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W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns
- donatj 9y agoSo this is how the open web dies. Can we fork the W3C into a non-corporate puppet now?
- JoshTriplett 9y agoWe should simply start doing new standards through other organizations. There's no fundamental reason to float new standards through W3C rather than some other organization.
- Touche 9y agoI'm completely confused why the W3C is relevant at all. This already did happen, the browsers created the WHATWG. Since the browser vendors' opinions are the only ones that matter, why do we care what W3C thinks?
- euvitudo 9y agoMaybe W3C is trying to stay relevant?
- tannhaeuser 9y agoI disagree that browser vendors are the only ones to matter. The web is used for many things, like legal documents between private parties, by the government(s), for education, personal notes, literature/cultural heritage, the entire way we consume and perceive written information in this age. Do you want to leave all that to an ad company? Because that's what you're effectively doing when you give WHATWG this role. You are of course right that browser developers/vendors get to decide what they're implementing. But web authors, OTOH, can decide which format their works are published in. Browser vendors and WHATWG have shown no interest in simplifying the web. Rather, they're piling up monstrosities of unnecessary complexity, with the effect that, willingly or not, it is becoming infeasible to develop a new browser from scratch. Most of all, WHATWG seem uncapable to come up with any privacy protection mechanism; instead, we're getting DRM. Honi soit qui mal y pense
- Analemma_ 9y agoDRM was coming to browsers with or without the W3C’s blessing. In fact, it was already there via plugins and wasn’t going away. This has changed nothing except where the implementation is documented. The hysteria over this is just ridiculous.
- wyager 9y agoJust because some horrible thing currently happens to exist doesn't mean you need to (explicitly or implicitly) endorse it. We should make implementing DRM as expensive and inconvenient as possible.
- nobodyorother 9y agoTotally! We're going to have to start by making sure we never standardize it. </sarcasm>
- wyager 9y agoYes, absolutely. What's confusing about that? If the DRM benefactors have to keep developing shitty, expensive, unsupported plugins that need to use unofficial APIs and therefore be updated all the time, it's going to cost a lot more to use DRM.
- _dev_pts_0 9y agoAlthough I share your enthusiasm, I don't think closing the barn door after the horse left is going to help. Customers have to organize and demand an end to DRM by force of withholding money, clicks and eyeballs ... "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." - Frederick Douglass
- wyager 9y agoI'm not sure what your analogy is supposed to express, but this isn't some ideological stand; it's a simple matter of increasing maintenance costs for DRM software.
- 9y ago
- tannhaeuser 9y agoI think that W3C is what makes us believe we're sitting at the table when it comes to decide where the web is heading, when in reality we're not. So while I think W3C has good intentions and is acting in good faith (I'm somewhat undecided on DRM, please convince me of your opinion), I hope for a push to bring the lack of stewardship of the web to public attention, and another standards body (ISO/IEC, IETF, whatever), or W3C under a new statue to emerge and take the role of W3C-as-it-is. (Re-posting this from the other thread [1] which didn't make it) [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15277622 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15277622
- saimiam 9y ago> convince me In case you haven't read this excellent piece against DRM - https://archive.org/details/InformationDoesntWantToBeFree https://archive.org/details/InformationDoesntWantToBeFree
- yahna 9y agoWill it matter? Any organization created to manage web standards is going to be dependent on browser vendors. Google/Microsoft/Apple want DRM so we get DRM.
- dmoy 9y agoI would posit that RIAA/MPAA/etc want DRM, and won't consent to Google/Microsoft/Apple opening up access to content without it, so we get DRM.
- appleflaxen 9y agosure, if you want to become the wwgnu foundation. nobody cares about things they perceive as fringe ideological issues until it's too late. they'll marginalize you by making fun of your personal habits while the open web dies. only those of us who knew the web before it was closed will really know/care why it was special.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y agoBasically, unless you are writing a browser with decent marketshare, you defacto have no voice in making the standards. Basically, the only voices that matter are Mozilla (Firefox), Apple (Safari), Google(Chrome), and Microsoft (Edge/Explorer). Despite what any standard says, web developers are going to go by the behavior of the browsers do. The only company on the list of browser makers that really has any desire to try to exclude DRM is Mozilla, and unfortunately, if they do that, the users will switch to the browser that makes watching Netflix easiest.
- featherverse 9y agoI would suggest not underestimating Mozilla's market influence. It would be possible to create a browser that displays DRM content and ignores DRM. The only thing that content publishers could do is ban that browser. And then it would adapt to disguise itself as other browsers. DRM on the web can only happen if all of the major players (that is, browser publishers) agree to play along. I am very excited about this news, this is probably the most important news in weeks, and could impact the Internet for years to come.
- jandrese 9y agoWouldn't publishers just refuse to distribute keys to said browser?
- swayvil 9y agoThe wealthy win again!
- ringaroundthetx 9y agoGrassroots populist opinions of the people only prevail when the wealthy and corporate interests already coincidentally happened to be lobbying for it. And by coincidence, I mean overlap, so it isn't just a matter of convincing the wealthy interest groups either because they don't care. This study was regarding laws passed and regulations changed, but it would apply to non-state consensus garnering organizations. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... > Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. Same study, in article form with graphs, responding to critics of the study https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/23/critics-challenge-our-portrait-of-americas-political-inequality-heres-5-ways-they-are-wrong/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/2...
- MrMid 9y agoDoesn't Firefox block DRM content by default? If they continue to do so, and if Chrome does so, then this shouldn't have much effect. If most peoples browsers block it, apps shouldn't use it.
- gue5t 9y agoChrome has been shipping DRM called "Widevine" for years.
- josteink 9y agoIn fact Chrome was the first browser to support HTML DRM. Google enabled this when nobody else did. Google is absolutely not your friend.
- icebraining 9y agoAnd that's their DRM, by the way. Google bought the company in 2010.
- ilikepi 9y agoI just created a new Firefox profile (v55.0.3, current stable), and the "Play DRM content" setting is enabled by default. You may be thinking of the Flash plugin, which I believe Firefox and Chrome both do block by default and have done so for a while now.
- MrMid 9y agoNo, I mean Play DRM content, not Flash plugin. I'm on developer edition though, and it's been a while since I installed it, so I might be wrong. Thanks for your info!
- yahna 9y agoGoogle wants DRM.
- hsivonen 9y agoThe default in Firefox depends on which build, which operating system, which distributor. It's a boolean pref that you can flip the other way if you don't like the default you got.
- revelation 9y agoWhat's the point, if this is another one of those "industry groups" they could at least have the decency to make it a great corporate junket with a meeting in Las Vegas or something.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- 5_minutes 9y agoWho is this director exactly that forced this on one-sidedly? I guess he got something out of this. What a disgrace.
