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>BBC, Netflix, MS, and--of all companies--Google should be ashamed to be involved in this. Why should any of them be ashamed? They all have copyrighted digital
by gph 14y ago
>BBC, Netflix, MS, and--of all companies--Google should be ashamed to be involved in this.
Why should any of them be ashamed? They all have copyrighted digital content or at least have sites that host copyrighted content. They all clearly gain from this.
I know whenever DRM is mentioned everyone likes to get out the pitchforks and yell about "openness" and "freedom of information". But let's be honest, the majority of media would not be made if it was going to be handed out for free. Everyone seems to express this idealized utopian world where content is freely distributed, everyone contributes, and we all live in electro-social bliss. Sorry, until the Singularity occurs or the Age of Aquarius dawns that world doesn't exist.
>Copyright is just a bunch of laws this society agrees on today. The web is not about today's laws, social mores, or profit motives, but of connectivity, sharing, and freedom of information and expression. When I see things like this even being considered, I sometimes think that we don't deserve such freedom.
I'm not going to try and defend copyright completely, it clearly needs a lot of fixes to it, but this is just a bunch of random hogwash. Furthermore how does some sites enabling DRM limit anyone else's connectivity, sharing, or freedom of expression? Just because BBC starts limiting their iPlayer to license holders doesn't mean I can't have my own iPlayer website with my own open content that I share with everyone. You've created a rather weak strawman argument here.
>If we're going to start DRM'ing media, why not just DRM the entire web page and be done with it? Why send HTML over the wire at all when we can send an encrypted blob?
What are you even trying to communicate here?? HTTPS is basically transmitting an encrypted blob. The difference is that it (usually)contains HTML; which is an open standard that everyone uses so that you only need one program(browser) to interpret and display the blob from many sources(websites). Nothing about enabling DRM will change this, it will only limit those who want their website to be limited.
The only thing that is really questionable about this is whether W3C should be using resources to help standardize/implement such a feature. Given that the browsers will likely have to spend a lot of time/resources on making their software compatible with the new standard is a bit unfair.
I'll just say these content provider companies are going to use DRM methods to restrict use of their content one way or another. Whether it's through private plugins like silverlight, flash, etc. or though an open standard, all of the major browsers will have to be compatible to get users. I think it makes more sense from a security and usability perspective to push it into an open standard, but I can see both sides of the argument.
- acabal 14y ago> Everyone seems to express this idealized utopian world where content is freely distributed, everyone contributes, and we all live in electro-social bliss. The web should be designed as if we were targeting a utopia. The web as a technology doesn't care about today's laws or profit motives, but burdening it with them will only hinder what it can become in the future. > Furthermore how does some sites enabling DRM limit anyone else's connectivity, sharing, or freedom of expression? Baking in DRM software into what should be an open medium of exchange is a first step. If the standard continues to evolve in that direction, the web will become something much different, and I think worse, than what it is today. W3C should be thinking about the future it wants to be in, not the profit motives of today's entrenched media interests. > HTTPS is basically transmitting an encrypted blob. HTTPS protects communications from eavesdropping, but both parties are still fully open to each other. DRM is not the same--it closes off the communication from one of the parties in the "discussion" and puts one party in total control. This is fundamentally different than being able to ensure two parties can communicate without being overheard.
- gph 14y ago>The web as a technology doesn't care about today's laws or profit motives. The web as a technology doesn't care about anything because it isn't a human being. Why are you anthropomorphising it and adding idealized moralities? If you have certain morals and worldviews, go ahead and express them in the first person as your own opinion. Because "the web" is a loose group of technologies being developed and shared between a lot of different competing humans/groups all with their own ideologies. >Baking in DRM software into what should be an open medium of exchange is a first step. If the standard continues to evolve in that direction, the web will become something much different, and I think worse, than what it is today. So vague paranoia about the web "evolving" into something bad is why this shouldn't be allowed? You have any specifics on what you think might next happen? I mean once the media companies have DRM in HTML how else would they need to change it? I would think they'd basically gotten all they need at that point. >HTTPS protects communications from eavesdropping, but both parties are still fully open to each other. That depends on what you mean by fully open. I can open an HTTPS connection to gmail.com, I still need to provide some credentials for anything to happen. gmail.com still has "total control". In fact in most any client/server HTTPS connection one party is going to have what amounts to "total control". I don't understand how DRM within HTML is fundamentally changing that situation. It's just giving the server copy protection over the media it allows the client to access. It eliminates the need for plugins such as silverlight/flash/etc. that are already being used. It's not like these content companies hand out their media unprotected as it stands.