at the spec, all it appears to be doing is creating a protocol for the negotiation of third party platform specific DRM plugins. So basically, platform specific third party browser plugins, but now in the standard for some reason. Why is this necessary? It doesn't make it so that the plugins are platform agnostic or open, it just makes it so that the protocol to load and activate platform SPECIFIC, purpose SPECIFIC, binary plugins are part of the standard now... for some reason. This just makes it more complicated and doesn't actually have any upside! These closed, binary DRM plugins will still need to be installed, just like flash or silverlight is, and they'll still only be on the platforms that the movie industry considers trustworthy, nothing will have changed except now we have a more complicated spec to follow in order to make a "compliant" browser.
I work on my Jeep with Craftsman tools.... it aint a "Craftsman/Jeep"...
Stallman is just a jerk who runs around touting "freedom" while actually opposing it. He offers up "free" code for all to use, but then demands that one of the uses of that code carry a name HE wants. Does everybody who builds a product with GNU stuff have to name their product "GNU/(product name)" ????
First, I think Ron Paul is a flake... so I'm not jumping in to defend him, or his fanboys, here BUT....
Since when is the enforcement of copyright an infringement of natural rights??????
Copyright IS a natural right, and the VIOLATION of that right is NOT a natural right. If I create a thing, it's MY thing and only I have the ownership of it and the right to make copies of it.... these rights belong to me because I MADE IT (no matter what Obama and his dirtbag acolytes think). That's what "copyright" (as in "copy right" or "right to make copies") means. NOBODY has a natural right to come along and steal the original or make copies of it for his/her gain without compensating me for my efforts in creating it. As the only person with the right to make copies (the "copyright" holder) I have the freedom to choose to let others make copies (by waiving that right) or to authorize others to make copies (by licensing) etc. If somebody else has a "natural right" to the results of my work, then I have no real rights at all (and neither does he, because others then have the "natural right" to his work). The idea that one man has a "natural right" to the work product of another man is an unjust, economically unworkable, fantasy right out of Karl Marx and is one of the fallacies underpinning the Obamacare trainwreck. (where non-medical people think they have a "natural right" to the work product of medical people... but they did not have the guts to re-instate slavery (this time using medical workers instead of blacks), so they do it with a blend of taxes on some people and "cost controls" on the medical people)
What are you smoking? Standards, like any English dictionary, are descriptive not proscriptive. They do not endorse. They do not prohibit. And there's nothing more useless than an ignored standard - just ask anyone writing web code during the IE6 years how cool that was.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
What a moron is this stallman. Having DRM baked in 'HTML5' is exactly what it needs to get even more aproval and usage, otherwise plugins like flash and silverlight will still be needed.. The advantage of having it standarized in 'HTML5' is that plugins aren't needed anymore so every platform can use it. It's not like you HAVE to use DRM as a webdeveloper.. Otherwise you can also say that stuff like webworkers and videotags should also be excluded from the 'HTML5' standard.
DRM is sadly needed because tons of people are too lame to just pay for content they 'enjoy', in the end all you get it 'america funniest homevideo' like content if nobody pays or you'll end up with 2 hour long commercials..
What real reason would there be for not including a possibility for using DRM, as other unnecessary JUNK has already been approved for the 'HTML5' standard.. As I said, no webdeveloper who doesn't want to use DRM will have any problem with it, and webdevelopers who do need to use DRM (for whatever reason) can use it without the pain of having to resort to external plugins which are not available on a lot of platforms these days (flash for instance isn't available on android anymore (unless you already installed it, but even then a browser like chrome doesn't support it)).
Point of order: there are proscriptive standards, backed up by laws of various kinds, but not so much in the area of online information systems. An example of a set of proscriptive standards is the definition of weights and measures; while many goods can be sold in any quantity, the vendor has to at least correctly describe the amount that is being sold.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Just sell it through Amazon: They don't care.
A couple years ago I purchased Disney's "The Little Mermaid" from amazon.com to replace a friend's stolen copy. As soon as the intended recipient saw it they said, "That's not from Disney!" The DVD had a poorly printed cover and DVD art, and significant problems playing.
I reported it to Amazon - not only the problems with the purchase but also the fact that it was obviously a copy and not an original. I've never heard back.
Well, OK, that's an important point but worth remembering that NIST doesn't write laws (it's a "non-regulatory agency"). Totally separate from NIST, some laws say "if you sell something measured in inches, you have to mean NIST inches", or in England "if you sell something measured in inches, we will throw you in jail".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Stallman makes more sense than people give him credit for. Web standards should be open and not subjected to any form of proprietary control just to appease content providers.
they will never stop the pirates, DRM on netflix be it silverlight, flash or a web standard is only going to cause headaches / browser crashes blah blah. If you want something for free... well erm just head over to a torrent site, if and when they all get shutdown something new will just replace it. I sub to netflix but hell id admit ive pirated the odd tv show to see what its like. In some cases its made me go out and want to buy the box set so they carry on making it and dont cancel the series. Make good quality entertainment and people will pay for it. As the article points out the only way to make it work is to lock it down at an OS and hardware level which in turn just forces linux/open src OS users to miss out or pirate content/crack DRM.
No. Common guys, this is not gonna work. Do we need to register thewebsitebay.com so soon? If all people where smoking marijuana and living in peace, sure DRM would be wonderful. Unfortunately some a greedy, they just want your worthless money, ya. DRM would only cause another type of software piracy. I am a web developer, and i think we will come out with other type of "convenient" ways to protect our software. but thanks.