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FSF Supports Today's Boston March Against DRM In HTML5 (defectivebydesign.org)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the defective-by-design dept.

Atticus Rex writes: A small artist-led group called Ethics in Tech is joining the long-simmering struggle between streaming video giants and Internet freedom activists over whether the Web should include Digital Rights Management in its technical standards. This Saturday, Ethics in Tech will lead a march on the W3C, the body -- led by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee -- that decides on Web standards.
The Free Software Foundation is promoting the march, and their "Defective By Design" site is sharing this quote from the march's organizers. Dear W3C: we demand you comply with UNESCO and international civil and political rights. Halt EME -- ensure the protection of a secure, accessible, and open web. Make ethical standards or stand on the wrong side of history.

38 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. You reader, please show support by what+about · · Score: 4, Informative

    Even if you cannot go to the march you can support the cause by messaging, spreading the news and letting fellow citizen know the issue.

    Engage on the issue with your friends, it is not useless, it is our world.

    1. Re:You reader, please show support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      But is the cause right and just? DRM protects media company profits by making piracy difficult. As long as the DRM does not spy on me or cause other harm, there's nothing wrong with it.

    2. Re:You reader, please show support by therealspacebug · · Score: 2

      But is the cause right and just? DRM protects media company profits by making piracy difficult. As long as the DRM does not spy on me or cause other harm, there's nothing wrong with it.

      And how can you check that it's not doing that since it's not open? No harm in using closed source stuff if that's not ment to not harm you? How about the Intel ME / AMT bug? This is not about piracy, it's about security.

    3. Re:You reader, please show support by grumbel · · Score: 2

      If DRM goes into HTML or not won't make much of a difference, if anything it will open things up a little since you will be able to use your browser more often to watch video instead of a proprietary App. It's not like the FSF is wrong on being against DRM, but it has little chance of success here.

      In general I am not really happy with much of what the FSF has been doing lately. Their intentions are noble, but when you want to actually change things you can't just say "No", you have to provide a realistic alternative. Back when Windows95/98/ME was the 'threat', GNU/Linux provided a good alternative. But with phones, tablet, web services, cloud computing and such they feel hopelessly behind.

    4. Re:You reader, please show support by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Well, good luck explaining to the average person what the hell you're marching about / advocating. Try to explain, and watch their eyes glaze over. The disinterest of average people regarding stuff like this is something that geeks seem to underestimate time after time. The importance of free and open source software is another one of these "eyes glazing" topics.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    5. Re:You reader, please show support by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      And how exactly are we supposed to "spread the news" if we're also against crap like FaceBook, Twitter, etc?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    6. Re:You reader, please show support by Z80a · · Score: 2

      It is not a very good idea because it violates one basic rule: you never make the pirate product better than the original product.
      As you pointed out, it makes difficult but not impossible, which means that as soon your DRM gets cracked, the pirate version will not be hampered by the DRM while the original, paid for one will.

      Things like netflix are a much better weapon against piracy because they simply simplify the process of buying the original so much, your laziness gets you.
      But the fact netflix is not an product of the media industry kinda shows how out of touch they are.

    7. Re:You reader, please show support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >But is the cause right and just? DRM protects media company profits by making piracy difficult. As long as the DRM does not spy on me or cause other harm, there's nothing wrong with it.

      I've seen this sentiment lately and I just don't understand it. Study after study has shown that people who pirate more also buy more media, so the whole "protecting profits" is the wrong way around. Thankfully, some media companies understand this and THEY THEMSELVES put some media up for free download. Because it helps.

      Now, what do they need DRM for then? There are two possibilities: (1) they are ignorant of the studies or (2) the DRM is for other goals.

      I don't think that they are that ignorant. So that leaves (2), and many unjust means of control can be achieved by DRM. You can log who watches what (eventually good for reporting "inappropriate" people), limit whether you can watch this thing on this or that day (for example where it would be in "bad taste", or inconvenient because of world events hitting a little too close to home), limit where you can watch things (if you travel to another country, buy it again), limit what devices can watch it (causing people to have to keep buying even MORE hardware junk). I could go on.