- andruby 9y agoThe Tim mentioned in the letter is Tim Berners-Lee. He's the overall Director of the W3C [0] [0] https://www.w3.org/People/#timbl https://www.w3.org/People/#timbl
- favorited 9y agoTim Berners-Lee, the man who created the first web browser.
- room271 9y ago(And the web itself.)
- nebabyte 9y agoTaking a leaf from the DNC playbook. "Who cares about democracy when all you really need is a few agents capable of unilateral action in the private sector" and all that. Fucking fantastic.
- idbehold 9y agoIdeally all content publishers start to really depend on this "feature" and then one or two of the major browser vendors a few years down the line suddenly stop enforcing any restriction the DRM had. Now the publishers have to spend a bunch of money to move back to the plugin style DRM.
- cromulen 9y agoI'm a bit uneducated when it comes to the cryptography involved, but I'm wondering why people here are so determined DRM can't ever work? Is it because someone will somehow get a copy and upload to torrents/streaming sites which of course won't have DRM. Thus only potentially annoying legitimate (eg. Netflix) users? Or are there other concerns?
- Fej 9y agoDRM doesn't work. Every form of DRM has historically been broken in one way or another. There are a couple of current systems that haven't been broken yet but it doesn't matter; content will be available from unauthorized sources the day they are released for streaming and no technical means is going to stop that. Even Denuvo, the darling of the major games publishers, is broken on a regular basis. The company acknowledges that their software doesn't last forever (they tout '300 days' on their website as the longest any of their DRM schemes has held up, it usually is broken in a couple of weeks) and that the value is protecting the profits during that period.
- CMay 9y agoDRM does work. Whether Denuvo is successful depends on how it is implemented. Implementations of Denuvo have survived a year+ without being cracked. As you said, DRM often isn't intended to be secure forever, just for long enough that the major sales buzz is over anyway. You can also think of DRM as branching into online services. DRM commonly required some form of interaction with an online service to validate a key or whatever else. As a result, some DRM is in fact built into the foundation of the software and this is the most successful. Think of World of Warcraft or Everquest. To essentially crack that DRM, you have to recreate the server backend which is a serious undertaking. This has been done, but it took a long time, only applies to older versions and doesn't connect you to the legitimate service. Steam is an online service and games which use SteamWorks are coupling at least some of their features with the online service, but this is not as complicated as something like World of Warcraft so it is easily cracked. Denuvo attempts to fill that gap by more strongly coupling the software with Steam. As a result, Steam is technically the DRM while Denuvo is helping to enforce it and thus is not labeled as "3rd party DRM" on the Steam Store pages. There is a balance between the popularity of your software and the difficulty of breaking the DRM. If your software isn't extremely popular, then a crack is not in high demand. If the software is easy to crack, then even if it isn't in high demand it may get drive-by cracked. If it's difficult enough, many people will decide that their time is better spent elsewhere even if it is possible to crack. As we enter the age of encrypted processing where both the code and data are encrypted during execution on the processor, cracking will be time consuming enough and have enough prerequisites that it simply won't be able to keep up with even the most popular software. It will be a while before this can become mainstream, because unless governments start requiring it, there will always be devices without encrypted processing that companies can't ignore in order to maximize profit. It won't surprise me if we see both governments that require encrypted processing and governments that ban encrypted processing. Obviously for static media like audio or video this is harder to deal with, but there have been a number of novel solutions to this that just haven't been widely adopted. There are also still a lot of consumers with older hardware that publishers want to target, because not targeting them is worse than the concern of piracy. These are more about mitigation rather than outright making it impossible for a time period.
- bhhaskin 9y agoWe are allowing large corporations to dictate and push the web toward a closed system. A future where there has to be an App for that, and if you don't keep your head down you will be censored and cutoff from the rest of the online world.
- 2trill2spill 9y agoHogwash, there is more open source software now then ever before.
- 5ilv3r 9y agoWe have a quality problem, even it there is ample quantity.
- 2trill2spill 9y agoMost software, open or closed has quality issues, so while I think your right, I also think that's a separate conversation.
- ethanwillis 9y agoDevelopers are using open source. End users not so much, except open source bundled into their apps as libraries to actually power them. Getting an app into users hands nowadays is becoming gatekeeped more and more. Either through fearmongering (buy those certs for your apps approved by Gatekeeper X) or literal gatekeeping on app stores. You can argue that people don't have to use locked down app stores, but then you're just missing the point.
- bhhaskin 9y agoI couldn't agree more, and on top of that it is getting harder and harder to use open app stores. More and more devices are locked down.
- pdonis 9y agoWhat's important is not what software exists somewhere where somebody could theoretically download and use it, but what software actually gets used. Most users don't even know what open source software is, much less where to find any; they use what comes with either Windows or OS X or their smartphone. Also, your software can be as open source as you like, but if it can't interoperate with the rest of the Internet, it's useless. Personally, I don't watch TV or movies on my computer so I don't particularly care whether my browser lets me do that or not. But I would care very much if, for example, my bank's website started requiring a DRM-capable browser. Open source doesn't address that problem.
- Fej 9y agoOn one hand, this is terrible for freedom in our software; on the other, this isn't the "death of the open Web" that some are proclaiming. The media groups want DRM and they will get it. This doesn't mean that we are going to lose all freedom on the Web. It's a step in that direction, certainly, but we're sure as heck not there yet.
- 5ilv3r 9y agoIt is already very difficult to distribute your own content without subjecting it to some other entity's distribution system, and soon it will be impossible. Chrome and friends will refuse to load unsigned content, and then the death of the free web will be complete.
- ascagnel_ 9y ago> Chrome and friends will refuse to load unsigned content, and then the death of the free web will be complete. I'm going to need some citations that this is even remotely in the plan (and requiring HTTPS isn't the same as refusing to load unsigned content, since that's on the transport level).
- mimsee 9y agoI don't think he ever said HTTPS. By "unsigned content" he meant that video files for example can't be played unless a Hollywood rightowner has granted playback access for the file. However in the future this DRM will be an freedom-of-speech issue. The goverment could use it as means to silence people. North-Korea is currently ahead of us. Any videos you take could be automatically signed and later on pulled by the gov. by revoking the signature. Now extending this to basic text, images, VR?, and whatever new mediaformats there will be in the future. I highly recommend watching video where a tablet from North-Korea gets inspected. It explains how NK keeps control of its citizens. https://youtu.be/fAtWwadP6CY https://youtu.be/fAtWwadP6CY
- ascagnel_ 9y agoI only mentioned HTTPS in the sense that browsers now actively push users away from unsecured transport connections. And please provide some example of any browser vendor making moves to block/delist unsigned videos/photos for _any_ reason.
