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Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Approve Work On DRM For HTML 5.1
An anonymous reader writes "Danny O'Brien from the EFF has a weblog post about how the Encrypted Media Extension (EME) proposal will continue to be part of HTML Work Group's bailiwick and may make it into a future HTML revision." From O'Brien's post: "A Web where you cannot cut and paste text; where your browser can't 'Save As...' an image; where the 'allowed' uses of saved files are monitored beyond the browser; where JavaScript is sealed away in opaque tombs; and maybe even where we can no longer effectively 'View Source' on some sites, is a very different Web from the one we have today. It's a Web where user agents—browsers—must navigate a nest of enforced duties every time they visit a page. It's a place where the next Tim Berners-Lee or Mozilla, if they were building a new browser from scratch, couldn't just look up the details of all the 'Web' technologies. They'd have to negotiate and sign compliance agreements with a raft of DRM providers just to be fully standards-compliant and interoperable."
How does this affect open source browsers like Firefox? If something is open source you surely can't enforce any sort of DRM restrictions; someone can just build a hacked version of the browser.
Is this possibly the beginning of the end for open source browsers?
Why in the hell are they even THINKING of approving this bullshit?
So fucking sad
Just take a deep breath.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
malware of all kinds will be that much easier to put in a web page.
the web NEEDS to stay plain text.. unobfuscated, unencrypted, human readable plain text.
html 5 is a world with real applications, not to say that traditional html did not have real applications but with html 5 now having so many uses and access to hardware acceleration, I think the only next logical step to gain more commercial popularity was to give companies a way to protect their programming investment. I know my self I worried about using html 5 as a valid alternative to some programming I am doing because of the seemingly easy nature to steal and reproduce something I want "closed source". Don't get me wrong here, I love open source and hope this isn't something that is mandatory. But I also see some benefit of being able to protect my code. The real question will be how easy it will be to get around it.
Please, lets wrap the entire Web up in DRM, this will ensure that all innovation stops. If you want progress, this is not the way.
I only ever visit a website once if things on that website don't work. For example, I run a couple of browser plug-ins that reduces tracking and advertising. Some websites don't seem to work with that. I don't go to those websites anymore. If nobody visits DRMed websites I think the whole thing will sort itself out.
Putting in the very fabric of the web a point of obscurity, just when we have to figure how to deal with security after the death of trust=. We are in the risk of breaking internet into country-sized pieces, and with this W3C is hitting it with a big hammer to see if it stands.
I imagine GNU's Firefox fork (IceCat) will probably not have any part in this nonsense and will refuse to implement it. Hopefully, it will at least be an option (disabled by default?) on the more popular browsers.
Please tell me that Tim Berners-Lee is only declaring it as in-scope so that it doesn't get worked on by some other group, so it can be killed as it should be.
Even if this does get included in the HTML 5.1 spec, it will be twenty years before it sees the light on Internet-day. Hell, a pretty huge chunk of the web doesn't even use HTML 5 and that spec isn't even finished. Even if 5.1 supports DRM individual site owners have the option of making use of it. And those sites will revel in the shit-ton of complaint emails and unsubscribers. Let them try it I say.
HTML is hyper*TEXT* markup language.
If they encrypt it or make it an unreadable binary format, then it's no longer actually TEXT, is it?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The problem, as staunch DRM opponents see it, is that the universe of "non-EME content" would dwindle to an edge case once all legitimate providers of popular media adopt EME.
I only ever visit a website once if things on that website don't work.
So what do you do if one of the websites that doesn't work is the website that a government requires you by law to use, such as the site for filling in your tax return?
