EFF Officially Appeals Tim Berners-Lee Decision On DRM In HTML (techdirt.com)

Last week, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) decided to officially recommend the use of Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) for protecting copyrighted video on the internet. This will enable web surfers to watch media in a browser that requires Digital Rights Management copy protection without the need for browser-based plugins. "It moves the responsibility for interaction from plugins to the browser," the consortium states at the time. "As such, EME offers a better user experience, bringing greater interoperability, privacy, security, and accessibility to viewing encrypted video on the web." TechDirt shares an update: It's been a foregone conclusion that EME was going to get approved, but there was a smaller fight about whether or not W3C would back a covenant not to sue security and privacy researchers who would be investigating (and sometimes breaking) that encryption. Due to massive pushback from the likes of the MPAA and (unfortunately) Netflix, Tim Berners-Lee rejected this covenant proposal. In response, W3C member EFF has now filed a notice of appeal on the decision. The crux of the appeal is the claimed benefits of EME that Berners-Lee put forth won't actually be benefits without the freedom of security researchers to audit the technology -- and that the wider W3C membership should have been able to vote on the issue. This appeals process has never been used before at the W3C, even though it's officially part of its charter -- so no one's entirely sure what happens next.

Comments

Seems like drm should be a PLUGIN to me.

[michaelcole]

Good for the EFF. Donated $50 because of this very issue. https://www.eff.org/issues/drm

Re:Seems like drm should be a PLUGIN to me.

[mysidia]

EFF may find it offensive the rest of us just want shit to work, when I browse Netflix or whatever other streaming site I choose I don't want a fucking plugin and all the incompatibilities

Right.... Plugins are history. And DRM should Not be grafted into an open standard such as HTML. If Netflix insists on DRM-encoded content, only option should be to use their own custom protocol with an external viewer: Not the web browser, because they are not implementing a "Web site", at that point, they are implementing an encrypted binary blob that can only be viewed using proprietary software.

Re:Seems like drm should be a PLUGIN to me.

[peppepz]

With EME, not only you can be forced to install a specific plugin to browse the open web, but it's much more likely that you'll be forced to actually install a specific browser or even a specific operating system - most probably of the kind oriented to "media consumption", with spyware built-in and not fully controllable and observable by its owner.

Riiight....

[argStyopa]

"EME offers a better user experience"

Is this like one of those "up is down" or "black is white" postmodern things?

Because as far as I can tell, EME seems more like a scheme to lock DRM into browsers ?

Or am I misunderstanding?

Re:Riiight....

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like when USER Bob can't get his key to verify because Reasons while PIRATE Johnny has no problems?

Yeah

Re:I don't get the controversy

[Vairon]

If there's a vulnerability in this closed source module that can't be examined and someone browses any website on the web that exploits this module then a user is at risk without ever visiting Netflix.

Re:I don't get the controversy

[Gravis Zero]

The web isn't suddenly locked down and all browsers must be closed source now. If you don't want to use DRM, then don't go to DRM enabled services like Netflix. You are not entitled to anything Netflix, Hulu, etc has to offer.

That's not even half the problem. The W3C's own mission statement states that:

The social value of the Web is that it enables human communication, commerce, and opportunities to share knowledge. One of W3C's primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.

I run Linux on PowerPC and can see everything that complies to standards on the net just fine. Who is going to port their DRM to Linux let alone PowerPC?! I can't watch Flash stuff but it's also not an open standard. However, with the EME I cannot watch several platforms despite complying with every standard.

I have zero problem with those companies withholding their services from me but I object to mere suggestion that they should be able to claim that they are complying with open standards. There is no standard interface or format for CDMs which is a problem because the EME is specifically designed for them.