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Tim Berners-Lee Approves Web DRM, But W3C Members Have Two Weeks To Appeal (defectivebydesign.org)

Posted by msmash on from the tussle-continues dept.

Reader Atticus Rex writes: A high controversial Web standard has received a seal of approval from Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web and its chief technical decision-maker. Opponents like the Free Software Foundation and Electronic Frontier Foundation say that the standard, Encrypted Media Extensions, is a step backwards for freedom, privacy, and a host of other rights on the Web.

There's still a two-week window in which members of the W3C can appeal the decision, and the Free Software Foundation is asking people to email and encourage them to do so. Update: The W3C has announced that it would publish its DRM standard with no protections and no compromises at all.

12 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. two weeks wasted by turkeydance · · Score: 3, Insightful

    done deal

    1. Re: two weeks wasted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      This. The corporate takeover of the internet has been unavoidable from day one. I'm amazed it lasted so long. Future historians will wonder - if they will ever be allowed to do this kind of research - how a decentralized and essentially free tool of communication that put everyone on the same level ended up centralized, subverted and locked up with just negligible and ultimately ineffective opposition. There will never be another chance, corporations and governments will be on high alert to swoop down and nip in the bud any future attempts to create anything like that. We blew it. It's over.

  2. Who died and appointed TBL God? by mellon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why is it just up to Tim Berners-Lee to decide yes or no on this?

    1. Re:Who died and appointed TBL God? by DRJlaw · · Score: 3, Informative

      Why is it just up to Tim Berners-Lee to decide yes or no on this?

      Who would you have decide this? A standards organization, and a standards committee, headed by a person who has the responsbility to announce the decision? With an appeals process?

      Ok. The W3C. The Advisory Committee on Encrypted Media Extensions. Tim Berners-Lee, the person who pretty much set up the the involved standards. With an appeals process and W3C member vote.

      Not that you care about any of that. Any process that doesn't produce the outcome that you want is the product of death and appointment to Godhood, it appears.

    2. Re:Who died and appointed TBL God? by mellon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I take it that you are implying that he has a right to decide because he invented HTTP and HTML. Why would that be so?

    3. Re:Who died and appointed TBL God? by mwvdlee · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not. It's up to Google, Microsoft, Apple and Mozilla.
      If they are on board, it'll get implemented no matter how much opposed.
      If they aren't, the standard is dead on arrival.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    4. Re:Who died and appointed TBL God? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      ISO? you forgot how ISO ignored all of there own standards when approving the Microsoft Word data format as a standard without need for technical review and allowing thousands of Microsoft affiliated parties to become a temporary member and vote on a standard proposed by Microsoft. ISO will make any pile of shit an official ISO standard as long as someone is willing to pay for temporary memberships.

  3. Created the Web and yet still blind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This will destroy the openness of the Web if allowed to stay. The last hope will be with browser makers: no standard gets supported if code isn't written. This is corporate capture of the Web. Personally, I'm done with the Web. The layers of JS, security vulnerabilities out the wazoo, malvertising, and endless seas of "you must register (so we can track you) to proceed" walls make the Web a joke.

    Smart people will move to other protocols that aren't so profit-driven or privacy-destroying.

    1. Re:Created the Web and yet still blind by alexo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The last hope will be with browser makers: no standard gets supported if code isn't written.

      What part of "EME is supported by [...] Google, Microsoft, and Apple" you did not understand?

    2. Re:Created the Web and yet still blind by infolation · · Score: 3, Funny

      or IRL

  4. Re: Like Linus, Bjarne, etc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Negotiation is like alcohol: a little bit can jazz up a night. Too much, however, and the next thing you know you're waking up to a whore snorting lines off of your belly.

    Never go full retard. This decision, if maintained, is an unambiguous "fuck you" to the community that made the Web worth building to begin with. EME is no different than trusting a black box. Given its purpose, it will only gain telemetry abilities and OS lockouts. Do you want a Web that forcibly blocks functionality of your machine? That's what these businesses are willing to do to protect their "assets". They believe their rights trump all others'. Their view of the Web is toxic and cannot be anything but bad for the general public.

    So, are you advocating for a few dozen companies having remote control of millions of devices? They'll just bake it into their DRM, and bam, anyone watching a stream 'protected' by EME would be vulnerable to remote attack.

    This is the part where you no longer own the device, and bills will be written to attempt to make that legal. I'd rather not live in that world.

  5. Adobe vulnerabilities now a web standard by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you've loved the last two decades of comically insecure Flash players and PDF readers your going to love the future where anyone's systems can now be owned by closed source adobe CDM modules.