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> The browser ecosystem is weaker than it’s ever been This kind of hyperbole undermines the whole argument. The browser ecosystem was weakest when Microsoft r

> The browser ecosystem is weaker than it’s ever been This kind of hyperbole undermines the whole argument. The browser ecosystem was weakest when Microsoft released IE6 and then decided to not update it for half a decade. Today, by comparison, we are living in a land of plenty. Even on the DRM front, the situation was no better in the past when you had to use Flash or Silverlight for DRM. At least now there is a clean interface to just the video decryption without requiring a whole bloated proprietary plugin. I don't quite understand the ideological bent that EME corrupts an open standard, but the same result from NPAPI is somehow less objectionable? If the hope is that by standards bodies rejecting DRM on principle they will somehow strong-arm Big Content, I can tell you unequivocally that it ain't gonna happen. Cory Doctorow has not spent the last 10 years building a feature film streaming service and negotiating with rightsholders, but I have. In fact I spent most of that time fighting against DRM on a UX basis and trying to find loopholes, which works for small distributors but not for the studios. The torrent crowd would have you believe it's because they're stupid, but Big Content is anything but stupid. They know that there is no such thing as guaranteed copy protection and that there will always be an analog loophole. The reason they insist on DRM is as a means of control. They just need enough roadblocks in front of casual piracy to prevent devaluation of their content. If they were unwilling to accept any piracy they wouldn't stream to PCs at all. Which, BTW, is exactly what would happen if we succeed in outlawing DRM on PCs. They would literally pull the content, and say if you want to watch go buy an Approved Device. Customers wouldn't bat an eye either, because people prefer to watch on a television anyway; cheap streaming boxes / smart TVs are the future, not general purpose web browsers. Making a huge issue of EME is just asinine and belies a complete ignorance of the market forces at work here. The studios have all the power, browser makers do not have any leverage. And in any case, if rightsholders want to play a cat and mouse game with DRM that should be their prerogative, but customers should also have the freedom to circumvent those measures. Where we need to focus our lobbying efforts is against the DMCA and infinite Copyright extension which broadly impacts consumer rights and the public benefit.

