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Reject DRM and You Risk Walling Off Parts of the Web, Says W3C Chief

Posted by timothy on from the interesting-way-to-think-about-it dept.

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."

14 of 433 comments (clear)

  1. Idiots by MBGMorden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Idiots by Moryath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Summed up better this way.

      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.

    2. Re:Idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They are idiots.

      There are two choices...

      1)
      DRM is embraced, studios put crippled, DRM-enabled content on the web
      Outcome: The dumbest 1% of consumers pays for DRM streams, the other 99% goes to The Pirate Bay.

      2)
      DRM is not supported in web browsers.
      Outcome: Studios don't put any content on the web, the dumbest 1% of consumers buys disks or whatever and the other 99% goes to The Pirate Bay.

      Here's the far-fetched option 3:

      DRM is not supported anywhere.
      Studios sell on-line for a fair price in a real format.
      Outcome:
      10-50% of customers pay for proper, unencumbered content and the money goes to the rightful publisher.
      The rest turn to The Pirate Bay.

    3. Re:Idiots by jedidiah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That works both ways.

      The fact that we already have DRM on the web without that DRM being embedded in the web standards also means that they don't need to be embedded in the web standards.

      Companies that are petulant about their content on the web can just continue to do what they've always been doing.

      There's no reason to change anything to to subvert the notion of open standards.

      In truth, this beaurocrat is irrelevant. Worst possible thing for one of them.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    4. Re:Idiots by alucardX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you feel this way then you need to let the W3C know. Join their mailing list and let them know how you feel. Right now they pretty much have a Netflix employee defending everything he can about DRM. The only people in opposition to it on that mailing list right now have a very small voice. Jump on and voice this opinion. Overwhelm them the way that we overwhelmed them with PIPA and SOPA.

    5. Re:Idiots by gsnedders · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As someone on countless W3C mailing lists: please don't. It's highly unlikely you're going to bring any new discussion points to the mailing list (sheer quantity of the objections is, sadly in this case, not going to change anything), as the topic has been discussed to death already.

      If you want to stop the specification, you're better off petitioning implementers to not implement it than the W3C; as it is now, EME is going to become a de-facto standard with the majority of browsers (by market share) supporting it regardless of whether the W3C publish any specification or not. Convincing the W3C not to standardize it will have no effect in the end, it'll just become a de-facto internet standard instead of a de-jure one.

  2. Walling off by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Weasel words. Walling off content is effectively the same thing.

  3. how does the saying go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    removing anything off the internet is like trying to take the pee out of the pool

  4. Remove movies from the web? So what? by the_furman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. I don't actually massively object to DRM in HTML by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  6. I'm unclear on the Chief's point by intermodal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!
  7. Re:two sides to this by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  8. DRM as wall. Walls aren't all bad. by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:DRM as wall. Walls aren't all bad. by trewornan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We won't be walling off parts of the web. It'll be the movie companies walling themselves off . . . as far as I'm concerned, good job too, fuck'em.