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Reject DRM and You Risk Walling Off Parts of the Web, Says W3C Chief
An anonymous reader writes "Web technologies need to support DRM-protected media to reduce the risk of parts of the web being walled off, the chief executive of the web standards body W3C has told ZDNet. Dr Jeff Jaffe, CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium, says proposals to provide a hook for DRM-protected media within HTML, via Encrypted Media Extensions, are necessary to help prevent scenarios such as movie studios removing films from the web in a bid to protect them from piracy."
How many of these measures to "Protect something from piracy" ever work? Name the most DRM'd copy-protected movie ever distributed. I'll be there's a copy on Pirate Bay. They seem to be under the impression that each individual pirate has to crack their weird schemes.
Once a single person does it and produces a clean file then it's game over - its in the wild - and SOMEONE always manages to do it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Weasel words. Walling off content is effectively the same thing.
Similarly, it is a good idea to wall off some parts of a city that is infested with bubonic plague.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Good, let them wall themselves off.
removing anything off the internet is like trying to take the pee out of the pool
I'm not sure I understand what the fuss is all about. Our nice little series of tubes is not going to be diminished if "the movie studios remove movies from the web" in any significant way. It's the movie studios that will be diminished and, likely, quickly outcompeted in the marketplace. I think it's time to start full-stop calling all the bluffs.
The problem is it cannot be unobtrusive and work with an OS I want to use.
Sure I can tolerate it on my ps3, but not on a real computer.
DRM on music is now dead, books are next, then movies.
I agree, Jeff Jaffe needs to get a pink slip.
This should simply be viewed as treason.
they're all behind drm now. so what's the deal? it's not like netflix has non drm content section. it's not like I can buy movies on physical media without some sort of drm on them. so what exactly would they be removing?
why do we need another plugin system, when we have one that works perfectly well for the drm? what's in it for w3c? cash? why would the studios be anymore interested in porting their drm schemes to exotic hardware if you provided them with a new plugin system.
that the organization has a CEO is a failure in the first place - fuck 'em.
oh we need them because ms discontinued silverlight and netflix needs a new plugin.. yeah, perfectly good reasoning, that we need this or netflix goes out of business out of spite. and one thing mr ceo these 3 companies.. haven't they ALREADY fucking implemented the thing? didn't I just read about it a few articles ago? what the fuck do we need the EME standard for if they already did it, they as companies are who is pushing for it and they as companies can do it regardless of what W3C does or doesn't do. only thing your stamp is buying you is couple of free lunches and some budget money while taking it up the ass.
why don't you make like an unicorn and finally tell us what HTML5 actually encompasses instead of latching on more every year so we could finally perhaps have html5 compatible browsers - not that it matters since it seems webkit and IE11(or whatever) are actually the defacto standard here.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
But guess what? Cracked content is even less obtrusive. A movie where the DRM has been stripped will play on pretty much any machine, and not only on those that support a DRM scheme. And it will keep being accessible onche the DRM technology is obsolete or support for it has ceased. I can't see DRM ever compete with that. Did copy protection save the CD?
Dr Jaffe misses the point.
Yes, opinions about whether DRM should be in HTML vary, and some people are very opposed to it, and have a perfect right to be. Reasonable people can disagree.
However, the proposal isn't DRM in HTML, it's worse. It's a way to call DRM plug-ins. It doesn't standardize the DRM, or the plug-ins, or the language the plug-ins are written in, or in any other way reflect the notion that HTML is a platform in and of itself, independent of the layer it runs over.
Indeed, it doesn't specify anything that cannot, today, be done via plug-ins.
As such, it's a stupid addition to web standards. It's pointless. It will not make studios suddenly excited about using the web, because if they're excited about using the web they're already using it with the existing plug-in framework. And it will not stop content providers who demand, rightly or wrongly, DRM, fleeing the web, because it doesn't add anything.
This proposal should not appear in the HTML standards. It should never have even been considered for inclusion.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
What he said is along similar lines of "If you don't use something other than Linux, you're probably not going to be able to watch Neflix." Or "If you don't let the TSA molest you, you won't be allowed on the flight."
The Chief here says basically that if you don't let them have their way, you won't be able to use their services. And I'm not sure I give a damn whether their services get used in the first place. That's time I could use to practice guitar instead, but honestly, I'm lazy enough and easily distracted enough that as long as things are easy to use, I'll still get home, sit online, and then wonder when I drag myself to bed, "where the hell did my evening go?"
So to those who would wall off portions of the internet, I say bring it. I need to finish learning the solo from Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" anyway.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
No, it means they want to embrace DRM. They want us to be happy about it. They want to support it and make it normal.
Flash at least does not demand your OS have a content protected path and actively fight your ownership.
Last I checked, the movie studios need our money more than we need their movies. Remove content from what is increasingly becoming the de facto way of purchasing entertainment, and they stand to lose far more revenue than is "lost" to illegal copies.
The music industry seems to have successfully had a clue rammed down their throat, at least with regards to selling DRM-free music. The movie industry is long over due.
I say call their bluff. Let's see who blinks first.
The problem with W3C's argument is it fails to recognize the enormous market value in making sure content is accessible to most number of eyeballs possible.
If megamediacorp wants to distribute content anywhere to any device any browser then they can't use technology not widely deployed or implemented. For example requiring third party plugins could provide missing functionality but they take a hit in knowing their content is not universally reachable.
If instead you just give in and widely implement whatever blackbox content feels will protect their content today then media companies no longer feel any pressure not to DRM/encrypt EVERYTHING and before you know it all content is DRM'd.