- sboselli 9y agoShame, shame, shame. We're losing the internet day by day, if we haven't done so already. I've seen people and posts here and there calling for attention on these issues, but imho it's all too subtle. We should start using harsher terminology for what's actually happening. This is flat out CORRUPTION, and I'm not seeing anyone express it as such. It's probably too late already, and unfortunately, this is merely a reflection on what's happening in the world in the larger geo-political context. Corruption everywhere.
- 5_minutes 9y agoHow come we don't know WHO sold us out for that beach house?
- wavefunction 9y agoApparently one of them is Tim Berners-Lee?!? He's the Director of W3C as far as I know.
- amelius 9y agoDiscussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14759219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14759219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720591
- craftyguy 9y agoTim Berners-Lee, for one.
- wolfgke 9y ago> We're losing the internet day by day, if we haven't done so already. Let's just "fork" the web from W3C (or 3WC as some people like to call them by now) instead.
- ashleysmithgpu 9y agoIs the EFF a big enough presence to "fork" the W3C standards? I hope so.
- olivermarks 9y agowhere does this leave Brave and Opera, two browsers I use regularly?
- Crespyl 9y agoI understand them both to be based on Chromium at this point. Chrome already has support, so if the Brave/Opera browsers want it it's pretty much just a flip of the switch (Opera may already have it, I think). Basically if your browser lists any kind of Content Decryption Module (usually something called Widevine) among its plugins, you have EME support.
- olivermarks 9y agothanks
- thejerz 9y agoBrave and Opera both use the Blink rendering engine from Chromium/Google. Therefore, you may see this new DRM W3C standard in Brave and Opera.
- Endy 9y agoLooks like I'm sticking with the EFF only from now on.
- phkahler 9y agoNow is the time to make it possible for individuals to use DRM when they publish videos online. How often do media companies show peoples stuff on TV and such without permission? Of course youtube ToS allow that, but this should all be changed ASAP. When large amounts of content actually come from individuals, it's the individuals rights that need to be protected. When will we see DRM for the masses?
- flyinghamster 9y agoIt won't be for the masses. For a physical-media model, look at SACD. You can't burn your own SACD recordings, even if you have a DSD-capable recorder; the players will only play signed discs, and the signing keys are only available to pressing plants.
- rocqua 9y agoThat seems about as viable as allowing anyone to be a certificate authority. This system relies on a list of trusted keys, that chain of trust needs to be anchored somewhere. Notably, easy implementations depend on controlling all trust anchors.
- icebraining 9y agoOf course youtube ToS allow that As far as I understand it, not really. You only grant them a license to use your video in the Service or for promoting it. Plus you cancel any rights by deleting the video. Some cases fall under Fair Use, but it's my belief that unless they request permission from the video author(s), those media companies are infringing their copyright. But we all know these laws are just for the rich - who can afford to sue them anyway?
- oconnor663 9y agoWhenever compromise fails, both sides blame the other for refusing to give any ground. Obviously browser vendors have a lot more power than the EFF does, and don't necessarily need to compromise as much to get what they want. But I'm curious, for their part, did the EFF actually offer any compromises in defense of consensus? Edit: You guys are totally right, I missed it in the original article. Shame on me.
- Flimm 9y agoThe article talks about a compromise that the EFF proposed and saw rejected.
- zopa 9y agoThe link at the top tells you all about the EFF's comprimise proposal.
- dannyobrien 9y agoWe offered to open a discussion about a covenant, modelled on the W3C's own patent covenant, that would mean that W3C members would agree to only prosecute those who had broken the DRM within a W3C standard, if they had another cause of action. That's to say, those companies could prosecute you if you broke the DRM and used it infringe copyright, but not if you only broke the DRM for lawful purposes -- such as security research, for accessibility, to protect privacy, and so on. There was a sizeable component within the W3C (I am still unsure as to what degree I can reveal how much, given that the W3C holds members to a confidentiality agreement.) who felt this was an important step to take before making EME a standard. In the end, the W3C executive team overrode those objections, and decided to go ahead without any such covenant. You can now for the first time be prosecuted for revealing a flaw in a W3C standard, overriding a browser "feature" on behalf of its user, or making a HTML video accessible without first asking permission of the DRM vendor who obfuscated it.
- zerocrates 9y agoThe covenant would have been a nice step forward and it's unfortunate to see that it didn't happen, but I think you overstate the consequences here. > You can now for the first time be prosecuted for revealing a flaw in a W3C standard, overriding a browser "feature" on behalf of its user, or making a HTML video accessible without first asking permission of the DRM vendor who obfuscated it. Presumably you're referring to the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions? Your second two examples are just as illegal now as they were yesterday: EME was already a browser "feature," already being used for HTML video. The only thing that's changed is the "W3C standard" part. The vendors presumably would have been fine to take EME, already a de facto standard and just leave it as-is, or "standardize" it in another body. Forcing that would have been nice for W3C's purity and image in some circles, and maybe even a good move, but it doesn't seem that it would have made any practical difference.
- favorited 9y agoFor the record, the EFF only joined the W3C to fight EME in the first place. They're not resigning in protest, they're leaving the group because they didn't win the single battle they joined for the purpose of fighting.
- wakamoleguy 9y agoDo you have a source for that? The latest article that references the W3C on their site already shows them as a member, and it appears that they were heavily involved in Do Not Track work before EME. Did they post something somewhere when they were joining? edit: The reply below has the link. Thank you!
- favorited 9y ago> So last week, EFF increased its involvement in the W3C from being a regular participant and invited expert to a full member, to challenge DRM in the group's future work https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/eff-joins-w3c-fight-drm https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/eff-joins-w3c-fight-dr...
- wakamoleguy 9y agoExcellent, thank you!
- gsnedders 9y agoDo Not Track was a document produced by an IETF WG, and totally unrelated to the W3C.
- mockindignant 9y agoSource please?
- wakamoleguy 9y agoIn case you didn't see it, parent replied with a link on my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15280029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15280029
- sev 9y agoDRM can't work in theory, but it is working in practice. If someone writes a piece of software that allows downloading of DRM-ed content (without losing quality, and playable anytime) from the big names (Netflix, Amazon, etc), then this battle would be won.
- jxcole 9y agoNot by a long shot. Where would you put this solution once you found it? Github? Npm? Of course corporations will sue these organizations out of existence for hosting a DRM work around, so they won't be able to host it. So at the end unless you can find some cool Russian hosting (a la sci-hub) you are straight out of luck. The real problem is not creating a solution, but finding somewhere to put it that people can actually get to.