chriswarbo 10y ago
I don't understand why people think the Web needs Hollywood's video content. Let them build proprietary set top boxes or whatever, who cares if it's not in a browser? It's certainly not important enough to undermine the Web's principles of openness, interoperability, free access to knowledge, etc. As far as I see it, EME would only be a loss for the Web and browser makers like Mozilla; in a similar way to, for example, losing the ability to "view source" would be a loss. I think the real threat is from commercial entities who want EME for entirely separate reasons, i.e. Apple, Microsoft and Google, who also just-so-happen to make browsers. They can embrace/extend/extinguish the Web, by building an encryption standard into their particular browsers which none of the countless others are able to do (Firefox, Konqueror, Dillo, Netsurf, W3M, Lynx, EWW, Elinks, etc.). EME seems like an attempt to preempt such a situation, but I don't see how it can do anything to prevent it. This is a much worse situation than some set-top box scenario, since it will bleed users from all browsers to those few with EME+plugins, and the Web will become yet another Microsoft Office document format.
- sievebrain 10y ago
  I understand and sympathise with that argument, but View Source is already useless on most large sites due to extensive use of JS rendering and minification. Modern web sources aren't meant to be read by humans and it's really only one or two steps above being handed a compiled binary. Also: Firefox is quite capable of following Apple, Microsoft and Google. The idea that MozCorp is not a Corp isn't right either. So whilst "the web should not support rights management and voluntarily cede such content to other platforms" is a perfectly reasonable argument, I don't think the sanctity of View Source or Mozilla is a supporting point in favour.
  - nanch 10y ago
    Respectfully, all of your points regarding the triviality of view-source here are just wrong. Here's a test for you: go to a page and view-source; what do you see? > View Source is already useless on most large sites No it isn't. Web devs can easily read source on almost all sites all the time. > Modern web sources aren't meant to be read by humans Yes they are - that why we've got view-source. > and it's really only one or two steps above being handed a compiled binary. That's the point - it's NOT compiled binary. The sanctity of View Source is exactly what's in question here, and I stand in the group that says "no" to closed-source web specifications.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      I personally agree that sites with obfuscated JS are hard to read, and are pushing boundaries close to binary. I also think, it's absurd to use that as an argument. Some sites are pushing shitty, hard to read code, sure. But instead of allowing them to continue working against the spirit of the system, we should shame them, and use them as examples of what not to do. If a couple of bad politicians abuse their system, we don't say "fuck it. lets go back to a monarchy"
      - sievebrain 10y ago
        It's not "some" sites, it's nearly all. Heck I picked the front page of BBC News and opened it up. Wall of minified JS. Further down the page we see something that vaguely resembles normal HTML except for stuff like this: <div id=markets_index_promo class="hidden" data-comp-meta="{"id":"markets_index_promo","type":"remote-portlet","handler":"remotePortlet","deviceGroups":null,"opts":{"assetId":"10263779","id":"market_data\/markets_index_promo","loading_strategy":"post_load","position_info":{"instanceNo":1,"positionInRegion":3,"lastInRegion":false,"lastOnPage":false,"column":"secondary_column"}}}">
threatofrain 10y ago
I agree with your criticism that the browser ecosystem has improved from a past of idiosyncrasy and special plugins, but I wanted to mildly disagree with your strong prediction that if the browser became technically hostile to DRM, then content providers would refuse HTTP distribution and that the market would gladly go with custom streaming boxes. Just because a DRM standard doesn't go through doesn't mean that it's any easier or harder for the majority of customers to illegitimately acquire content, and nor is it any easier or harder for a company to provide illegitimate content, especially in the centrally-hosted streaming form. If you're saying that there's always a way to acquire content, since content must ultimately be decrypted on some legitimate system, then companies will continue to have the technical reach to efficiently acquire content. What stops them is legal censure and international trade deals, not a DRM standard. What a DRM standard does do is make legitimate content experience more enjoyable for customers because now there are fewer plugins, which could also translate to security benefits. At worse, we end up with a world like we have now, where content providers still do business with Netflix and Hulu, and companies use flash or some other plugin to secure their content, and people still have the same ease / difficulty of acquiring illegitimate content.
7952 10y ago
An open DRM could theoretically be useful for things other than copyright protection. For example, you could display an on screen keyboard for password entry and guarantee that malware cannot create screen grabs. Having cryptographically secure peripherals could help improve security and privacy, but only if it is open.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  The problem of course being that an Open DRM is a fanciful oxymoron. DRM requires keeping decryption secrets from the user while allowing them to decrypt; if the user knows the algorithm to how those secrets are kept then the user knows how to access those secrets. It's certainly interesting to imagine what an Open DRM standard might look like. It's probably something more like a "blockchain" than existing DRM.
  - 7952 10y ago
    And it was always ridiculous to use the same key across millions of devices. Of course there is a huge security benefit in having unique keys that are inaccessible to possible attackers.
wmeredith 10y ago
I appreciate thus thoughtful reply. I think that big content us in fir a rude awakening, though. They don't have all the power. Go ask big news or big music how ignoring their customers changing demands has gone.
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  Isn't big music in the best shape ever right now?
wolfgke 10y ago
> They know that there is no such thing as guaranteed copy protection and that there will always be an analog loophole. And they surely know that one able person to circumvent the copy protection suffices. > They just need enough roadblocks in front of casual piracy to prevent devaluation of their content. Using DRM on the viewers is a devaluation of their content since I know people who would rather "pirate" instead of buy DRMed content even though they do have moral reservations against illegal copying. Thus I can hardly imagine a better advocacy for priracy (ironically even from the side of the rightholders) than the rightholders insisting on DRM. Thus every "hardcore pirate" can say that say still have the better product and every fencesitter can warrant their piracy by soliloquizing that they really, really would buy the product but there is no product available without DRM.
tomjen3 10y ago
If I can't watch the content on my device, I will just Google watch show name for free and get a direct link. Studios have no power, they just think they have.
jasode 10y ago
>Making a huge issue of EME is just asinine and belies a complete ignorance of the market forces at work here. I do like comments such as yours that highlight the influence of economics because that factor is almost always missing from naive commentaries about "github vs git" or "gmail vs mydomain.com" or "Facebook vs mydomain/Usenet/IPFS/etc". However, Cory is actually emphasizing something else that you only mentioned at the end: >, but customers should also have the freedom to circumvent those measures. Yes, Cory is against DRM in general, but the particular essay is focused on the interaction of DMCA and DRM causing innocent people who analyze/research browsers to become defacto criminals. While the "market forces" aspect is part of the DRM push, it's not relevant to this particular essay. The analogy would be Microsoft Steve Ballmer's assertion that the GPL "infects" other commercial software. (The "infection" is by design of course.) Therefore, many businesses deliberately avoid it. Cory doesn't want the criminal nature of DMCA to "infect" browsers which then allows content publishers like Disney to put browser researchers into jail. Theoretically, the DRM and "reverse engineering is a crime" could be orthogonal issues, but the current USA law doesn't separate them. This is the nuance that pushes many to keep DRM out of browsers. I don't know what the solution is. Maybe the community does something like FFMPEG distributions. The widely distributed binaries do not include patented code. However, hardcore devs can download sources of any patent-encumbered code (e.g. AAC codec) and build their own binaries for their private use. They just can't publicly redistribute it without threat of a lawsuit. It's possible to distribute 2 separate binary builds (firefox_drm & firefox_nodrm) but I'm guessing it would cause confusion. Most users would default to just downloading the DRM version "because it plays all the videos I want to see on the web." Then you're right back to Cory's argument about the criminalization "time bomb" infecting browsers.
nsgi 10y ago
While I'm mostly in favour of EME, I'm sceptical that it wouldn't be possible to strong-arm big content into providing content without DRM. Digital music has transitioned to being sold DRM-free. TV is broadcast DRM-free and can be copied with widely available technology. BBC iPlayer recently launched a HTML5 beta which doesn't use encrypted media extensions. YouTube doesn't use EME for the music videos available on there. As long as users can't right-click and select "save video" (not possible on any video using DASH) it will still be easier to torrent things.
yk 10y ago
> Even on the DRM front, the situation was no better in the past when you had to use Flash or Silverlight for DRM. The situation was a lot better when you needed Flash or Silverlight, the browser was not broken by design. And you could run a browser without an encrypted bi-directional channel outside of the user's control. (Which incidentally is the argument with which I got the security section into the EME standard.) On your argument, that content producers are not stupid. I am not claiming that, but their situation with or without DRM is exactly the same; anybody who wants the movie for free can easily find a torrent, anybody who wants a legal stream pays Netflix. The only reason for DRM is, that they want a answer when their shareholders ask what is done against piracy. That is basically the definition of bullshit, a technical standard with a sole non-technical purpose. The reason free software is winning (Android has a Linux kernel, OS X is based on a BSD, Apache and Nginx run most of the web, etc.) is that the free software ecosystem is quite resistant against this kind of bullshit. Free software developer do what is technically right most of the time, while proprietary software developers have to deal with that kind of market forces all the time. And because of that, we get better software and at some point the market forces are such, that companies switch to the superior, that is the open, product.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  There will be some way to opt out of EME though, so the presence of the channel outside of user control isn't any different than with flash. (Hopefully something better than running a fork, but that option is there.)
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    I would be surprised if Firefox and possible Chromium didn't have a feature flag for it.
    - johncolanduoni 10y ago
      Since the EME video has to show up in HTML, there may be a way of an extension blocking it. If this is possible, I'd be surprised if it didn't end up as an option in uBlock Origin and friends.
FunctionalGuy 10y ago
Great points! (But IE6 was updated, it's just that companies didn't update their browsers and OS)
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> I don't quite understand the ideological bent that EME corrupts an open standard, but the same result from NPAPI is somehow less objectionable? The same result from NPAPI is the same objectionable. That's why NPAPI is deprecated. There shouldn't be DRM in web browsers. Any DRM of any kind. If Hollywood then wants to only distribute movies via Comcast and not the web, let them. They'll lose a large revenue stream to spite themselves, smaller studios who use the web anyway will get a large uptick in viewers on mobile devices and PCs which will erode the big studios' power, Hollywood will get pressure from all sides to support the popular platforms anyway, and it doesn't even matter if they don't. People aren't going to stop buying iPhones just because they can't watch certain feature length movies on the 6" screen.
- rayiner 10y ago
  If neither Samsung nor Apple are shipping a phone that can watch Netflix, one or the other has a huge incentive to be the one to sell a phone that does. As for the viability of independent content. The last decade has been a damning indictment of that argument. Between high quality digital cameras and YouTube, it's never been easier to release independent content into the world. Yet, what rocketed YouTube to popularity? Being able to watch the Daily Show without paying. Same thing with games. With open source game engines and Steam, it's easier than ever to release independent games. Yet, companies like EA with borderline abusive customer practices are taking it in with Call of Duty 17.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    And if neither Sony nor Paramount are showing movies to customers with iOS or Android devices, one or the other has a huge incentive to be the one to start, even if it means no DRM. And there are a lot more little studios than there are browser or OS vendors, so there would certainly be movies available. Which would put pressure on more studios to make movies available, which would put pressure on the remaining studios to not abandon a proven revenue stream etc. I'm also not sure how the argument that people will pirate Hollywood content rather than watch independent content on devices that don't support DRM is supposed to improve Hollywood's bargaining position. It's pretty much the pure distillation of the point that offering content without DRM will reduce piracy and increase revenue. And "companies with abusive practices are very profitable" sounds like the argument for platform vendors restricting the abusive practices.
stormbrew 10y ago
> The torrent crowd would have you believe it's because they're stupid, but Big Content is anything but stupid. They know that there is no such thing as guaranteed copy protection and that there will always be an analog loophole. The reason they insist on DRM is as a means of control. They just need enough roadblocks in front of casual piracy to prevent devaluation of their content. If they were unwilling to accept any piracy they wouldn't stream to PCs at all. If this is what they're trying to do, it seems pretty stupid to me? Casual piracy has not been enabled by casual pirates recording off their radio/TV since VCRs died. Casual piracy is enabled by determined attackers and a distribution network that lets them reach casual viewers. But the DRM they seem to be pursuing is quite a few steps above macrovision's quaint protection, and threatens all kinds of new poisonous side effects. Reality does not seem to reflect this minimal effort theory.
iandanforth 10y ago
The perception of studios having the balance of power is as damaging as the reality would be. I don't own a tv. This is true of a growing section of the people I know. A majority of people I've asked consume greater than 75% of their Hollywood content through a steaming service. You have won that battle. Today Hollywood's major leverage is not pulling content from the web (it simply can't) but from competing services. Netflix and Amazon recognise this which is why they are trying to become content producers.
gergles 10y ago
> At least now there is a clean interface to just the video decryption without requiring a whole bloated proprietary plugin. Um, you're aware that the video decryption modules EME downloads are bloated proprietary plugins, right? There's no open standard to decrypt video, which is Doctorow's whole point.
- acdha 10y ago
  You need to remember that the status quo was Flash. It's absurd to try to pretend that a sandboxed decryption module is remotely comparable to a runtime roughly comparable in complexity to the browser itself. Yes, it's proprietary and non-free. Everyone knows that and we can debate the implications but there's absolutely no possible interpretation where that isn't a huge win for security and stability.
  - gergles 10y ago
    The content decryption modules (CDMs) do have limited access to the browser (basically: here is a stream of data, render into this viewport), but there is nothing in the spec that limits what the EME modules can do to the OS (and the Windows Widevine one, for example, integrates with "Protected Media Path" which is Ring 0 code). Even the W3C is skeptical of the security of CDMs: https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/#cdm-security https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/#cdm-security.
    - acdha 10y ago
      Yes, but that's not introducing additional risk because the user was going to install it anyway, assuming it isn't provided by the OS or something like Chrome. If you're using content restricted by Widevine, you're exposed to bugs there no matter whether it's accessed by a CDM, NPAPI plugin, or a standalone app. Until consumers stop paying for encumbered content that won't change. My point was about what we're not exposed to: bugs in Flash/Silverlight or exposed OS features being used in unexpected ways. That's a huge amount of code with a history of exploits and almost none of it is necessary to play a video but it's still enabled and ready to attack.
__a__ 10y ago
"Which, BTW, is exactly what would happen if we succeeded in outlawing DRM on PCs." "Customers wouldn't bat an eye either..." So what's the problem then? Customers come first, right? If they are happy, then what's the problem? Why force commercial content into the so-called "general purpose" web browser? The way you describe your negotiations I get the impression that scare tactics, e.g., piracy, are being used as leverage. What are you hoping to achieve? Also, it is interesting how you transitioned from DRM in a browser to "DRM on PCs". This is a much broader question. Is the only purpose of a personal computer to run a web browser? Is the only purpose of the internet "the web"? Is the only use of a network to transfer commercial content?

