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Did Mozilla Have No Choice But To Add DRM To Firefox?
JimLynch (684194) writes "Mozilla has been in the news quite a lot over the last few months. This time the organization is being hammered by open source advocates for adding Adobe DRM to Firefox. But did the folks at Mozilla really have a choice when it comes adding DRM? An open source project like Mozilla is not immune to market pressures. And with so many competing browsers such as Chrome adding DRM for Netflix, etc. how could Firefox avoid adding it? Is it realistic to think that Firefox can simply ignore such things? I don't think so and the reason why is in Firefox's usage numbers over the last few years."
The other browser vendors have implemented EME, even IE, which is (caution, sarcasm ahead) well known for implementing the newest HTML5 technologies. Mozilla's only option was to rescue what could be rescued. Blame Google, MS and the MPAA instead, they have deserved the shitstorm.
Blocking something because RMS does not approve is the opposite of freedom
Nonsense. Choosing not to include some feature in your product is exercising your freedom, unless someone's actually forcing you to do it.
At the end of the day, it will be users who decide between Firefox, Chrome, IE, Safari, and the multitude of other options out there. These users will make their decision based upon a variety of factors. For some it will be access to DRMed content. For others it will be a completely open source product. Of course there are other reasons too.
I'm guessing that the Mozilla foundation tried to figure out what their user base wanted, and came up with the answer that content would keep more users than excluding the DRM module would. Maybe they are right. Maybe they are wrong. Only time will tell.
I'm not particularly worried about Firefox providing a socket to plug in some DRM module into, because I don't really see much difference between that and other binary plugins. As a Linux user, I'm more worried that anyone who does want to use it will have to rely on Adobe to provide and maintain that module, because their track record has been rather spotty.
Would I use it myself? I honestly haven't made up my mind yet. From what I understand it would be mostly for movies, and my current computer is a bit too loud for that to be an enjoyable experience...
If DRM is really impossible to implement in F/OSS software, without closed source or the threat of political force... Then what's the worry?
It seems like the worst-case scenario is media providers get a false sense of security and start providing content without silly plugins that actually ARE closed and non-accessible (under the threat of legal action).
Wonder what the public key field is for?
As I understand it, RMS has three points:
1) DRM is bad.
2) Firefox implementing DRM is one piece of the problem.
3) Firefox is free to do whatever they want, but if they felt forced to implement DRM, it would have been better if they at least made an effort to warn the users about the risks. Instead they are publicly praising Adobe for their approach to DRM.
People who criticize RMS often don't even know what he said. That is not true of everyone, but most comments on the net are rather clueless about it. DRM is bad, that's not even controversial.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
unless someone's actually forcing you to do it.
"They forced me with money" is the reiterated excuse of some of the most despicable amoral scum.
Just because there's some pressure from the outside to do immoral things, doesn't mean they had to cave in. Evil previls because good keeps silent. Sorry Mozilla, but that was a REALLY bad decision.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Blocking something because RMS does not approve is the opposite of freedom, be it DRM, a binary driver, or whatever.
And denying people the ability to yell "fire" in a crowded theater is also "the opposite of freedom."
However, there's also the caveat that it's better for society to limit certain freedoms,
because otherwise they would otherwise impinge on all of us in a negative way.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Mozilla are not just supporting DRM, you could already view DRM media, the significant development is their supporting for the addition of DRM to the web in a claimed standard, a damaging development for the open web. Mozilla had the choice of supporting the viewing of DRM media outside the web, by using a plugin or by using a separate media player. The DRM web interface they have decided to support, the EME, in not even capable of playing media on it's own, it is just part of a play and the rest is proprietary JS supplied by the content distributor. This is a strategy promoted by the distributors to advance their own selfish interests, by Netflix/Google/MS, it locks the user into using the distributors web based media player, is anti-competitive, and damages the health of the open web market. By supporting the EME Mozilla has made it almost impossible for the open web community to promote alternatives, damaging the open web community, in an act of betrayal.