- umeshunni 9y ago> Where would you put this solution once you found it? Github? Npm? BitTorrent?
- literallycancer 9y agoHost it on the blockchain :)
- yellowapple 9y agoAaaand now billions of dollars are DMCA'd out of existence ;)
- sev 9y agoAlthough many don't use it (yet, still, and maybe never will), the "place to put it" problem is already solved, isn't it? Worst case, put it in a "dark" corner of the web :)
- alethiophile 9y agoIn practice, you'd have techies with the bit between their teeth passing magnet links around, and media companies playing whack-a-mole with anyone who hosts it too visibly. Meanwhile, anyone who makes a modest effort can get a DRM-free pirated copy without trouble, and the 95% of people who don't bother will continue paying for their Netflix subscription.
- Chardok 9y agoCan anyone explain what are the possible implications of this? I am imagining a bunch of annoying add-ons to access news articles and what not, but is there a potential to carry over to smaller or niche spaces?
- twiddo 9y agoI'm afraid of this becoming the status quo. Everything is going to be a binary blob that you either download and run or you don't. It's really shortsighted to say "if Hollywood doesn't get DRM, you won't get Netflix". The market is there, it just wouldn't have been as easy for Hollywood to do so. Now we have made it easy (and even standardized it!).
- nickysielicki 9y agoSo let me get this straight... My graphics processor supports this encryption. My monitor supports this encryption. My kernel supports this encryption. And we're going to draw the line at EME-- the glue that sits between my web browser and all of this infrastructure? That's the line that we just can't afford to cross? It's not the fault of the consumer for purchasing hardware that supports this stuff? It's not the fault of the OS developers for supporting it? It's squarely on the W3C and browser vendors for making it accessible? Seems to me like the EFF is going full Stallman for no actual purpose, and to the detriment of their reputation and role in future W3C discussions.
- Crontab 9y agoTim Berners-Lee must be rolling in his grave.
- Ajedi32 9y agoTim Berners-Lee isn't dead. And if you read the article, you'll see that he was actually the one who originally overrode the EFF's objections to publishing a DRM standard in the first place.
- noja 9y agoI think you missed the sarcasm.
- Crontab 9y agoCorrect. I wanted have put a sarcasm tag on my comment but I wasn't sure if it was supported by the W3C and their corporate overlords.
- jancsika 9y agoI read that as the poster being sarcastic-- the logic being that if the W3C made this decision, it must mean that the spirit in which Tim Berners-Lee created the web died some time ago. So Tim Berners-Lee "must be rolling in his grave," quite aside from the fact that he is still physically alive and doing fine.
- nebabyte 9y agoPerhaps people are simply projecting what they think "the spirit in which Tim Berners-Lee created the web" is on the man? Even if he put words to them early on, it's easy for someone to claim lofty ideals when creating something and later realize that's not true to what they believe in. This whole fanboy-heroism is probably a big part of why people don't act for themselves and are left to cry when their 'glorious leaders' "betray" their interests.
- 9y ago
- bigfoot 9y agoThe saddest part of this story is that Netflix/Amazon/younameit will continue to ignore and block Linux users as the niche market they are -- even if a future Firefox or Chrome version comes with the new standardized DRM everyone asked for. Lose/lose situation.
- richard_mcp 9y agoWhy would they do that? Are you assuming these companies will want to block Linux users out of some random, malicious spite?
- bigfoot 9y agoNo. For simple economic reasons, such as too much testing effort vs. too little revenue.
- ArchReaper 9y agoFor "simple economic reasons" you believe companies will go out of their way to block Linux users for some reason? If the browser supports it, that's all that really matters.
- thephyber 9y agoCompanies browser-sniff, rather than feature-sniff. They shouldn't. But they usually do.
- rocqua 9y agoTo support EME on linux, they need to create an EME plugin for linux. Leaks in that plugin would kinda break DRM, so it needs to be designed well. Writing and maintaing a crypto plugin is quite expensive.
- AndrewCHM 9y agowouldn't it be Google or Adobe who would write the plugin? its not like they lack the developers or the such
- guelo 9y agoFor perspective here is W3C CEO's post about it https://www.w3.org/blog/2017/09/reflections-on-the-eme-debate/ https://www.w3.org/blog/2017/09/reflections-on-the-eme-debat... And Tim Berners Lee's original decision https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-media/2017Jul/0000.html https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-media/2017J...
- dannyobrien 9y agoHere's the press release, with testimonials from the RIAA, MPAA, CableLabs, Netflix, Microsoft and Comcast. https://www.w3.org/2017/09/pressrelease-eme-recommendation.html.en#testimonials https://www.w3.org/2017/09/pressrelease-eme-recommendation.h...
- guelo 9y agoOuch. W3C is just a trade association at this point.
- nulagrithom 9y ago> I know from my conversations that many people are not satisfied with the result. EME proponents wanted a faster decision with less drama. EME critics want a protective covenant. I think that pretty much sums it up. The only thing that could've gone better for the corporations is if everyone else just shut the fuck up. I don't know why he bothered to post that. What a joke.
- 9y ago
- lewisinc 9y agoWhat benefit is there in the EFF resigning? I'm not educated on the issue as well as those on the committee, but it feels like not having the EFF on the committee at all is going to do more harm than good.
- whipoodle 9y agoNot everyone thinks in utilitarian terms. And, maybe the EFF thinks the W3C is now an organization focused on legitimizing whatever big tech companies say. If so, they'd probably not want to be considered a part of that process.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoOh, but maybe they do think in utilitarian terms (and it's not bad, either). Them staying would legitimize W3C's decision. As it is, many (myself included) look at EFF for early warnings, and them leaving W3C is an important signal (hell, that's why we have this thread in the first place), and made me personally seriously lose trust in W3C.
- craftyguy 9y ago> but it feels like not having the EFF on the committee at all is going to do more harm than good. Well, having them on the committee did no good. I fully support the EFF's decision to jump out of that septic ship, and have shown my support by making a donation this afternoon to thank them.
- discordance 9y agoWhy is this DRM standard a bad thing?
- fghtr 9y agohttps://www.defectivebydesign.org/ https://www.defectivebydesign.org/
- acidtrucks 9y agoMaybe this is terrible. Maybe this is the beginning of something totally new. There is nothing about WWW that prevents us from using totally different technologies, other than being really pretty good.
- wnevets 9y agoThe web has made it this far without DRM being part of the standard, why exactly do we need it now? The death of flash?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- spdustin 9y agoIs my math off, or is 58.4% a majority?