A Web where you cannot cut and paste text; where your browser can't 'Save As...' an image; where the 'allowed' uses of saved files are monitored beyond the browser; where JavaScript is sealed away in opaque tombs;
I hope the Merchants of copywritten content aren't resting their laurels on this EME thing, as long as something has to be rendered on the client side people will figure out way to copy it.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Yes, I know I will be flamed for this, but I think the thing that is getting lost in the conversation is that we've all be using DRM for years, and the point of this is to increase interoperability. How many of us have netflix or amazon movie streaming? Buy kindle books? Use steam? Even the books downloadable from my library use some form of protection. Most people don't care, because those protections don't impact our typical usage patterns. But all of these services live in their own separate worlds, because they are not interoperable. Adding support for a common protection standard doesn't suddenly make it possible to encrypt movies or harder to download images on the net because that already exists today (and has for years)! The point is to end the balkanization of media players and let everything work in your vanilla browser. That sounds good to me.
People will use browsers and websites that don't use the DRM tech, and "big media" will wonder why their traffic dropped off... must be the pirates!
This will free the internet from corporations. If you want the free internet use brwoser a if you want corporate internet use browser b.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Encrypted Media Extension (EME) proposal will continue to be part of HTML Work Group's bailiwick and may make it into a future HTML revision.
This is either:
Bad -- because this will finally make it very easy and natural to lock down content, causing DRM to be everywhere and inescapable.
or,
Good -- because it creates a single point of failure, and only one scheme will need to be cracked.
He's nothing special. He invented nothing new. I'm so sick of people claiming that he invented the Internet.
Signed binaries running from a signed kernel, booted on UEFI Secure Boot hardware you can't legally compromise.
Alan Cox explained this 12 years ago.
That is the dream these people have.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Laws against teaching creationism in schools are laughable, right? So isn't it just better to have it?
NO.
Wow,
I thought Tim B-L had more brains... and balls... than this...
Even this AC (who hasn't coded anything beyond 'Hello World' in a web page) can see what an ignominiously stupid idea this will be.
There are slippery slopes... and then there is jumping off a cliff... This one is nose dive with a JATO rocket up your arse.
FredInIT
It's just an API for dealing with encryption. It's the same thing as the numerous other APIs that deal with encrypting documents, including Encrypted XML. It doesn't mandate that Web browsers get locked down, it doesn't mandate that the source or anything is made inaccessible to users.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
The web sucks in so many ways, this will just be more crufty crap to help fracture it. The Internet will prevail, but the web will fail.
This shit has been under influence by the state and corporations for too long. My browser WILL NOT support DRM modules. I WILL NOT have encrypted data coursing through my applications or CPU. I WILL see all the data that comes into my home domain, no one has proven I can trust them to hide such things from me. We have the technology to build a better web. Mankind will only suffer evils so long as they are yet sufferable.
Refuse to use any browser which implements it.
Because I guarantee that the #1 browser 10 minutes after this becomes common is the OSS spinoff of Firefox that ignores all of that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It could go the other way. Mozilla and the rest of the open source community makes a lot of noise and breaks off. A big company like Google, currently trying to distance themselves from all things government, joins.
Or not.
and Tim Behrners-Lee did not "invent" the world wide web (but that's another post for another time...)
The W3C opposed HTML5 every step of the way in its development.
The W3C's standards have not been the industry standard for years...it's all WHATWG
HTML5 would have never been implemented without the WHATWG
You don't have to be a web developer to see what happened. The W3C has clout b/c of CERN, and they have done alot of good stuff...but the W3C consistently has tried to sneak in some sort of DRM or block development if they can't...
That's what happened with HTML5....the W3C's "industry partners" wanted some sort of DRM and the WHATWG had to form to circumvent it and develop HTML5 and get it deployed.
This is DRM, it is evil, and Behners-Lee and the W3C are not on our side in this
Thank you Dave Raggett
HTML5 won't be ratified as a standard until 2020. So when can we expect 5.1? 2030?
It wasn't all that long ago that browsing the internet with Linux was seriously crippled
Many sites in the early days used Active-X, Microsoft's "answer" to Java, which was only readable by IE and IE for Mac.
I remember not being able to use government services and banking sites because of this.
Because of the huge installed base of MS products, many govs and businesses just rolled out MS-centric solutions without any care for Unix, Linux or Mac.
Trust me, you don't want the web to go back to that.