Mozilla made no attempt to promote alternatives, have not explained the technical details of their EME/CDM design in enough detail for their claims of user security and privacy to be verified, and have refused to clarify that users can even view DRM media via Netflix in all its glory using their EME/CDM which was a key claimed reason for their decision, and have not been honest in the reasons for their decision (it's is not about supporting the viewing of DRM media because this is already possible).
RMS is right in this case, DRM just harms everyone. Now Linux might play some more videos, but everyone who wants to run Amiga or Haiku, or another platform will be shutout from accessing that content. This is why DRM is stupid, it keeps the vendor/platform lock in going. For no good reason. It has never stopped pirates from doing their thing.
Let's not also forget two other particularly powerful points made in the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) essay:
Brad Kuhn builds on these points in his essay discussing Mozilla's announcement: "Theoretically speaking, though, the Mozilla Foundation is supposed to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity which told the IRS its charitable purpose was: to "keep the Internet a universal platform that is accessible by anyone from anywhere, using any computer, and ... develop open-source Internet applications". Baker fails to explain how switching Firefox to include proprietary software fits that mission. In fact, with a bit of revisionist history, she says that open source was merely an "approach" that Mozilla Foundation was using, not their mission."
Speaking of how people criticize the FSF without reading what they say, the FSF is not an "open source advocate" despite /.'s insistence to the contrary such as is stated in this story's headline. The FSF and the free software movement predate the developmental methodology known as open source, and the FSF fights for values the open source movement sets out to deny, namely software freedom. The FSF has published more than one essay on this topic (1, 2) and RMS includes a clear and cogent explanation of this point in virtually every talk you'll hear him give. Archives of these talks are readily available online in formats that favor free software. Mozilla's choice here is another example of reaching radically different conclusions given different philosophies: Mozilla's open source choice versus a free software activist's choice to reject DRM for many valid reasons the FSF points out.
Digital Citizen
If you want the content, the choice is support the DRM or steal it.
Why steal it when you could just ask someone to voluntarily send you some data? Have to do things the hard way, do you?
And another option is to just ignore the content completely.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Of course they had a choice. That is not even a serious question.
They are losing market share and their actions will accelerate, not reverse, that trend, just as previous missteps have done. And yes, life will go on, but a great opportunity has been lost. Firefox still has enough users that this matters, and they are throwing their weight behind DRM, and against the open web they claim to stand for at a critical moment. The notion this will get anyone to switch (back) to Firefox is ludicrous. The ones that left because they wanted something more like the other browsers are happy with their other browser, and the rest of us see this is a stab in the back not a feature.
RIP Firefox Long Live PaleMoon.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
1) DRM is bad.
Yep. So are taxes, and work for many people.
No, Taxes and work are something you don't like, but are nessecary. Taxes pay for things like your clean drinking water, roads, street signs and lighting, all the things we actually like government for. Work allows you to purchase food, a place to sleep, clothes, a budget for entertainment.
DRM has no actual upside. There is no "Weeelll but roads are kinda nice" counter point. DRM is bad. Period. It doesn't work at it stated purpose, costs the people who implement it more money to use it, and those of up willing to bypass it do so trivially while those that are not willing suffer under new restrictions while actually being paying customers.
The only thing DRM is good for is keeping DRM manufacturers in business. It literally serves no useful purpose.
Sorry, but Firefox adding DRM, in whatever manner they are, is still a shift in the browser industry going forward. There isn't a mainstream browser, that I see, committed to FOSS philosophies out there anymore. I just heard about Pale Moon, but let's face it folks. Firefox, Chrome and IE are mainstream. The others are side projects. Safari, well, doesn't exist on Linux does it. Even I.E. can be shoe-horned on Linux if needed.
Point is, moving forward, there is no longer a major browser that hasn't caved to big media, and DRM. That is, in itself, a continuation of a disturbing trend we're seeing across the Internet, and computing in general. If you don't think this isn't part of that, you haven't been paying attention.
I think this whole situation has been blown out of proportion. How will this code, that allows loading a 3rd party DRM plugin, be conceptually different than the bit of code that allows loading other closed source plugins (Flash, Silverlight, etc)?