      So I don't think the massive downsides of DRM (intentional antifeatures like phoning home, preventing format conversion, preventing mixing and parody (which is specifically exempt from copyright) etcetc; then nonintentional antifeatures like "accidential" backdoors in the software, non-auditability of what the hell its doing etcetc) in any way counterweight the upside (protecting media companies profits).

      Now I understand that the media companies try to get the idea that the media companies are the good guys here into the head of the consumer over the years - but really, they aren't. It's only advertising - lies.

    8. Re:You reader, please show support by advocate_one · · Score: 1

      since you will be able to use your browser more often to watch video instead of a proprietary App

      not on my OS of choice...

      --
      Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
    9. Re:You reader, please show support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And how exactly are we supposed to "spread the news" if we're also against crap like FaceBook, Twitter, etc?

      Usenet, of course!

    10. Re:You reader, please show support by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      Try to explain, and watch their eyes glaze over.

      Try to explain "the importance" using logic other than "I believe!" and you'll have more luck. Try understanding that others may intelligently disagree and you'll have them listening to your side more. Both the anti-DRM and open software movements come across as pretty rabid. It's a turn off.

    11. Re:You reader, please show support by lgw · · Score: 1

      Problem is, the MAFIAA is not going to give up DRM, period. Eighter we have a standard to plug it into our browsers, or they stick to crap like flash or silverlight.

      This. Idealism over practicality is something one is supposed to grow out of. There will be DRM on the intarwebs, period. No amount of nerdrage will stop it.

      The more DRM can be standardized, the more likely it is that I'll be able to watch Netflix on a quirky Linux distro, or even BSD.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    12. Re:You reader, please show support by lgw · · Score: 1

      And how can you check that it's not doing that since it's not open? No harm in using closed source stuff if that's not ment to not harm you? How about the Intel ME / AMT bug? This is not about piracy, it's about security.

      It's about security? Really? You going with that? The alternative is Flash! For fuck's sake, man, Flash. That's what you're advocating for in the name of security? Flash?

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    13. Re: You reader, please show support by infolation · · Score: 1

      The issue is not with the Intel ME or DRM, it's that it the ME cannot be removed in modern (post 2008) Intel CPUs. Even if the user does not care whether DRM content can be decrypted.

      There is no issue with Intel ME, or DRM, or the fact that both are closed source BLOBS. Provided the ME can be removed.

      It's entirely possible for Intel to design CPUs in a way that ME removal will prevent the CPU from decrypting DRM content. In that situation, a free-software boot process can proceed without DRM enabled, and the computer can be fully under the control of the user.

    14. Re:You reader, please show support by infolation · · Score: 1

      As long as the DRM does not spy on me or cause other harm, there's nothing wrong with it.

      The Intel ME that is required to use DRM on Intel CPUs is the part that can spy on you.

      I've seen this sentiment lately and I just don't understand it.

      Since the ME has full control over the boot-process, firmware, CPU, RAM, peripherals, screen buffer, network card, and can operate without the knowledge of the firmware or operating system, it can spy on you.

      Any agency that can persuade Intel to sign their modified code can replace the ME with their own malicious version.

    15. Re: You reader, please show support by murdocj · · Score: 1

      No they do not. They want EFFECTIVE systems. If you can demonstrate an open source perfectly effective system, they'd jump on it.

    16. Re:You reader, please show support by murdocj · · Score: 1

      All the "people who pirate more buy more" statistic shows is that some people are more driven to consume more media. There's no indication that if people were unable to pirate that they'd buy less media. Or that pirating causing people to become greater consumers.

    17. Re: You reader, please show support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So as long as you buy more stuff than the average person, it's ok to steal anything else as much as you want? Nice logic, pirate scum.