It may not be MS at the helm this time, but it's easy to see that if there is a content-restrictive standard instituted for the web, there will be great pressure for it to be applied (even in places where it may not be needed!) and the collateral damage is inestimable.
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Due to slowness and creating other "less ideal" conditions, the W3C is quickly becoming an irrelevant marginalized nothing. They've their control over the HTML5 spec long ago; all browser manufacturers follow the HTML5 spec that's maintained by WHATWG (which, coincidentally, was formed by those browser manufacturers out of discontent with the way W3C managed it. Apparently they've learned nothing from that since this DRM stuff will marginalize them even further. Nowadays, W3C approving stuff has just about nothing to do with what browsers will support or what the Internet will look like in the future.
0x or or snor perron?!
I'm tired of reading that, really. Disgusting intellectual dishonesty.
hey thanks for the comment...I agree that the IEEE would do a better job w/ standards
so, I'm a web developer now, and I'm wondering if you can tell me, specifically, what about HTML5 is "madness"?
what particular aspect about the HTML5 standard makes you say that?
also, about "semantic"...
without getting into semanti...um...arguments of definitions of terms...I thought the whole "semantic web" concept had been ditched into the "hype" bin along with "Web 2.0" and other unnecessary recursive abstractions
seriously...I thought "semantic web" went out when "web 2.0" got flushed...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Ever try to copy and paste text from the web based Kindle reader? No new DRM extensions needed. I couldn't copy and paste. Even inspecting elements I couldn't find the text. I didn't try disassembling the JavaScript.
All I wanted to do was copy a list from a self help book I purchased into something could actually use the list on. :-(
Hopefully this means the *AA cartel can build their own "consumernet" where they can carry on with the obsolescent rent seeking business model with the masses and the rest of us can get along using our newly usable (hopefully fully encrypted ad vastly improved) internet again.
Of course when the "consumernet" gets no customers they'll bribe some more law onto the various statute books of the world but hey ho, c'est la vie.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
The EFF needs to fork the web.
With this hypothetical example the areas to target would be the output container (think Fraps capturing the entire window, or a portion)
Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 include a Protected Video Path that encrypts video even over the PCI Express bus. I'd imagine that Microsoft anticipated programs like CamStudio and FRAPS and blocked API calls like PrintWindow() and GetWindowDC() and glReadPixels() for a window displaying DRM restricted video.
or capturing audio via your speakers (the audio stream itself isn't encoded at this point).
Audio is already routinely watermarked using Cinavia technology.
hey, I am new to web development, and I felt like I didn't do a good job explaining why the div element needed to be replaced by HTML5's section elements...
I found this article: http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2013/01/18/the-importance-of-sections/
and it actually explains where I'm coming from...look down in the article at the examples...how h1, h2, h3 actually were used as section headings with dangling #footers that could belong to any of the h's...then everything gets wrapped in div's...it was an ugly mess!
look at the development of HTML5...the W3C fought to keep the div like it was their 'precious'...really getting rid of the div nonsense as decribed in the article was absolutely necessary dont you think?
Thank you Dave Raggett
What I want is the ability to paywall my eyeballs. A browser that won't download advertising unless it includes some bitcoins.
I'll just use an old browser, 'cause it won't understand the "you can't save this image" or "you can't copy this text" code.
Here's a thought. Anyone wanting this crap, should start their own internet from scratch with their filthy DRM. Leave our internet alone. We've got enough stuff on the internet that doesn't work, without having people actually engineering it to not work.
With remote attestation (which was recently merged into Fedora) your system can produce a cryptographic certification of exactly what software you're running. No need to be stuck with signed binaries, sites can just deny you if you're not running acceptable code.
If DRM is incorporated into the standard, then every site will be DRM infested as a matter of course. It happened with cookies and it happened with javascript. It is inevitable.
If DRM is rejected by the standard, then DRM infested products will exist as apps you have to download, as you say. But they won't be common because they take extra work to build. That means the free web will still exist.