- zymhan 9y agoThe first three words of the post are "W3C abandons consensus" con·sen·sus kənˈsensəs/ noun general agreement. No one said anything about a majority.
- Rebelgecko 9y ago58.4% is more than half, but the title says it can't really be considered a consensus. Lots of commitees try to avoid passing things by simple majority and instead refine and/or compromise ideas until they get more buy-in.
- Osmium 9y agoI am so mixed about this. In principle, this is a terrible idea, and I share many of the concerns in this thread -- I am not a fan of DRM. But as a consumer/end-user, I'd much prefer a standard DRM over Flash/Silverlight any day of the week. The real question is how we get rid of DRM in the long term. Piracy isn't going away. Hopefully content owners will one day realize the economic cost of implementing DRM isn't worth its return, and only serves to alienate paying customers. I imagine it might take some years for them to realize this however.
- nebabyte 9y ago> The real question is how we get rid of DRM in the long term And your answer is "embrace it in the short term"? It's this 'give them an inch' bullshit that's been fucking the consumer in the ass for countless years. > Hopefully content owners will one day realize the economic cost of implementing DRM isn't worth its return "Maybe if we wish on marshmallows and rainbows, this statement will come true this time!" > I imagine it might take some years for them to realize this however Search for the first time that was uttered, then look at the calendar.
- Osmium 9y agoI don't disagree with you, but the average consumer just doesn't know enough to care. We don't have the power to not 'give them an inch' until the consumer is educated, and pretending we do isn't getting us anywhere. Simply put, we have no leverage, the W3C has no leverage. Consumer education is the most powerful tool we have here, which is why the EFF etc. is so important, but this is necessarily a long term strategy. > "Maybe if we wish on marshmallows and rainbows, this statement will come true this time!" Well it worked with music... You can now buy DRM-free music in lots of places. The music industry realized it just wasn't worth the investment to insist on DRM, and it was actually harming them (consumers were becoming confused, didn't want to buy music not knowing if it'd work on their next device, etc.)
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y agoCompanies creating copyrighted works will always try to impose DRM. The best that can be done is make circumventing it legal and easy.
- DCKing 9y agoCan anybody explain to me what will change because of this decision? DRM has been very much part of the internet since 1995 when RealPlayer was released. DRM has been part of content delivery ever since then. It has not ever seem to have decreased in popularity, quite the opposite. The browsers that 99.9% of people use have already implemented this standard for years anyway. It's not obvious to me that this decision changes anything (it seems this is the status quo already) but maybe there's something I'm missing. What's going to change from today to tomorrow because of this decision? Or is the meltdown here just people now realizing that the battle is lost, even though it was lost already a long time ago? One thing I do understand is that this contended decision is a serious break from tradition and apparently a dick move (although I'd need to see some additional sources on that). But that doesn't seem to be the main topic of the discussion in these comments anyway.
- zymhan 9y agoRealPlayer was not a Web Standard like EME is. This decision codifies DRM in Web rendering standards.
- wakamoleguy 9y agoIf DRM has already existed for years, and the majority of browsers have already accepted EME as a de facto standard by implementing it, wouldn't codifying that standard be positive?
- camus2 9y agoIt's like arguing that Flash is a standard because the majority of browsers supported it. DRM isn't the open web and should have nothing to do with the W3C. You want to force DRM onto your users? write a native app.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- xemdetia 9y agoIn recent times pretty much all the DRM vehicles have been canned as native code browser extensions have become 'bad' for malicious code. So the DRM delivery mechanisms like java plugins, flash and so on are being taken out of the web and this standard sticks it back in. I have mixed feelings about this until I really dig into how the interface is supposed to work. So it was almost out as part of the modern web stuff, and it came back the very next day.
- pdimitar 9y agoIt's time to abandon the major web standards and start devising our own infrastructure. Better stateless protocol, end-to-end encryption on every connection -- no exceptions! -- decentralized encrypted vaults of cached assets (where every user donates a few or few hundred gigabytes of disk space to participiate -- effectively becoming a node in a decentralized CDN). We've left the corporations run wild for far too long. They've been stupid, slow and it took them A LONG TIME to catch up. And eventually they did. All the while all of us did absolutely nothing. At least myself. ^ All of that is an idealistic revolutionist talk, I am aware. Had I had the free time and reserve capital however, I'd be dead-serious about starting such an effort.
- nebabyte 9y agoThe time for that was long past.
- pdimitar 9y agoThere are many of us that are still warm to the idea and will help. I personally can donate 500GB of HDD space. Unless the governments outlaw encrypted communications and/or homemade wireless equipment, it's never too late.
- psyc 9y agoZeroNet.io is one of the neatest proofs of concept I've seen in a while. A P2P decentralized web, accessible via standard browser, Tor network optional. It's small and there isn't much content, but as a demo it seems to work great.
- rimliu 9y agoThis will solve zero problems for actual web users.
- pdimitar 9y agoHaving dynamic user-hosted CDNs in almost real-time a la IPFS (which are sadly far from real-time) has been proven to work. However, the latency is too big so yeah, so far we've got practically nothing.
- kizer 9y agoBLOCKCHAIN TO THE RESCUE... HOPEFULLY
- ultim8k 9y agoInstead of creating the right tools for making web apps a lot more native, feature rich and consistent, they just make the favours of a couple media companies like Spotify, Netflix and Google. I hope the W3C dissolves after that._
- sigzero 9y ago"Since when did the W3C abandon reason for madness?" -- Gandalf
- hellbanner 9y ago"This specification does not define a content protection or Digital Rights Management system. Rather, it defines a common API that may be used to discover, select and interact with such systems as well as with simpler content encryption systems. Implementation of Digital Rights Management is not required for compliance with this specification: only the Clear Key system is required to be implemented as a common baseline." Does not define DRM .. I am seeing a conflict with the title
- AndrewCHM 9y agoDoes not define a specific method of DRM, only an interface to those methods of DRM
- pslam 9y ago"This device is not part of A Bomb. Rather, it implements a common wiring and chemical mixture function that may be used to ignite, and rapidly interact with the surrounding environment. Implementation of A Bomb is not required for use of this device: only the Joke Bang Sign is required to be implemented as a common baseline."
- eh78ssxv2f 9y agoCan somebody explain what exactly is happening here? What were the pros/cons of the move? e.g., it is possible that browsers are in a tight spot: If they fail to provide certain functionality, then content providers just move to native apps. Was that the tradeoff here?
