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> Everyone seems to express this idealized utopian world where content is freely distributed, everyone contributes, and we all live in electro-social bliss. Th

by 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.
- acabal 14y ago
  > So vague paranoia about the web "evolving" into something bad is why this shouldn't be allowed? We should be paranoid. Media companies do not have our interests or the interests of an open web at heart. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. Why shouldn't they? The fact is that DRM benefits media companies almost exclusively while seriously harming user freedom. That's not vague paranoia, and imagining it evolving into something worse isn't an unfounded fear either. > I can open an HTTPS connection to gmail.com, I still need to provide some credentials for anything to happen. Do you mean logging in to Gmail? That has nothing to do with HTTPS. HTTPS ensures that two parties can communicate in any way they wish without being eavesdropped on. (And it also suggests trust, but that's a different issue and the spec allows the same eavesdropping protection using self-signed certificates.)
  - gph 14y ago
    >We should be paranoid. