Slashdot Mirror
EFF Makes Formal Objection to DRM In HTML5
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a formal objection to the inclusion of DRM in HTML5, saying that a draft proposal from the W3C could hurt innovation and block access to people around the world. From their press page: '"This proposal stands apart from all other aspects of HTML standardization: it defines a new 'black box' for the entertainment industry, fenced off from control by the browser and end-user," said EFF International Director Danny O'Brien. "While this plan might soothe Hollywood content providers who are scared of technological evolution, it could also create serious impediments to interoperability and access for all."'
While I understand why they've taken this position, "The Internet" != "WWW". Increasingly content producers are publishing content through app stores because apps provide content creators with a piece of mind that distribution across the DRM free web does not.
We will get to see the result of the grand experiment of publishing content on the web versus through apps. Content follows the money. If there is more money to be generated distributing content over a DRM free web, that's where it will stay. But if there is more money to be made distributing it through locked down apps on locked down platforms - well there's no reason to think that people won't abandon any technology as quickly as they adopt it if the content that they want to view migrates somewhere else.
That sounds like replacing one plugin interface for another one.
It is, yes, but with e.g. Flash or Silverlight you get a large, fat binary that's supposed to do quite a lot of things -- animations, window handling, 3D, network protocols and so on -- and that means a lot of used system resources and a larger surface for malicious attacks. A DRM-module, on the other hand, doesn't need to worry about 3D-rendering, window handling, vector graphics or anything such, it only needs to decrypt the data and verify that the surface it's given is acceptable to it. It all comes down to hopefully less resources consumed, higher stability and a lesser surface area for malicious attackers to latch on to. It just seems like a positive step to me, even if it is a small one.
I disagree, what this will lead to very quickly will be videos only playing on UEFI secure boot machines running only closed operating systems. Once that happens the banks and online stores will want similar stuff. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Rubbish. If the movie industries continue to not provide access because of no-DRM then they'll continue to suffer piracy and have physical media and cinema as their only distribution methods instead. Even the music industry eventually figure this out - that DRM was doing more harm than good.
We don't need DRM, we don't want DRM and if we avoid it and they refuse to publish their content then so be it, someone else will gladly come and take their place because there are many other film studios across the globe other than Hollywood that will gladly rake in $10million instead of the $0million Hollywood opts for because it decided not to publish at all unless it could have $100million.
DRM is about pushing the rental model and preventing ownership of things you've bought. If I pay for a film I want to be able to keep it and watch it when and where I want, not when and where the music industry says I can.
You're a fool for playing into their trap and pretending there is any kind of validity to their arguments. There's still no firm evidence that piracy even hurts them so to suggest it's a pragmatic necessity is utterly stupid.
This is being done at the behest of the Entertainment Industry. What happens with the next industry that wants something added to a standard? Where does it end? I have no problem with Netflix, or some other entity, saying that "if you want to use our fee-based service you must use this." But I don't want these add-ons polluting a standard. This is what we have plug-ins for. If you don't like the plug-in, don't use it and don't bitch about not getting a fee-based service.