I'm not particularly worried about Firefox providing a socket to plug in some DRM module into, because I don't really see much difference between that and other binary plugins. As a Linux user, I'm more worried that anyone who does want to use it will have to rely on Adobe to provide and maintain that module, because their track record has been rather spotty.
The big win from following a standard for the DRM plug-in is that now it will be obvious what's a DRM plug-in, and what's not. Hate DRM? Write a browser extension that makes use of this standard!
Seriously, if you really want to make heads asplode: write a FF extension that detects a DRM stream, determines the title from context, and automatically torrents the same title instead. If you can't do it as a plug-in, make a fork, since it's a stunt anyhow. I'm perfectly happy with paying Netflix, myself, but I'd certainly cheer if someone wrote this just to show the folly of the entire DRM approach.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
But Mozilla's scheme may be:
1. Implement DRM to make sure the users don't massively ditch Firefox.
2. Attract more users, get >90% market share
3. Ditch DRM
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
1) DRM is bad.
Yep. So are taxes,
Uh, most people understand why taxes are a good thing. There are people who feel that we are being taxed too much, but there aren't many people who want to get rid of taxes. Some form of taxation is necessary for the operation of the government.
Oh, God no! We are already way too overwarned.
Most people don't know the risks of DRM, a lot of people don't even know what DRM is. YOU might have been overwarned, but most people have never heard of The Right to Read, and don't understand why DRM could be problematic. As long as it doesn't get in the way, they are fine with it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If you want the content, the choice is to tell the content providers that you will not take it with DRM attached to it.
Which will most likely be met with "fuck off, how else do you expect to lock content down by region so we can charge more in countries where people can afford more?"
We need an "insightful troll" mod. +0.5, perhaps.
Clearly trolling, but you have perfectly expressed "the enemy's" stance on DRM. "We" need DRM because some people want to preserve their positions of power over the information-have-nots, simple as that.
And I don't even mean music and movies, we can live without those. I mean textbooks; I mean research journal access; I mean "for profit" municipal codes of law; I mean for-profit industry standards specs; I mean proprietary and impenetrable pricing structures like health insurance fees.
So although you troll us, you magnificent bastard, you also have one of the insightful posts on this topic so far.
Part of DRM is that it stops consumers from fulfilling their role in the "supply and demand" marketplace.
Content providers sell content for different prices in different regions. DRM prevents you from buying content at market prices.
Content is sold internationally, consumers should be able to buy content internationally or the market is artificially distorted by the sellers.
If DRM is really impossible to implement in F/OSS software, without closed source or the threat of political force... Then what's the worry?
It seems like the worst-case scenario is media providers get a false sense of security and start providing content without silly plugins that actually ARE closed and non-accessible (under the threat of legal action).
The DRM is effectively forced.
I going to just flat out state that you've obviously never attempted to run the Netflix plugin from a ChromeOS machine (ChromeBook/ChromeBox) on another Linux platform, and discovered it won't run.
The modules in this case do navel-gazing and examine the container program to verify that the container program ins an unadulterated official build, such that you can't just compile up your own version of the browser, and expect the module to continue operating.
For Netflix on Linux desktops, this Navel-gazing took the form of utilizing the HAL, which was deprecated by its authors in 2008: http://www.freedesktop.org/wik... which was then used to generate a unique device identifier, which was used in the authorization and decryption process for the data, after having been watermarked with the same identifier at the source so that you could tell who exactly rented the content that was then stripped of DRM, and uploaded to a copy site.
This same (deprecated) module was required by Adobe FlashAccess beginning in February 2012, and was the reason for the sudden failure of rented content from both Amazon and YouTube, which both used FlashAccess as a means of DRM'ing "premium content" starting on that date.
So it's about as true to say that the DRM "isn't forced" as it's to say that the HTML "trusted proxy" mechanism would not be forced in order to allow you to make HTTPS connections, should it be standardized, thus giving a centralized ISP choke point, nominally for caching content, but practically, for introspecting HTTPS streams to make sure they are not transporting "unapproved content". If you can't access content without DRM, or you can't access HTTPS without authorizing the proxy at your ISP to listen in on the conversation, effectively instituting an automatic MITM attack for all your communications, it's kind of hard to credit participation in the scheme as "unforced" (Sure... you could choose not to have encrypted internet connectivity at all, instead of encrypted activity your ISP or anyone who got a single FISA order into your ISP could listen in on, but is that really a choice?).
