4 ms·

> 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 need

by 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.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    I half checked before making my other comment and didn't find anything. A second look reveals media.eme.enabled in Firefox, so it's already possible to turn it off.
    - cpeterso 10y ago
      This EME pref is also exposed in Firefox's settings UI (as a "Play DRM content" checkbox (about:preferences#content on Windows and OS X). There is more documentation on Mozilla's Support site here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm
- gavinpc 10y ago
  There may be a way for users to opt out. I think EFF's point is that new browsers wouldn't be able to ship an EME feature without specific approval from the studios... at least that was my reading from previous articles here. I can't find the reference now.
- edoceo 10y ago
  In chrome you can disable it on the plugins page. I've done it. Lots of stuff doesn't play. So now I have a standby Windows 10 (spyware!) system to play Netflix/Hulu in Edge (don't hate me)
johncolanduoni 10y ago
> 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. I'm no fan of EME but you completely lost me there. GCC has been kept monolithic not for technical reasons, but for fear of modularization leading companies to close source their frontends[1]. This has come up again now that LLVM/Clang is gaining on GCC[2] The decision to avoid a stable ABI or even API for Linux drivers is again driven by non-technical reasons[3] (Linus actually specifically says the reasons are non-technical). Whether or not you agree with these reasons, I find it hard to call them any more "technical" than the reasons you ascribe to the "rights holders" (also am I the only one that thinks it's silly that the term these companies prefer to call themselves by feels a lot like "landlords"? Who as we all know are universally loved!). As far as getting better software, it depends. A lot of free software projects end up just doing what the creators feel is interesting instead of things users actually want (cf. Linux on the desktop). I'm not faulting them for that (it's their project and time after all!) but it does sometimes leave users of free software out in the cold unless they have the skills and time to contribute the features themselves. [1]: https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2000-01/msg00572.html https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2000-01/msg00572.html [2]: https://lwn.net/Articles/582242/ https://lwn.net/Articles/582242/ [3]: https://lwn.net/1999/0211/a/lt-binary.html https://lwn.net/1999/0211/a/lt-binary.html

by yk 10y ago

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.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  I half checked before making my other comment and didn't find anything. A second look reveals media.eme.enabled in Firefox, so it's already possible to turn it off.
  - cpeterso 10y ago
    This EME pref is also exposed in Firefox's settings UI (as a "Play DRM content" checkbox (about:preferences#content on Windows and OS X). There is more documentation on Mozilla's Support site here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-drm
gavinpc 10y ago
There may be a way for users to opt out. I think EFF's point is that new browsers wouldn't be able to ship an EME feature without specific approval from the studios... at least that was my reading from previous articles here. I can't find the reference now.
edoceo 10y ago
In chrome you can disable it on the plugins page. I've done it. Lots of stuff doesn't play. So now I have a standby Windows 10 (spyware!) system to play Netflix/Hulu in Edge (don't hate me)

johncolanduoni 10y ago

> 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. I'm no fan of EME but you completely lost me there. GCC has been kept monolithic not for technical reasons, but for fear of modularization leading companies to close source their frontends[1]. This has come up again now that LLVM/Clang is gaining on GCC[2] The decision to avoid a stable ABI or even API for Linux drivers is again driven by non-technical reasons[3] (Linus actually specifically says the reasons are non-technical). Whether or not you agree with these reasons, I find it hard to call them any more "technical" than the reasons you ascribe to the "rights holders" (also am I the only one that thinks it's silly that the term these companies prefer to call themselves by feels a lot like "landlords"? Who as we all know are universally loved!). As far as getting better software, it depends. A lot of free software projects end up just doing what the creators feel is interesting instead of things users actually want (cf. Linux on the desktop). I'm not faulting them for that (it's their project and time after all!) but it does sometimes leave users of free software out in the cold unless they have the skills and time to contribute the features themselves. [1]: https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2000-01/msg00572.html https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2000-01/msg00572.html [2]: https://lwn.net/Articles/582242/ https://lwn.net/Articles/582242/ [3]: https://lwn.net/1999/0211/a/lt-binary.html https://lwn.net/1999/0211/a/lt-binary.html