- frivoal 9y agoW3C decided to publish a final version of the EME specification. W3C is the place where member companies come to write and negotiate the specification for how many web technologies should work. EME is an API for talking to a audio/video DRM module. EME (and the corresponding DRM modules) have been shipping in all browsers for years. A large minority of W3C members, led by EFF, were trying to tie the publication of this specification with a legal contract (called a covenant) between members preventing them to sue people (under laws like the DMCA) if they did nothing more than break the DRM. This would leave copyright infringers liable to law suits, but not security researchers, developers of accessibility add-ons, and so on. This proposal gather a large minority, but a minority nonetheless. The W3C process doesn't let the majority win automatically. Normally, it goes by consensus, and keeps negotiations going until all find something they can agree on. If that fails to happen, and someone objects to the decision being proposed, the director of the W3C (who is incidentally the person who invented the web), gets to call the shot. If a majority of members thinks he called the shot wrong, he can be overturned in appeal. This decision to publish the final version of the EME specification without a covenant was appealed, and the appeal failed.
- kibwen 9y agoRemember the corporate sponsors of the original EME proposal in 2012: Google, Microsoft, and Netflix https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/ https://www.w3.org/TR/encrypted-media/
- mickronome 9y agoIt's weird to see Netflix there, as their service might be one of the premier reasons lots of people can't be bothered to copy movies as much as used to be the case. The only reasons I can see is that studios/rights owners are either requiring DRM for newest titles, or that they offer rebates on DRM'd material. They rights owners also probably prefer other people to run their errand, as some of them aren't too popular, and others have simply made themselves to a laughing stock in at least some parts of the internet.
- floatboth 9y agoWeird? Netflix is one of the only users of EME. Movie rights owners require DRM, Netflix distributes their content, Netflix wants a more standardized way than Silverlight.
- ngcazz 9y agoThe attack on consumer rights continues...
- AndyKelley 9y agoI predict that companies will start using EME to deploy all their app code to keep their front-end more closed source.
- CharlesW 9y agoI thought EME only worked with audio and video. Is what you're suggesting possible?
- AndyKelley 9y agoAudio and video is most of what a given app does.
- frivoal 9y ago1) EME doesn't work like that 2) EME has been shipping in all browsers for a while. This hasn't happened.
- bad_user 9y agoThe EFF is right for resigning. There's no reason for EFF to be part of a supposed standardization group that is ignoring complaints, especially for a recommendation for a technology that puts freedoms at risk. And to put salt on injury, the W3C is claiming that they couldn't reach consensus on a covenant regarding anti-circumvention regulations, however they are now making this recommendation without consensus, which seems to me to be disingenuous. The W3C is clearly and has always been a charade. And people won't forget that easily, just like we haven't forgotten the days when they were holding the web back. So if they were worried about becoming irrelevant by not adopting DRM, well, they just became irrelevant regardless. Might as well admit that the standards are made by two or three companies which control the market and stop this circus.
- sigi45 9y agoI think i don't get it. A company called Microsoft builds a software which is able to render html. This company makes money and talks to another company called google which also is making money by selling movies and stuff and which builds a software which is able to render html. And those two companies are talking to a third huge company, who makes a shit ton of money and also makes a software which is able to render html. All those _companies_ decided together, that they still are using some form of drm and want to standardize it, to make it easier for there consumers. Now a few people, who are using the software from those companies thought this code is written for free and without strings attached? I mean i do understand the risk but still i'm surfing around and use my software, written by companies, to surf primarily on company sites and not for surfing on other private pages. Even linux and other free software is written, primarly by people who get there money from companies right? I don't think that DRM would be gone if no EME exists.
- zanny 9y ago> to make it easier for there consumers. No, never. DRM Is never easier for consumers. What happened was that Apple banned alternative browsers and plugins like Flash on iOS which meant there was a sizable platform of - importantly - semi-rich people that did not have a usable DRM solution outside being told to install an app. The user dropoff from demanding you install an app is huge. They were losing money, plain and simple, on people who didn't A. download a plugin or B. install an app to push DRM on them. This battle was over years ago. Safari adopted EME, all the corporate powers that be that wanted to have their cake and eat it too on the buffet of consumer ignorance to how dicked over they are when companies shovel proprietary code down their throats. No major browser wanted to even try fighting this. New browsers that turn up will never gain traction if they don't "support Netflix". Those of us who care about ethics go on using Firefox without the DRM bullshit plugin / Chromium / etc and the rest keep being ignorant as they always have been. Really, DRM isn't even helping anyone. It is a lawyer requirement for legal contracts between media producers and distributors. "We require you fuck over your customers to give our old rich men investors who have no clue what technology is a false idea that nobody can copy our floppy". Pirates will continue to circumvent and distribute better quality versions of everything than any company is willing to stream you anyway, and people who were using the streaming services in the first place weren't pirating to begin with. What this does mean is what should be straightforward user experiences for online video are going to start becoming a clusterfuck of broken, insecure proprietary blob DRM drivers every video site "automagically" downloads and runs on users computers that either don't work cross platform or breaks all the time. Web video will have peaked in 2016, when ubiquitous mp4 support meant almost any site can just host videos and have them work, and 2018 and on will be the era of everyone trying to use shitty DRM plugins that will fail and break everywhere just like Flash and Silverlight did years ago. But having the option available is going to inspire companies like newspapers that have no business trying to DRM lock their newscasts to try to use DRM anyway because fuck ethics.
- dottrap 9y agoDid Apple actually support this proposal? Seems like their own self-interest would want them to reject this. The lack of a standardized web DRM would push developers to native apps which benefits Apple. And web DRM doesn't benefit the iTunes eco-system.
- LeoPanthera 9y agoSafari has supported for DRM for quite a while. It was the first browser to support Netflix without a plugin.
- gsnedders 9y agoNotably Safari on iOS was the largest browser to not support Netflix prior to this.
- LeoPanthera 9y agoThough since there is an app for iOS, I doubt many people cared.
- floatboth 9y agoWell, it's still not standardized web DRM. It's an API to access DRM. Chrome/Firefox can use Widevine, but Safari will only use Apple FairPlay.
- mabynogy 9y agoSomeone should fork w3c.
- Paul-ish 9y agoMy fear is that DRM for video content will quickly become DRM for text content. Say goodbye to adblocking and tracker blocking.
- flukus 9y agoThis is what canvas+webASM is designed to do. Legit content and tracking scripts will be delivered to your browser as a single binary blob.
- anilgulecha 9y agoThat will only be slightly more difficult than blocking today, technically. What would be worse is that there's a plausible text-DRM coming up next, which would make altering contents of webpage illegal, hence making ad-blocking unlawful.
