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."

Comments

Re:Open source browsers?

[ZorinLynx]

Why does this need to be made part of HTML, though? The existing plugin infrastructure works just fine. You can implement whatever the fuck you want in a plugin. Just use that and leave HTML alone. Things are complicated enough already without introducing new artificial complexity that is purposely designed to break things.

(All DRM is purposely designed to break content. It provides absolutely no benefit to the user)

Re:Open source browsers?

[MightyYar]

I don't really care whether they publish or not - if there is one thing the internet does not lack it is content.

Re:Open source browsers?

[fustakrakich]

...content owners of the content you're willing to pay for will never publish on HTML5 unless they have some sort of DRM

Who cares? Fuck 'em. There are plenty of people who will publish without all that crap, and we can just stick with them. Besides, DRM is easy to crack, a snake oil sold by scammers. I have no sympathy for those stupid enough to buy it.

Re:Kind of was expecting this

[wagnerrp]

If you allow web sites to require DRM, the web is no longer open. That's all there is to it. If you browsers must protect content, then browsers must be certified and signed before they can access the content. Had your desire to prevent the theft of your hard work guided the original protocols of the internet, it never would have become the important communications resource it is today.

Re:Open source browsers?

[jedidiah]

This is the exact opposite of "getting rid of Flash".

Re:Open source browsers?

[Kielistic]

No. Once their foot is in the door they will start demanding signed binary for browsers since anything else is useless to their wants.

MOD PARENT UP

[Tailhook]

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.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[hairyfeet]

Sounds just like Chromebooks to me, the only difference is IF you put in a page and a half of CLI gobbledygook that most can't pull off then and ONLY then can you take what was once a standard X86 laptop and install one of a handful of hacked bootloader Linux versions. Oh and no dual booting for you citizen, can't have that!

It just amazes the hell out of me that one company can cook up something nasty, like turning an X86 laptop into a locked down corp controlled thin client and get cheers and when another company does the exact same thing get treated as a monster. Would the ones that cheered the Chromebook have had the same reaction to a Winbook? Kinda doubt it.

As for TFA this is precisely why we must fight tooth and nail not to take HTML V5 in its current form, as its practically a love letter to the big corps who would like nothing more for the future to be similar to Chromebooks, locked down devices that access apps and content "stored in the cloud" that can only be viewed or used with approval.

Re:Open source browsers?

[calzones]

Some of us simply believe that if someone is going to try to impose DRM on us that it should be an inconvenient onus on them and the consuming public to do so. A fragmented non-API solution would mean that content providers choosing to implement DRM would face greater costs and suppressed demand due to the extra hurdles imposed by DRM.
If both any given content provider AND their audience agreed it was worthwhile to install Flash or Silverlight in order to view the content, then that's what they would do.
On the flip side, any content providers that attempt to impose DRM on an audience unwilling to install Flash or Silverlight would find their subscriber base evaporating, forcing them to release the content without DRM and find a different way to earn money. Once it's standardized and part of the browser, any moron on the web will suddenly feel like they can and should protect their content and all users will be forced to comply or stay out of the web.
Bottom line: DRM as a hassle means the onus is on content providers to provide users with a suitable value proposition and it leaves greedy or misguided or trend-following content providers who cannot meet that standard out of the web (or else on the web, but free). DRM as an integrated seamless solution flips that around and leaves consumers who seek free content out of the web.