chriswarbo 10y ago

I don't understand why people think the Web needs Hollywood's video content. Let them build proprietary set top boxes or whatever, who cares if it's not in a browser? It's certainly not important enough to undermine the Web's principles of openness, interoperability, free access to knowledge, etc. As far as I see it, EME would only be a loss for the Web and browser makers like Mozilla; in a similar way to, for example, losing the ability to "view source" would be a loss. I think the real threat is from commercial entities who want EME for entirely separate reasons, i.e. Apple, Microsoft and Google, who also just-so-happen to make browsers. They can embrace/extend/extinguish the Web, by building an encryption standard into their particular browsers which none of the countless others are able to do (Firefox, Konqueror, Dillo, Netsurf, W3M, Lynx, EWW, Elinks, etc.). EME seems like an attempt to preempt such a situation, but I don't see how it can do anything to prevent it. This is a much worse situation than some set-top box scenario, since it will bleed users from all browsers to those few with EME+plugins, and the Web will become yet another Microsoft Office document format.

sievebrain 10y ago
I understand and sympathise with that argument, but View Source is already useless on most large sites due to extensive use of JS rendering and minification. Modern web sources aren't meant to be read by humans and it's really only one or two steps above being handed a compiled binary. Also: Firefox is quite capable of following Apple, Microsoft and Google. The idea that MozCorp is not a Corp isn't right either. So whilst "the web should not support rights management and voluntarily cede such content to other platforms" is a perfectly reasonable argument, I don't think the sanctity of View Source or Mozilla is a supporting point in favour.
- nanch 10y ago
  Respectfully, all of your points regarding the triviality of view-source here are just wrong. Here's a test for you: go to a page and view-source; what do you see? > View Source is already useless on most large sites No it isn't. Web devs can easily read source on almost all sites all the time. > Modern web sources aren't meant to be read by humans Yes they are - that why we've got view-source. > and it's really only one or two steps above being handed a compiled binary. That's the point - it's NOT compiled binary. The sanctity of View Source is exactly what's in question here, and I stand in the group that says "no" to closed-source web specifications.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    I personally agree that sites with obfuscated JS are hard to read, and are pushing boundaries close to binary. I also think, it's absurd to use that as an argument. Some sites are pushing shitty, hard to read code, sure. But instead of allowing them to continue working against the spirit of the system, we should shame them, and use them as examples of what not to do. If a couple of bad politicians abuse their system, we don't say "fuck it. lets go back to a monarchy"
    - sievebrain 10y ago
      It's not "some" sites, it's nearly all. Heck I picked the front page of BBC News and opened it up. Wall of minified JS. Further down the page we see something that vaguely resembles normal HTML except for stuff like this: <div id=markets_index_promo class="hidden" data-comp-meta="{"id":"markets_index_promo","type":"remote-portlet","handler":"remotePortlet","deviceGroups":null,"opts":{"assetId":"10263779","id":"market_data\/markets_index_promo","loading_strategy":"post_load","position_info":{"instanceNo":1,"positionInRegion":3,"lastInRegion":false,"lastOnPage":false,"column":"secondary_column"}}}">