- floatboth 9y agoWebAssembly is a performance optimization, it doesn't bring anything new that wasn't possible in JavaScript. If someone actually wanted to do this, it would've been done a long time ago, with a single JavaScript blob.
- bfu 9y agoThen use canvas.toDataURL() to convert canvas to PNG image and you can watch it everywhere
- hbk 9y agoI wish we could fork W3C.
- shmerl 9y agoW3C is morally dead. Quite a sad development.
- favorited 9y agoW3C is not an organization focused on morals. It is an organization which exists to advocate for and codify open web standards (note, not an open web, but open standards).
- shmerl 9y agoThey sold out those standards to DRM proponents, so that ends the trust of them working for the common good.
- favorited 9y agoAgain, they're not charged with "the common good." Their goal is, "if there is going to be DRM content served via HTTP + web browsers, we should provide a standard API for it so browsers can implement it natively without plugins." Their place is to be pragmatic and technical, not political.
- shmerl 9y agoThis isn't political, it's ethical.
- sysdyne 9y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h94ZKGVg-B8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h94ZKGVg-B8 W3C doesn't care about freedom. It's good to know the real face of W3C.
- justonepost 9y agoYay digital serfdom! Long live the feudal lords! http://www.newsweek.com/silicon-valley-private-property-and-new-feudalism-why-internet-things-marks-660102 http://www.newsweek.com/silicon-valley-private-property-and-...
- alexnewman 9y agoI wish I could talk about how bad widevine is but I can't because NDA. Y'all fucked
- andrewflnr 9y agoWhat actual power does the W3C have to harm (or protect, for that matter) security researchers?
- unlmtd1 9y agoGood! Let them do that, and let us keep working on things like ipfs, blockchain naming systems, matrix and host identity protocols. The more they try to corrupt the web, the more energy goes into fixing the broken architectures. Then one day, nobody will use the broken DRM net. Politics is a programmer's most wasteful use of his time. Code them out of business.
- olegkikin 9y agoUnfortunately network effect is HUGE when it comes to the internet. Just because you can code a superior internet, doesn't mean people will move to it en masse.
- unlmtd1 9y agoThe end of history? What a ridiculous comment you make! Ahhaah! Listen everyone; we will never evolve our technologies ever again! Because Facebook will prevent it. Ahahahahah! Why don't you jump off the roof? Is your name 'despair'? Gave me a good laugh.
- spiralganglion 9y agoAll networks have a lifespan. Some of those lifespans are longer than ours. But there will come a day when another user-facing network supersedes the internet. Many "superior internets" will have lived and died before then, so your statement holds. But progress depends on someone who doesn't resign themselves to failure.
- quickthrower2 9y agoThis is the next century Where the universal's free You can find it anywhere Yes, the future has been sold (Blur 1995)
- projectileboy 9y agoIt's utterly heartbreaking to live in an age where you watch the best things come to life, and then die.
- pvdebbe 9y agoYep, take me back to 1989's internet, please.
- otakucode 9y agoTime to start cracking.
- jmull 9y agoWell, the W3C only matters to the extent they have credibility. Not that one thing will break that. But there will be future efforts where a positive outcome hinges on the credibility of the W3C's process. Those may not go as well.
- eridius 9y ago> 58.4% of the group voted to go on with publication, and the W3C did so today, an unprecedented move in a body that has always operated on consensus and compromise. What exactly is the EFF saying should have happened? More than 50% voted to go ahead with it. The majority voted for it. I don't see how the W3C going with the majority vote is a dick move. Consensus and compromise is obviously very important, but when one side is strictly anti-DRM, it's pretty hard to compromise. This just seems like the EFF being bitter that they lost and trying to disparage the W3C.
- ctrl-j 9y ago> Consensus and compromise is obviously very important, but when one side is strictly anti-DRM, it's pretty hard to compromise. When it's the first time they've broken with consensus, and the decision is very much not in the best interests of the common user - it's kind of a big deal. DRM may be a necessity for corporations to feel they can make money safely - it's not consumer friendly, and it certainly doesn't need to be a part of the open standard.
- eridius 9y agoBut it is in the interests of the common user. It's absolutely beneficial for browsers to have a standardized API for this stuff instead of non-standard plugin hell. People like you seem to think that if the W3C rejected DRM then sites would stop using it (and hence this being for the benefit of the user). But that belief is hopelessly naive. Sites like Netflix are never going to stop using DRM. They're contractually obligated to use it. Without EME, Netflix has to rely on plugins like Silverlight. With EME, Netflix can ship an HTML5 experience that works everywhere. That's good for users.
- bzbarsky 9y agoThe EFF wasn't pushing for "don't standardize EME". It was pushing for "add a clause to the EME standard that prevents it being abused in certain specific user-hostile ways". In particular, it would prevent it being abused to prevent actions by users that are perfectly legal under existing copyright law. This is a complex topic with a lot of nuance to discuss, but I don't see how misrepresenting the EFF's position helps the discussion in any way.
- l3m0ndr0p 9y agoMaybe now's the time to abandon the W3C - Maybe we can encourage the EFF to create a "Free Web Consortium." Sort of like "let's encrypt." I think this would better server a free and open web for the 21st Century and beyond. It appears, based on this information from the EFF & their exit from W3c, the W3C has become corrupted at some level.
- AnthonyMouse 9y agoCase in point why everyone should do this: https://supporters.eff.org/donate https://supporters.eff.org/donate
- MozillaUser 9y agohttps://medium.com/@joe_brewer/the-mental-disease-of-late-stage-capitalism-4a7bb2a1411c https://medium.com/@joe_brewer/the-mental-disease-of-late-st... enough said
- ianamartin 9y agoI sort of hate the way things are turning out and also am not surprised. When I was 10 years old in the late 80s, everything was open to you if you wanted it. My next door neighbor has a 10 year old son who wants to learn programming. I gave him an older laptop of mine and offered to do some coaching with him about learning to program on the condition that he always has to do his homework first before we do any programming work. And if he hasn't got his homework done or is having problems with it, I'll help with the homework first. I had a pretty cool person in my life that did that for me when I was a kid. So I want to pay it back. But when I think about things, man . . . it was wild as a kid. You could do anything on the internet in the 80s and 90s. It was the wild west. Now days, I'm in the back yard teaching this next door neighbor's kid, and I'm like, "Yeah, maybe don't do that. That could get you in trouble." When I was a kid, it was always, "Do it! Can't hurt that much!" It's different now, I think. People are less free to explore for its own sake. I could be wrong, but I think there was a golden moment of freedom on the internet that is past. And I'm glad I got to live in that.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dejawu 9y ago> In their public statements about the standard, the W3C executive repeatedly said that they didn't think the DRM advocates would be willing to compromise, and in the absence of such willingness, the exec have given them everything they demanded. This sentence in particular fills me with rage. These are people and groups who have refused to innovate in the face of the web and have used their clout and momentum to ensure that they never have to again. So much for the democratization of media the web was supposed to bring. Money still speaks louder than anything else.