      Well, name calling aside ("your mother smelt of elderberries!") it's questionable as to whether or not it's stealing in the first place (answer - it's not).

      First and foremost, copyright violation does not result in trespass to chattel, which is a vital component of theft in the legal sense. They do not lose what is being copied, no one does by the act of copying, as much as the content industry desperately wants you to do so. However, things are much worse than that.

      Simply put, copyright law has been warped from what it once was. It was originally set forth Constitutionally as a time-limited provision. It is a net public burden in exchange for giving an incentive for content producers to produce things, in exchange for natural rights being waived temporarily, originally a much more limited amount of time, wherein contemporaries of the work would usually be alive to make some use of it after the fact. Now, it's basically "until the heat death of the universe" and content producers are trying to add in "unless I don't like you using it" and start moving people to a rent-all-content model (see: Office 365 and Adobe products). Meanwhile they're using it to slowly strip away property rights, such as what happened with John Deere Tractors (see about the farmers downloading software from freaking Ukraine to get around it and run their machinery the way they want to), as well as when Google bricked a bunch of Nest automation systems, along with attempts by the auto industry to do the exact same thing.

      And of course, you're going to go on about "you wouldn't work for free, would you?" Aside from the fact that I would (and the world runs on a lot of software that was largely put together FOR FREE, e.g. Linux, and we're both indirectly using a lot of it just to have this exchange), what is being proposed is hardly that. If it was so critical to protecting the content industry, DRM would be too late already since we'd have no companies for there to be a content industry in the first place.

      This might sound like a bunch of nonsense, but guess what? It's busy happening right this second. So yeah, unless you like renting everything in your house, including quite literally everything with a computer chip in it (because those run software, software requires DRM, Windows now runs on refrigerators, etc...) from your corporate overlords like some form of neo-peasant? DRM's a bad thing, m'kay?

      Of course, I don't really expect you to read this. If "pirate scum!" is the best thing you have to counter this argument with then you really have zero business arguing for or against this. Either that, or you're grossly biased. But either way, resorting to name calling instantly is a great indicator of how you view this entire topic simplistically. As-is, however, copyright is a theft from the public domain and is a prime building block for control of all computer systems as well as subsequent social control, censorship, and tons of other bad stuff that one could likely write a library on and still not be done. You think that government surveillance with malware is bad? You ain't seen nothing yet, since we're reaching the point where the malware comes baked in, or slipped into a forced update

    18. Re:You reader, please show support by lgw · · Score: 1

      All the locked down mainstream devices havd Linux or BSD installed already - you seem to have your head stuck up your 90s.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  2. i agree with the FSF here, but they can't win. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The FSF can't win this one. There is too much money on the other side. You have Google, Netflix, every major web browser, Microsoft, and even the inventor of the web himself. What is going to stop that kind of support? the clueless public that doesn't have the slightest concept of how any of this works? Some FSF march that will be lucky to get a small number of geeks? No.

    The open internet was a quirk of history. It was doomed from the start. It may have started as a wild west, an open digital frontier, but control over it is being re-established step by step by step.

    1. Re:i agree with the FSF here, but they can't win. by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      The FSF can't win this one. There is too much money on the other side.

      If all that matters is who has more money this issue would have been quashed in the early 90's. Today the question on the table for W3C today would be mandatory laser scanning of eyeballs or mandatory browser APIs to give websites with too much money ring0 access to everyone's systems.

      You have Google, Netflix, every major web browser, Microsoft, and even the inventor of the web himself. What is going to stop that kind of support?

      Before commenting further please review W3C's member list.
      https://www.w3.org/Consortium/...

      Also review open principals that W3C advertises adherence to.
      https://open-stand.org/about-u...

      There has to be "Broad consensus" ... simply voting or allowing those with the most money to win violates W3C's own rules.

      The open internet was a quirk of history. It was doomed from the start. It may have started as a wild west, an open digital frontier, but control over it is being re-established step by step by step.