threatofrain 10y ago

I agree with your criticism that the browser ecosystem has improved from a past of idiosyncrasy and special plugins, but I wanted to mildly disagree with your strong prediction that if the browser became technically hostile to DRM, then content providers would refuse HTTP distribution and that the market would gladly go with custom streaming boxes. Just because a DRM standard doesn't go through doesn't mean that it's any easier or harder for the majority of customers to illegitimately acquire content, and nor is it any easier or harder for a company to provide illegitimate content, especially in the centrally-hosted streaming form. If you're saying that there's always a way to acquire content, since content must ultimately be decrypted on some legitimate system, then companies will continue to have the technical reach to efficiently acquire content. What stops them is legal censure and international trade deals, not a DRM standard. What a DRM standard does do is make legitimate content experience more enjoyable for customers because now there are fewer plugins, which could also translate to security benefits. At worse, we end up with a world like we have now, where content providers still do business with Netflix and Hulu, and companies use flash or some other plugin to secure their content, and people still have the same ease / difficulty of acquiring illegitimate content.

7952 10y ago

An open DRM could theoretically be useful for things other than copyright protection. For example, you could display an on screen keyboard for password entry and guarantee that malware cannot create screen grabs. Having cryptographically secure peripherals could help improve security and privacy, but only if it is open.

WorldMaker 10y ago
The problem of course being that an Open DRM is a fanciful oxymoron. DRM requires keeping decryption secrets from the user while allowing them to decrypt; if the user knows the algorithm to how those secrets are kept then the user knows how to access those secrets. It's certainly interesting to imagine what an Open DRM standard might look like. It's probably something more like a "blockchain" than existing DRM.
- 7952 10y ago
  And it was always ridiculous to use the same key across millions of devices. Of course there is a huge security benefit in having unique keys that are inaccessible to possible attackers.

wmeredith 10y ago

I appreciate thus thoughtful reply. I think that big content us in fir a rude awakening, though. They don't have all the power. Go ask big news or big music how ignoring their customers changing demands has gone.

dingo_bat 10y ago
Isn't big music in the best shape ever right now?

wolfgke 10y ago

> They know that there is no such thing as guaranteed copy protection and that there will always be an analog loophole. And they surely know that one able person to circumvent the copy protection suffices. > They just need enough roadblocks in front of casual piracy to prevent devaluation of their content. Using DRM on the viewers is a devaluation of their content since I know people who would rather "pirate" instead of buy DRMed content even though they do have moral reservations against illegal copying. Thus I can hardly imagine a better advocacy for priracy (ironically even from the side of the rightholders) than the rightholders insisting on DRM. Thus every "hardcore pirate" can say that say still have the better product and every fencesitter can warrant their piracy by soliloquizing that they really, really would buy the product but there is no product available without DRM.

tomjen3 10y ago

If I can't watch the content on my device, I will just Google watch show name for free and get a direct link. Studios have no power, they just think they have.

jasode 10y ago

>Making a huge issue of EME is just asinine and belies a complete ignorance of the market forces at work here. I do like comments such as yours that highlight the influence of economics because that factor is almost always missing from naive commentaries about "github vs git" or "gmail vs mydomain.com" or "Facebook vs mydomain/Usenet/IPFS/etc". However, Cory is actually emphasizing something else that you only mentioned at the end: >, but customers should also have the freedom to circumvent those measures. Yes, Cory is against DRM in general, but the particular essay is focused on the interaction of DMCA and DRM causing innocent people who analyze/research browsers to become defacto criminals. While the "market forces" aspect is part of the DRM push, it's not relevant to this particular essay. The analogy would be Microsoft Steve Ballmer's assertion that the GPL "infects" other commercial software. (The "infection" is by design of course.) Therefore, many businesses deliberately avoid it. Cory doesn't want the criminal nature of DMCA to "infect" browsers which then allows content publishers like Disney to put browser researchers into jail. Theoretically, the DRM and "reverse engineering is a crime" could be orthogonal issues, but the current USA law doesn't separate them. This is the nuance that pushes many to keep DRM out of browsers. I don't know what the solution is. Maybe the community does something like FFMPEG distributions. The widely distributed binaries do not include patented code. However, hardcore devs can download sources of any patent-encumbered code (e.g. AAC codec) and build their own binaries for their private use. They just can't publicly redistribute it without threat of a lawsuit. It's possible to distribute 2 separate binary builds (firefox_drm & firefox_nodrm) but I'm guessing it would cause confusion. Most users would default to just downloading the DRM version "because it plays all the videos I want to see on the web." Then you're right back to Cory's argument about the criminalization "time bomb" infecting browsers.