- thuuuomas 9y agoNetflix is money, but the real DRM atrocities will surface in the ed-tech long tail.
- floatboth 9y agoThat would suck, but EME has existed for several years (and Silverlight/Flash DRM before that) and I don't think the educational course providers ever embraced DRM??
- Manozco 9y agoWhat will we answer in twenty years when our children will ask: "Daddy, where were you when they made the web a such shitty place? "
- shaan7 9y agoI've feared the same and the only sane solution I've come up with is not to have any.
- HashThis 9y agoOur democracy has a problem. Crony capitalists will sell out to corporations. They will reject the democratic process in order to sell out to corporations to have power to monetize those citizens. They don't care about protecting citizens. DRM in standards == force == freedom removed
- JepZ 9y agoThe DMCA is one of the greatest threats to modern democracy, as it is used to remove specific content from the primary global communications medium (Internet), which makes it a very handy tool for censoring. And the W3C just standardized a tool to support the DCMA...
- avodonosov 9y agoWhy is it bad?
- makecheck 9y agoBattery life and data minimization should take precedence over extras. It is time to standardize on precisely the bare minimum necessary to render content, and that certainly excludes DRM and auto-play video ads and other endless cruft. Simply put, I don't want my battery burning through unnecessary restrictions-addition software (both downloading and running).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- d--b 9y agoWhat people don't get is that EME sets a strange precedent in the history of HTML. Web browsers have always been very hackable. HTTP meant you could always look at the traffic being exchanged. And because there was little point in obscuring anything, web browsers allowed you to look into and modify everything: - view/modify document source - view/modify DOM - debug script - and so on This is how CSS was defined too. It was supposed to be a compromise between how the user liked things styled, and how the vendor suggested styling the content. EME brings something new to the table: locked LOGIC. This not a bad thing per se but takes html in a completely different direction than what it used to be. The main concern is not DRM. The main concern is that this is a step in a direction where web browsers become unscrutable virtual machines running code that cannot be looked into. It's basically a step turning HTML into silverlight. This may happen for instance if the gaming industry decides that they need EME for in-browser games. And most importantly this is done for all the wrong reasons: EME cannot stop anyone from copying the rendered content. And it certainly doesn't prevent anyone from downloading copied content. So EME is just a stupid thing that technology-dumb media dudes are imposing on web developers for no reason and that may have far reaching consequences on the future of html... That's what's worth talking about.
- DarkCrusader2 9y agoI do not understand DRM/silverlight properly. Does this means that I won't be able to see what code is running in my browser for eg. JS collecting data in the background or use things like adblocker, greasemonkey etc.
- d--b 9y agoNo. The changes that are happening only affect DRM. So it means that when you watch a video/audio in the browser, there will be some encryption applied deep within the browser. But it is a paradigm shift in the sense that it is the first time that a change is introduced in HTML that restricts the user from accessing the actual content that is being displayed. Effectively, similar changes to the standard could be introduced to prevent users from tinkering with ads, or to prevent users from opting out of data collection. In that sense, it opens the way to your browser being more like your phone. Again, it's not _bad_ in itself, but it is a paradigm shift.
- yatil 9y agoI hope we can now get back and fight DRM where it makes a real difference: In the parliaments, on the streets.
- rurban 9y agoThere's only one solution. The director needs to resign immediately
- aneutron 9y agoI have a question, What can we do now ?
- Myrmornis 9y agoWould someone mind helping me understand the debate? I don't watch TV or even movies very often (when I do I use Amazon prime). I never watch movies more than once. I do listen to music multiple times. But AFAIK all the MP3s for sale on major sites are DRM-free nowadays. What are the main specific scenarios involving DRM that people are talking about here?
- craigsmansion 9y agoThe likely fallout of this decision is that web pages will cease to exist and will be replaced by tiny DRM protected proprietary binaries for which the web is simply the delivery mechanism. It's not just about movies or music, but also about text pages. Big content has now managed to co-opt the open web. It is no longer a network of peers (some bigger, some smaller) but introduces two tiers, owners and users, and all the power disparity that comes with that.
- bytesandbots 9y agoHave you tried watching Amazon Prime on Opera browser? Most premium content will not play on any browser other than Chrome, Edge and Firefox. If they play, it will be only SD version. This is not because Opera has not implemented some web standards. It is because the major three browsers have all implemented a proprietary system of content protection. There is another side of this story. Let's say you have to publish content on your website. You do not have any way to publish it as securely as "Amazon Prime" without signing an agreement with Google and Microsoft. Thirdly, there comes DRM protection rules thanks to team MPAA. In most countries, you can not try to reverse-engineer the proprietary decryption module that comes with browsers without breaking laws. Because of the above restriction, security professionals cannot break into the proprietary module to detect security vulnerabilities. Edit: I was wrong about Opera. Opera is in on the DRM bandwagaon for a long time. https://blogs.opera.com/desktop/2015/07/opera-developer-32-0-1910-0-netflix-edition/ https://blogs.opera.com/desktop/2015/07/opera-developer-32-0...
- BeautyLil 9y agoThere are voices that matter.
- thriftwy 9y agoThis means I now have an excuse to avoid paying for content eve further. You didn't want to play nice, so never will I, I will continue to torrent stuff from majors while continuing to participate in crowdfunding and supporting indies. You wanted that, not me!
- VarFarYonder 9y agoJames Mickens gave an interesting talk on what we could do to build a better browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uflg7LDmzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uflg7LDmzI I'm hoping that WebAssembly might be a route towards allowing something like this to happen. If an alternative to HTML/CSS/JS could be developed in WebAssembly, then we could have a situation where HTML has competition, rather than being the only way to build a website. And browsers can become simpler as the rendering duties are moved out of the browser and to the website itself.
- whoisthemachine 9y agoI understand the point the EFF is making, but I'm not sure if leaving the body that influences web standards is the right way to get your voice heard on web standards.
- redbeardtpirate 9y agoFreenet
- jasonmaydie 9y agoWhy is the EFF part of the W3C though? It's a standards organization not a political one.
- Sylos 9y agoStandards are largely politics...
- camgunz 9y agoThe web gentrified. Geeks don't live there anymore, they only go there for their jobs. Time to build something newer and cooler.