I'm a socialist. And by that I mean that I'm strongly against both capitalism and communism. I believe everyone should profit from his work and only from his own work. I believe it should be illegal to profit from someone else's work. So you can guess I'm also totally against social democracy and taxation.
That's......an unusual viewpoint for a socialist.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Nonsense. All they needed was an HTML5 tag identifying DRM content that starts and external player that the user can decide to use or not use.
By using Firefox, you are tacitly supporting DRM, even if you never view and DRM'd content, because they have cooked the technology into the cake. It didn't have to be that way. They could have kept Firefox open and still allow the movie industry to peddle their poison.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The distributors (and the Hollywood studios that provide them with content) will never accept an "alternative" that has no DRM.
So for Mozilla the choice wasn't "support EME" vs "promote a better DRM free alternative and convince websites to support it", it was "support EME" vs "tell users who want to use HuLu, Netflix etc to use a different browser"
I for one like the way Mozilla has done it, the browser plugin can't talk to anything other than a narrowly defined set of interfaces specified by Mozilla (so no direct network or disk access). Also, I believe the plugin will be available for Linux as well which means sites like Netflix will work on that platform.
Which is why all the music I buy these days is so heavily encumbered with DRM. Despite the shrill protests of the public, the only way to get the content was to accept DRM on my music files.
Oh wait, no, I don't.
It is not a losing battle to fight against DRM. Between the easy accessibility of non-DRM - albeit copyright-infringing - music and a company (Apple) with a large enough market-share to say, "You know what, screw DRM!", nowadays I can download all my songs in unencumbered MP3s. And - despite all their fears to the contrary - the music industry hasn't gone bankrupt because of this. Given an equitable price, combined with the convenience and legitimacy of an above-board purchase, music sales continue to be profitable.
Firefox had an opportunity to be an Apple here; they could have helped redirect the market into a new direction. Instead they caved into prophetic bullshit about declining marketshare and now all its users suffer for their shortsightedness. Mozilla could have said to big media, "this is a shit idea" and rather than sacrifice that huge potential audience the media conglomerates would have found a more favorable alternative.
It is not a losing battle to fight against DRM.
These days there is more DRM encumbered media and streaming services than ever before!
Mozilla could have said to big media, "this is a shit idea" and rather than sacrifice that huge potential audience the media conglomerates would have found a more favorable alternative.
I like your optimism but I don't think Mozilla have that much clout. Perhaps it's time to fork Firefox? Though I'm pretty sure there are quite a lot of popular forks already that are unlikely to implement this DRM so maybe one of them should make an attempt to do what you say.
So I'm a bit confused all this. How close is the following chain of events?
1. Netflix/___ others start trying to wrap their "tasty content" into wrappers that (try to) require baked in DRM.
2. Uneducated Firefox users suddenly discover that their browser won't play that tasty content anymore "because Mozilla didn't add that Dr. Thingy stuff" to make it work.
3. Said uneducated Firefox users then jump ship to that dulcet siren's call such as Chrome because yay the tasty content works again! "Everything is Awesome!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
So what about PaleMoon? Scuttle has it a bunch of people are headed over that way not least because of FF29 UI Shenanigans. So why not DRM? Their entire point was to unbake bloaty parts of reg FF. So why not if they unbake the DRM from their copy?
And what does Opera have to say about all this? How about Chromium and/or Komodo Dragon? (Non-Googly clones of Chrome.)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I remain extremely skeptical of the idea that DRM does literally nothing. It'l like saying door locks don't work because they can be kicked down or picked, or somebody can go through the window. Imperfect security *can* be better than no security, depending on the circumstance.
I'm not coming out pro-DRM, just...this argument doesn't make sense. I know for a fact my parents could never be bothered to learn how to use bittorrent. They just went and bought it instead when I moved out. Which implies that it does work to at least some degree. Not necessarily that the benefit exceeds the cost, but I don't think it's fundamentally honest to say that DRM has no benefit for anybody.