nsgi 10y ago

While I'm mostly in favour of EME, I'm sceptical that it wouldn't be possible to strong-arm big content into providing content without DRM. Digital music has transitioned to being sold DRM-free. TV is broadcast DRM-free and can be copied with widely available technology. BBC iPlayer recently launched a HTML5 beta which doesn't use encrypted media extensions. YouTube doesn't use EME for the music videos available on there. As long as users can't right-click and select "save video" (not possible on any video using DASH) it will still be easier to torrent things.

yk 10y ago

> Even on the DRM front, the situation was no better in the past when you had to use Flash or Silverlight for DRM. The situation was a lot better when you needed Flash or Silverlight, the browser was not broken by design. And you could run a browser without an encrypted bi-directional channel outside of the user's control. (Which incidentally is the argument with which I got the security section into the EME standard.) On your argument, that content producers are not stupid. I am not claiming that, but their situation with or without DRM is exactly the same; anybody who wants the movie for free can easily find a torrent, anybody who wants a legal stream pays Netflix. The only reason for DRM is, that they want a answer when their shareholders ask what is done against piracy. That is basically the definition of bullshit, a technical standard with a sole non-technical purpose. The reason free software is winning (Android has a Linux kernel, OS X is based on a BSD, Apache and Nginx run most of the web, etc.) is that the free software ecosystem is quite resistant against this kind of bullshit. Free software developer do what is technically right most of the time, while proprietary software developers have to deal with that kind of market forces all the time. And because of that, we get better software and at some point the market forces are such, that companies switch to the superior, that is the open, product.

maxerickson 10y ago
There will be some way to opt out of EME though, so the presence of the channel outside of user control isn't any different than with flash. (Hopefully something better than running a fork, but that option is there.)
- noir_lord 10y ago
  I would be surprised if Firefox and possible Chromium didn't have a feature flag for it.
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago
    Since the EME video has to show up in HTML, there may be a way of an extension blocking it. If this is possible, I'd be surprised if it didn't end up as an option in uBlock Origin and friends.

FunctionalGuy 10y ago

Great points! (But IE6 was updated, it's just that companies didn't update their browsers and OS)

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> I don't quite understand the ideological bent that EME corrupts an open standard, but the same result from NPAPI is somehow less objectionable? The same result from NPAPI is the same objectionable. That's why NPAPI is deprecated. There shouldn't be DRM in web browsers. Any DRM of any kind. If Hollywood then wants to only distribute movies via Comcast and not the web, let them. They'll lose a large revenue stream to spite themselves, smaller studios who use the web anyway will get a large uptick in viewers on mobile devices and PCs which will erode the big studios' power, Hollywood will get pressure from all sides to support the popular platforms anyway, and it doesn't even matter if they don't. People aren't going to stop buying iPhones just because they can't watch certain feature length movies on the 6" screen.