As a practical matter I never understood the DRM issue as the simple truth is that if you can decrypt it to view it you can certainly copy it. The only way for DRM to actually work is a fully trusted environment where the user is denied full access to their devices and physical hardware is tamper proof. Even if this were achivable nothing stops out of band re-recording of media. Not only is DRM evil but it is pointless... a total waste of time and resources as were the DVD and Blueray copy protection schemes. It can't work unless everyone is denied the right to own a general purpose computer.
DRM cannot be open-source, for an obvious reason: If it were, you could just comment out the 'don't copy' line and recompile. The proposed HTML DRM scheme isn't a DRM scheme itsself, but an API by which a propritary DRM binary can be loaded and interface with the browser. So even if Firefox and Chrome supported the API, the DRM vendor (ie, Netflix) would also have to release a linux binary - and given the difficulty of ensuring the DRM is secure on an OS where everything from the kernel to the video driver is subject to user modification, there isn't any chance of that happening.
It has links to the article, try following them.
Their own CEO is quoted.
Way to completely fuck up your own point by blaming the wrong group of people.
It's Publishers that don't value the consumer. It's Publishers that want DRM on everything they own the copyright for. It's Publishers that want to enforce these draconian rulesets limiting your access to content across various media so they can force you to pay per platform rather than per piece of content.
Get it right.
It doesn't matter if DRM is built into the web or not. As long as there are no legal and fairly-priced methods to access media on the internet, someone will step in and provide it for free via torrent or whatever else can be used. By all means, build some DRM protection into HTML, and watch as every little entertainment publisher builds their own walled garden anyway.
I'd be fine with DRM if it didn't take away from the experience. Games that don't work, shows that aren't released until a year after they air, music that can only be played in certain devices and only as long as they can "check in" every once in a while, etc, are all examples of how to piss off your customers enough to turn them against you and your business model.
Uh, yeah.
This content is ALREADY walled off from the net.
The bricks of that wall are DRM!
They essentially set up a completely one-sided transaction here.
We pay them so they can tell us when and where and how many times we can view content we paid for.
And if we disagree? Fuck us! They have our money. We can just NOT have access to something we've paid for.
The whole piracy argument is maybe about 5% fact and 95% bullshit.
DRM is about increasing monetization of their content at the expense of open access. Piracy could drop to zero and they'd STILL claim losses to piracy.
Let these greedy money grubbers pull their content from the web!
All the smart content providers will stay, understanding that piracy and DRM is simply an expensive game of escalation where the only winners are the people selling their crappy DRM schemas. They'll continue to make money.
And all the rest of the jackasses who've pulled their content from the web can bitch about how their declining revenues are to be blamed on piracy, rather than their own stupid short-sightedness and greed.
In short, the old axiom proves true. If you don't want to lose control of something DON'T PUT IT ON THE WEB.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Also, perhaps, if we reject DRM, the parts of the web we wall off are exactly the ones we should.
Music will be on our side of the wall; DRM is dead there. Seems to me that's a trend worth encouraging.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
http://www.w3.org/People/Jeff/ I'm emailing him to tell him that DRM content is walled off from the web. DRM is not open content and has no place on the web. Let content providers who do not adapt die off. Doesn't matter if they are large movie studios or not.
If you reject DRM, you "risk" walling off parts of the Web.
If you accept DRM, however, you GUARANTEE that parts of the Web will become walled off.
"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You're wrong, Mr. Jaffe. Any website using DRM is "walled off" by design. Adding Encrypted Media Extensions to HTML5 doesn't change that, although it does allow its proponents to falsely claim that, as part of the standard, it opens up protected content to HTML5-compliant browsers instead of being tied to proprietary platforms like Flash and Silverlight.
Standard or not, encrypted HTML5 video will only run on platforms that support whatever proprietary DRM scheme the content producers have chosen. Instead of needing something like Flash or Silverlight, "DRM Flavor X" will be required for content to be decrypted. Since DRM schemes are only effective when users cannot alter them, there will never be such a thing as Open Source DRM. Open Source browsers that wish to be compatible with "DRM Flavor X" will therefore have to either incorporate proprietary code (in object form rather than source code) or rely on proprietary DRM hardware to handle decryption and display. Either way, it's "walled off" and proprietary.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
On the one hand, I can't watch netflix on linux, because the DRM isn't supported.
Or Amazon premium content or Youtube premium content or Google Play premium content, all of which use Adobe FlashAccess DRM.
Of course you could always just buy an LVDS capture card and remove the DRM...
"We have to destroy the web in order to save it".
Even at the lowest point of Stalinist regime, under extreme censorship, and with a constant risk of being ratted out, Russians still managed to exchange politically-sensitive information via samizdat [wikipedia.org], by reprinting works on typewriters.
I don't want to ruin your optimism, but samizdat did not influence Soviet politics at all. None of those dissidents started a political career, even after the USSR has collapsed.
While we can linger in our little digital darknets, the general population will be brought back under the control of elites. This process is happening worldwide.
It appears that others in the W3C mailing lists have in fact objected to the implementation of DRM in HTML5.
They were instead shunted off to 'more appropriate forums' to discuss their objections.
There are literally hundreds of emails there to plow through. Although there are many strong objections raised by different parties, the one who really seems to be pushing DRM is Netflix.
Even the EFF have formally objected to the DRM scheme.
It also appears that the CEO of W3C is the one who made the decision.
The current W3C CEO is Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe.
So in a nutshell, if you're wondering who to blame for EME in HTML5, thats the story.
Standards are far more likely to be implemented for Linux than proprietary schemes.
Each individual content decryption module is not a standard; it's a trade secret. I see nothing to guarantee that a given content decryption module will be made available for all platforms that access the Web.