5 ms·

I don't understand the point of WebDRM. You can't simultaneously give us the content and not give us the content. WebDRM is broken by default and pushing it i

I don't understand the point of WebDRM. You can't simultaneously give us the content and not give us the content. WebDRM is broken by default and pushing it is just absolutely retarded.

jandrese 9y ago
As dumb and broken as it is, the state of the world is such that you can't deliver most video without something like it. So the options are: 1. Stick to your guns and keep it out of the standard, free browsers will be unable to play Netflix, Hulu, HBOGo, BBC, etc... Propriety plugins that only work on one browser and/or one platform will exist and be annoying and buggy. 2. Give in and allow this braindamage in the standard because it means most browsers will be able to support video streaming from most sites. 3. Convince the MPAA and all of their members and all of the worldwide organizations like it that DRM is bad and that they should stop demanding it. In the realm of what the W3C can accomplish, #2 seems like the least worst solution.
- metajack 9y ago
  Free browsers can't play Netflix anyway, because EME is just a standardized interface to a proprietary CDM, which one must license from a vendor (Microsoft of Google mostly). What giving in achieved is a reasonable security story around the CDM module as opposed to the free for all of NPAPI plugins. It still totally sucks, but at least hte capabilities of these CDMs are quite limited.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- bad_user 9y ago
  Option 1 is the best because playing DRM content should be Netflix's problem. Why in the world would you want to subsidize Netflix's development? So what if Netflix's DRM plugin would be proprietary and buggy? Heck, that's a window of opportunity for DRM-free competition. By making it a standard it means that we'll never, ever get rid of it. Even if DRM is fundamentally flawed. #2 is in fact the worst solution.
  - marksomnian 9y ago
    Put yourself in the shoes of a browser dev faced with a torrent of angry users asking why you "broke Netflix". They won't listen to what seems like a wishy-washy response about the principles of "the open Internet", all they will care about is that they had Netflix and now they don't and it's your fault. Devil's advocate, I'm no fan of DRM, but from the end user's point of view, it's a necessity.
    - cyphar 9y ago
      If (in an ideal world) Chrome and Firefox had said "no, we aren't implementing it" then it falls back to Netflix to stop harming users. And they need to make business so they'll make a crappy SilverLight client that breaks every other week. It's not the browser developers' fault that a several million dollar company decided to build their business model around the need for DRM. The biggest problem with taking the principled stand is that you run into the prisoner's dilemma. And every CS student can tell you that the game theory says you should always defect, if the other parties are adversarial. I think the biggest problem in the "browser game" is that the different free browsers often see each other as enemies and not as friendly competition. It's a shame because monocultures are what almost killed the internet in the early days, and I don't understand why we're heading back to ActiveX.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        In an ideal world nobody would want DRM. In the real world, Chrome and Firefox are not part of the same team, and never were. Google is a media distribution platform like Netflix (YouTube, Play, etc), and like them, they have zero interest in pissing off producers based on lofty ideals.
    - garaetjjte 9y ago
      It boils down to what is more important for user: will they change browser to play DRMed videos or switch video provider to one without DRM. Not supporting EME in browser with falling usage (Firefox) is likely suicide, but W3C doesn't make browsers and can take any ideological position without consequences.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
frivoal 9y ago
The best answer I know to this was written by Hixie (main editor of the HTML spec) a few years back: https://plus.google.com/+IanHickson/posts/iPmatxBYuj2 https://plus.google.com/+IanHickson/posts/iPmatxBYuj2
kelnos 9y ago
> You can't simultaneously give us the content and not give us the content. You actually mostly can, today, and "mostly" is good enough for the content producers. If you have a DRM pipeline that has software and hardware that validates that it hasn't been tampered with (which is absolutely possible with today's technology), then the best an "attacker" can do is point a camera at the display device (and live with the reduced quality that brings), at least not without spending a ton of money on expensive hardware to defeat this. And as another poster pointed out, DRM isn't really about protecting content from piracy, it's more about content producers having leverage over the people who make content-consumption technology. And it's working quite well for them for that purpose.