rayiner 10y ago
If neither Samsung nor Apple are shipping a phone that can watch Netflix, one or the other has a huge incentive to be the one to sell a phone that does. As for the viability of independent content. The last decade has been a damning indictment of that argument. Between high quality digital cameras and YouTube, it's never been easier to release independent content into the world. Yet, what rocketed YouTube to popularity? Being able to watch the Daily Show without paying. Same thing with games. With open source game engines and Steam, it's easier than ever to release independent games. Yet, companies like EA with borderline abusive customer practices are taking it in with Call of Duty 17.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  And if neither Sony nor Paramount are showing movies to customers with iOS or Android devices, one or the other has a huge incentive to be the one to start, even if it means no DRM. And there are a lot more little studios than there are browser or OS vendors, so there would certainly be movies available. Which would put pressure on more studios to make movies available, which would put pressure on the remaining studios to not abandon a proven revenue stream etc. I'm also not sure how the argument that people will pirate Hollywood content rather than watch independent content on devices that don't support DRM is supposed to improve Hollywood's bargaining position. It's pretty much the pure distillation of the point that offering content without DRM will reduce piracy and increase revenue. And "companies with abusive practices are very profitable" sounds like the argument for platform vendors restricting the abusive practices.

stormbrew 10y ago

> The torrent crowd would have you believe it's because they're stupid, but Big Content is anything but stupid. They know that there is no such thing as guaranteed copy protection and that there will always be an analog loophole. The reason they insist on DRM is as a means of control. They just need enough roadblocks in front of casual piracy to prevent devaluation of their content. If they were unwilling to accept any piracy they wouldn't stream to PCs at all. If this is what they're trying to do, it seems pretty stupid to me? Casual piracy has not been enabled by casual pirates recording off their radio/TV since VCRs died. Casual piracy is enabled by determined attackers and a distribution network that lets them reach casual viewers. But the DRM they seem to be pursuing is quite a few steps above macrovision's quaint protection, and threatens all kinds of new poisonous side effects. Reality does not seem to reflect this minimal effort theory.

iandanforth 10y ago

The perception of studios having the balance of power is as damaging as the reality would be. I don't own a tv. This is true of a growing section of the people I know. A majority of people I've asked consume greater than 75% of their Hollywood content through a steaming service. You have won that battle. Today Hollywood's major leverage is not pulling content from the web (it simply can't) but from competing services. Netflix and Amazon recognise this which is why they are trying to become content producers.

gergles 10y ago

> At least now there is a clean interface to just the video decryption without requiring a whole bloated proprietary plugin. Um, you're aware that the video decryption modules EME downloads are bloated proprietary plugins, right? There's no open standard to decrypt video, which is Doctorow's whole point.

acdha 10y ago
You need to remember that the status quo was Flash. It's absurd to try to pretend that a sandboxed decryption module is remotely comparable to a runtime roughly comparable in complexity to the browser itself. Yes, it's proprietary and non-free. Everyone knows that and we can debate the implications but there's absolutely no possible interpretation where that isn't a huge win for security and stability.
- gergles 10y ago
  The content decryption modules (CDMs) do have limited access to the browser (basically: here is a stream of data, render into this viewport), but there is nothing in the spec that limits what the EME modules can do to the OS (and the Windows Widevine one, for example, integrates with "Protected Media Path" which is Ring 0 code). Even the W3C is skeptical of the security of CDMs: https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/#cdm-security https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/#cdm-security.
  - acdha 10y ago
    Yes, but that's not introducing additional risk because the user was going to install it anyway, assuming it isn't provided by the OS or something like Chrome. If you're using content restricted by Widevine, you're exposed to bugs there no matter whether it's accessed by a CDM, NPAPI plugin, or a standalone app. Until consumers stop paying for encumbered content that won't change. My point was about what we're not exposed to: bugs in Flash/Silverlight or exposed OS features being used in unexpected ways. That's a huge amount of code with a history of exploits and almost none of it is necessary to play a video but it's still enabled and ready to attack.

__a__ 10y ago

"Which, BTW, is exactly what would happen if we succeeded in outlawing DRM on PCs." "Customers wouldn't bat an eye either..." So what's the problem then? Customers come first, right? If they are happy, then what's the problem? Why force commercial content into the so-called "general purpose" web browser? The way you describe your negotiations I get the impression that scare tactics, e.g., piracy, are being used as leverage. What are you hoping to achieve? Also, it is interesting how you transitioned from DRM in a browser to "DRM on PCs". This is a much broader question. Is the only purpose of a personal computer to run a web browser? Is the only purpose of the internet "the web"? Is the only use of a network to transfer commercial content?