      It's never been cheaper or easier to communicate globally with billions of people. Source code for systems, networking and application stacks are readily available to anyone who wants them for FREE. Those bitching about being doomed and helpless need to get their heads examined.

  3. Don't like DRM? Don't watch such content! by mi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you don't like, how the content is sold to you, then do not buy it . Very simple, eh?

    But, no, as a good "Illiberal" — and you can't be one without an Authoritarian screaming inside you — you have to make sure, no one else can buy it either.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Don't like DRM? Don't watch such content! by Oligonicella · · Score: 2

      I support DRM being available in the HTML 5 standard, I am a flaming liberal.

      You're an AC and nothing you write about yourself is worth believing.

  4. The wrong side of the wrong side of history by davide+marney · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hate it when people making purely subjective, moral arguments disguise it as being factual. There is no right or wrong "side" of history one could be on.

    --
    "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
    1. Re:The wrong side of the wrong side of history by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      There is no right or wrong "side" of history one could be on.

      That sure sounds like someone who's never read up on history... or are you arguing those in favor of slavery were not on the wrong side of history?

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:The wrong side of the wrong side of history by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      Are you making an attempt to equate the presence of DRM with the presence of slavery? If not, understand that the "side" referred to here is in context, as the correct side of the DRM issue to be on and your comment pedantry.

    3. Re:The wrong side of the wrong side of history by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      understand that the "side" referred to here is in context, as the correct side of the DRM issue to be on and your comment pedantry.

      I was merely pointing out there there is a right and a wrong side of history. It's far less subjective than he would like it to be.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  5. Self-affirmation of assholes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "I'm right, therefore, everyone else is not only wrong, but also they're Hitler."

  6. FFS, just crack it and be done with it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Standardization of DRM in web browsers is a great thing. It provides a standard, that means as soon as wide spread support is available, it will be impossible to change without f-ing up billions of devices. The standard will have to be something that can be supported on any device or else it will fail. Then you just have to crack it once and we're done with it.

    This is a total non-issue.

    I have read the standards proposed and all of them seem to have clear vectors of attack to exploit weaknesses. This isn't like DVD where the main problem was that the encryption mechanism was unknown without licensing which required stepping through code to crack it. These DRMs are ridiculously simple to exploit and impossible to patch.

    If you want actual DRM which actually works, it is best to implement it in web assembly and OpenCL and can be changed often and easy. This standard is functionally closer to OMA DRM which also was a joke.

  7. it is the camel's nose by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Once camel has nose in tent, rest of camel soon follows. End game is transfer of control away from end user. Presently end user controls display of web content: ad blockers, tracking blockers, blocking scripts trying to disable right click menus or "save as", blocking popups, all possible today. The DRM-on-web goal is partly about streaming content but end game is DRM for all page content, to deny local control and thus local ability to block ads, tracking, and script imposed limitations.

    The web where the end user was in control was not acceptable and is being reeled back. Goal is TV 2.0. Goal is clawing back control temporarily in the hands of end user after web caught certain interests off guard. Neither govt neither corporations want end user control of web browsing experience. If a few will find a way around it does not matter: the majority will follow the herd. It suffices to steer the herd.

    1. Re: it is the camel's nose by MCRocker · · Score: 1

      So, you're expecting that they'll start insisting that end users not be able to run Greasemonkey scripts since they might infringe some content creator's rights to present things on your browser as they envision, then, soon after outlaw that pesky view source option?

      --
      Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
  8. manipulative use of language by ooloorie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ethics in Tech

    I generally think DRM and standardized DRM is not a good idea. But hell would freeze over before I would support any group called "Ethics in Tech", no matter what their position may be.

    People who use terminology like that are saying clearly that they are unwilling to engage in open, honest debate with other people, and instead want to verbally beat up anybody they disagree with.