I don't understand the point of WebDRM. You can't simultaneously give us the content and not give us the content. WebDRM is broken by default and pushing it is just absolutely retarded.

jandrese 9y ago

As dumb and broken as it is, the state of the world is such that you can't deliver most video without something like it. So the options are: 1. Stick to your guns and keep it out of the standard, free browsers will be unable to play Netflix, Hulu, HBOGo, BBC, etc... Propriety plugins that only work on one browser and/or one platform will exist and be annoying and buggy. 2. Give in and allow this braindamage in the standard because it means most browsers will be able to support video streaming from most sites. 3. Convince the MPAA and all of their members and all of the worldwide organizations like it that DRM is bad and that they should stop demanding it. In the realm of what the W3C can accomplish, #2 seems like the least worst solution.

metajack 9y ago
Free browsers can't play Netflix anyway, because EME is just a standardized interface to a proprietary CDM, which one must license from a vendor (Microsoft of Google mostly). What giving in achieved is a reasonable security story around the CDM module as opposed to the free for all of NPAPI plugins. It still totally sucks, but at least hte capabilities of these CDMs are quite limited.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bad_user 9y ago
Option 1 is the best because playing DRM content should be Netflix's problem. Why in the world would you want to subsidize Netflix's development? So what if Netflix's DRM plugin would be proprietary and buggy? Heck, that's a window of opportunity for DRM-free competition. By making it a standard it means that we'll never, ever get rid of it. Even if DRM is fundamentally flawed. #2 is in fact the worst solution.
- marksomnian 9y ago
  Put yourself in the shoes of a browser dev faced with a torrent of angry users asking why you "broke Netflix". They won't listen to what seems like a wishy-washy response about the principles of "the open Internet", all they will care about is that they had Netflix and now they don't and it's your fault. Devil's advocate, I'm no fan of DRM, but from the end user's point of view, it's a necessity.
  - cyphar 9y ago
    If (in an ideal world) Chrome and Firefox had said "no, we aren't implementing it" then it falls back to Netflix to stop harming users. And they need to make business so they'll make a crappy SilverLight client that breaks every other week. It's not the browser developers' fault that a several million dollar company decided to build their business model around the need for DRM. The biggest problem with taking the principled stand is that you run into the prisoner's dilemma. And every CS student can tell you that the game theory says you should always defect, if the other parties are adversarial. I think the biggest problem in the "browser game" is that the different free browsers often see each other as enemies and not as friendly competition. It's a shame because monocultures are what almost killed the internet in the early days, and I don't understand why we're heading back to ActiveX.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      In an ideal world nobody would want DRM. In the real world, Chrome and Firefox are not part of the same team, and never were. Google is a media distribution platform like Netflix (YouTube, Play, etc), and like them, they have zero interest in pissing off producers based on lofty ideals.
  - garaetjjte 9y ago
    It boils down to what is more important for user: will they change browser to play DRMed videos or switch video provider to one without DRM. Not supporting EME in browser with falling usage (Firefox) is likely suicide, but W3C doesn't make browsers and can take any ideological position without consequences.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

frivoal 9y ago

The best answer I know to this was written by Hixie (main editor of the HTML spec) a few years back: https://plus.google.com/+IanHickson/posts/iPmatxBYuj2 https://plus.google.com/+IanHickson/posts/iPmatxBYuj2

kelnos 9y ago

> You can't simultaneously give us the content and not give us the content. You actually mostly can, today, and "mostly" is good enough for the content producers. If you have a DRM pipeline that has software and hardware that validates that it hasn't been tampered with (which is absolutely possible with today's technology), then the best an "attacker" can do is point a camera at the display device (and live with the reduced quality that brings), at least not without spending a ton of money on expensive hardware to defeat this. And as another poster pointed out, DRM isn't really about protecting content from piracy, it's more about content producers having leverage over the people who make content-consumption technology. And it's working quite well for them for that purpose.