In short, you are supporting the opposite action to the one that will do us the most good. And the people supporting the standardisation of DRM should be sacked.
Tim has been hanging around far too many people who have far too much money, and as the so-called inventor of the web, he's finally decided to cash in. Another casualty of society's gross inequity. A great example of how such gross inequity perverts people's motivations. In a more just society, Sir Tim wouldn't feel so left behind, and would have an easier time sticking to the principles that made his work important in the first place.
Its a web I will highly avoid... even to make a point. I normally ignore the "survey" pop ups that happen. If I come across these sites that use this crap... I will totally spam that survey with negative (but valid) crap to the point that they will stop having surveys (I doubt they will stop the DRM).
now you're showing your ignorance...
essentially, you're criticizing HTML5 from the perspective of a person who is biased towards the W3C
you're biased...otherwise you'd never say this:
HTML 4 was a competing standard to HTML 5....HTML5 and common sense prevailed...
no...i & b are not 'depricated' in the current version of HTML5
also, your counterpoint to the div fix makes no sense...its an inherently different way to layout the entire page
don't respond...I'm done with this...you're biased and you're trolling and you obviously are NOT AN ACTIVE WEB DEVELOPER
Thank you Dave Raggett
We know we have been compromised in so many ways...now we can't even see what our browsers are told to run?
I do this occasionally, when my internet connection is too flaky. I don't know anybody else who does. I'm sure less than 1% of youtube's users has ever saved a youtube-video to disk. I doubt google notices any impact from this at all. The reason for any arms race is paranoia, not actual risk.
What I and a much greater (but still small) number of people do, which probably *is* noticable for google, is to block advertisements on youtube. It works perfectly out of the box, and removes not only the general advertisements on the page, but also the video advertisements. I was disgusted recently when I tried to use youtube on a friend's computer, and had to wait through 10 seconds of an obnoxious, unseekable commercial before getting to the actual video.
Needless to say, I don't feel bad at all for using youtube this way. This is like a restaurant which gives you a side dish of heroin even though you didn't order it, and then gets upset when you leave it behind and only eat the main dish. Sure some people like heroin, but sensible people recognize that it is unhealthy and detracts from the experience of the real food.
If enough people start blocking advertisement in youtube for google to shut it down, then that would be a loss - I think youtube is filling an important niche. But it should be possible to fill this niche in other ways too. BitTorrent demonstrated how peer-to-peer distribution can scale cheaply for a relatively low number of relatively large files. It is not suitable as a youtube-replacements, but it would probably be possible to design a different distributed system that is. Something like freenet, but without the huge overhead of anonymous routing. That isn't necessary right now due to youtube filling the niche. But if youtube were to go under, the niche itself wouldn't disappear.
This was one of the most insightful comments I've read on slashdot.
And the success of kickstarter shows that we don't need a huge change in people's mindsets for this to work right now. (Too bad that most kickstarter projects still insist on enforcing copyright even after they have been fully funded from the beginning, though. They could at least add "free software" as a stretch goal.)
No.
They'll still give us the content with DRM.
They'll not do it in a browser.
So we would not lose the content in the least.
Only lose the locking down of the internet.
Which is a good thing.
API calls like PrintWindow() and GetWindowDC() and glReadPixels()
glReadPixels, on a directx buffer? ID3D11DeviceContext::CopySubresourceRegion is a similar DX11 method.
That's what I meant: the DX counterpart to glReadPixels.
If the system is so foolproof how come so very little media uses it 6+ years after it was introduced?
Because the system was introduced in Windows Vista, and presumably, video distributors are waiting until April 2014 for Windows XP to leave extended support.
Does the water marking matter to most people (or you, if you're not distributing)?
Watermarked audio will mute itself on some players, including the PlayStation 3.
Ultimately why not just rent the thing/watch it on tv and rip it?
One can't rent movies older than about a year (or TV series at all) at Redbox, and I'm not aware of any mechanism to request that a particular video be shown on television.
Seriously disappointing. If anybody needs me, I'll be using Gopher.