    Note that a group of "developers, thinkers, artists, and digital citizens" calling themselves "Ethics in Tech" might well come down on either side of the DRM debate, since many "creative people" believe that copying their works without their permission is "unethical".

    1. Re:manipulative use of language by Scorch_Mechanic · · Score: 1

      So what would you call it then? Despite egregious twisting by modern spin doctors (cf. "Restoring Internet Freedom"), words still have meaning. If not "Ethics in Tech", then what? It's already as brief as it can possibly be. More words would muddle the statement. They've specifically mentioned UNESCOs stance in their public statement, as quoted by the FSF (and appearing in The Fucking Summary). They clearly believe that DRM is unethical. So they call themselves "Ethics in Tech".

      Now I don't know anything else about this group (they seem new) but here's their mission statement:

      "Local developers, thinkers, artists, and digital citizens will join together to apply public pressure on W3C ahead of Tim Berners-Lee announcement about the future of EME. Our mission is to check the enormous influence and market pressure from the Tech Industry through physical mobilization and community education. We will do this by Marching on W3C’s headquarters, located in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), using targeted messaging, protest signs, distributing literature. The hope is to activate and educate the community of academics around Cambridge and increase the potential damage to reputation for W3C’s political endorsement of EME."

      The page also mentions there was a speech. I've done some searching but I can't turn up a transcript, so we might have to wait a day for that. At any rate, this group's beliefs about DRM clearly align with yours. So here's the sixty-four thousand dollar question again: Given the choice, what would you call the group?

      --
      You should turn signatures off.
    2. Re:manipulative use of language by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      Despite egregious twisting by modern spin doctors [...] words still have meaning.

      Correct. And this group claims that opposing DRM is a question of "ethics". How is it a question of "ethics"? How do their actions and demands relate to specific, identifiable ethical principles? The message they are delivering is “You Don’t Own Our Voices”. How does incorporating DRM into commercial products or into W3C standards translate into anybody "owning their voices"?

      this group's beliefs about DRM clearly align with yours

      Absolutely not. I think there is nothing unethical about the W3C writing down a standard for DRM, nor is there anything unethical about Microsoft or Google using DRM. I simply think DRM is undesirable and I would prefer for the W3C not to standardize it, based on utilitarian arguments, not ethical arguments. It's similar to my stance on drug use: using drugs is undesirable, not unethical, and people who try to frame drug use in term of ethics are "spin doctors" and closet-totalitarian pricks.

  9. The FSF is political. by segin · · Score: 1

    And should be moved to Cuba.

    They're what you get when one man drinks the Marxist kool-aid in college and decides to apply that philosophy to computer software development and project governance, of all things.

    Of course, it's no surprise rms looks like a hipster. He was a leftist cuck before it was cool.

    1. Re:The FSF is political. by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Or Venezuela. He can be president Maduro's tech czar, and make Venezuela a test bed for all his libre software. Once he turns all of Venezuela's programmers into slaves, forcibly converted to the church of St iGNUtious

  10. The Maginot Line. by westlake · · Score: 1

    The next war is never like the last war.

    But try telling that to the general birthed in the nineteenth century who builds the impenetrable defense wall that can be easily outflanked by a fast-moving tank or an aircraft. The admiral whose big gun ships will fall victim to the submarine, the carrier or the guided missile.

    The app is built into every device that has an Internet connection. The 4K UHD TV on your living room wall. The smart watch on your wrist. No Netflix. No sale. No content protection. No Netflix. No add free music service with 26 million tracks in all genres.

    The app doesn't have to conform to the conventions of the generic web browser or appease the FSF. If the geek wants the browser to remain competitive he has to be realistic about what the alternatives in the app world have to offer.

  11. Re:Can't Say I Care by unixisc · · Score: 1

    As the Buddha said, anything in moderation is okay. As long as this DRM is there in moderation in HTML5, it's fine. If there is excessive DRM, then there's a problem.

    One potential solution: have XHTML DRM free, so that creators can choose the platform they wanna build under/upon.