Slashdot Mirror
HTML5 DRM Standard Is a Go (arstechnica.com)
Artem Tashkinov writes: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the industry body that oversees development of HTML and related Web standards, has today published the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) specification as a Recommendation, marking its final blessing as an official Web standard. Final approval came after the W3C's members voted 58.4 percent to approve the spec, 30.8 percent to oppose, with 10.8 percent abstaining. EME provides a standard interface for DRM protection of media delivered through the browser. EME is not itself a DRM scheme; rather, it defines how Web content can work with third-party Content Decryption Modules (CDMs) that handle the proprietary decryption and rights-management portion. The principal groups favoring the development of EME have been streaming media companies such as Netflix and Microsoft, Google, and Apple, companies that both develop browsers and operate streaming media services. Following the announcement, EFF wrote a letter to W3C director, chief executive officer and team, in which it expressed its disappointment and said it was resignation from the W3C.
Every time EME comes up, a sizable number of Slashdotters announce they support it because "it's a DRM standard" and it means the end of plug-ins like Flash.
It is not a DRM standard. It's a standard for communication with plug-ins, known in this standard as CDMs.
And those plug-ins aren't like the old Netscape plug-ins, that worked (at the time) with every browser (except IE), with different versions only required for each CPU architecture and operating system combination. You won't be able to use your "Adobe DRM" plug-in for Edge under Firefox. In fact, every single browser, CPU, and operating system combination will require its own plug-in. Don't have one for your favorite browser? You're out of luck.
This isn't a standard, it's a non-standard. It's actually worse than Flash.
Shame on the W3C for adopting it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
When this protocol is used to disable adblock and any other previously free function of the web in the name of "muh intellectual property", don't cry about it.
This is the future you chose.......
I hope they enjoy their 20 silver. Assholes.
My opinion is that Mozilla is to blame for this happening.
It wasn't long ago that Firefox had 35% or more of the browser market, and this allowed Mozilla to exert a lot of influence over how the web developed. They could take a given web standard and say, "No, we don't like this. Either change it or we won't implement it." Since their browser was being used by 1 in 3 web users, them deciding not to support a standard could basically render that standard irrelevant.
But that's no longer the case. Now Firefox has only about 5% of the browser market, and even that may be a generous figure. Firefox has only 0.04% of the mobile market. Yes, you read that right! 0.04%! Not even half of a tenth of one percent!
Its 5% market share puts Firefox well, well, well behind Chrome. It puts Firefox well behind Safari. It puts Firefox well behind UC Browser for Android.
With its 5% of the market, Firefox is now down in the region of browsers like Opera Mini and Samsung Internet. It's getting to the point where even web developers don't care enough to test with Firefox, because it just isn't worth it.
Keep in mind that this is before Firefox 57 is released. Firefox 57 has been touted as only supporting WebExtensions extensions, which could very well break a lot of existing extensions. I could see this sort of breakage being the final straw for many of the few remaining Firefox users, who will likely move to Chrome, Safari or Edge, thus sending Firefox's market share even lower than it already is.
Nobody cares what the developers of a browser with 5% or less of the market think. Such a browser is seen as irrelevant, its users wishes are seen as irrelevant, and its developers' desires are seen as irrelevant. None of its competitors have to give a damn what Mozilla thinks these days. This means that Mozilla has limited influence over the future of the web.
It didn't need to be this way. Firefox was doing so well until Mozilla started making change after change that Firefox users did not want. I know a lot of people will claim, "But Google advertised Chrome!". But that's just an irrelevant excuse. People continued to use Chrome instead of Firefox because Chrome gave a much better experience. It became even sillier to use Firefox after Firefox started imitating Chrome's appearance and behavior more and more, but not Chrome's superior performance and small memory usage.
If Mozilla had only listened to its users, and not made unwanted changes to Firefox, then Firefox would likely still have 30% or more of the browser market. If they had gotten the performance of Firefox fixed up, Firefox could probably have even had over 50% of the market. But now it's at 5%, and this number is decreasing.
Mozilla could have influenced the future of the web. But now that Firefox has lost so much market share those driving the development of the web (Google, Apple and Microsoft) no longer have to care what Mozilla thinks or wants!
It is sad, but it's also understandable.
Resigning after losing the EME fight stinks of the spoilt little child taking his bat and ball and storming off home in a huff after losing a game with the neighborhood kids.
That's not how I see it at all. They aren't leaving because of this one issue. The corporate takeover of the W3C had been causing increasing problems for a long time. I think this is more like the straw that broke the camel's back.
From my point of view, their leaving is makes sense -- their presence adds some validity to the committee that it doesn't deserve. If they can't actually accomplish any good by being on it (and it looks like they can't), then their remaining on it is actively harmful.
The geek doesn't like paying for content. I get that.
If that's what you think the issue is about, then you don't get it at all.
Then you have give it access to protected content.
It always had access to protected content. That also isn't the issue.
The issue is that the EME doesn't belong in the HTML standard in the first place. But, since it's going to be forced in no matter what, the secondary issue is that the EME mechanism doesn't actually achieve any of the things were being touted as the reason it should be in the standard.
It's a con job.
The idea that you shouldn't be able to record a copy of anything that plays on your machine is ridiculous.
Amen! As a consumer, it is not my problem if your business model isn't robust enough to survive people copying data that you sold them access to. Keep your goddamed failed encryption strategies out of my browser.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!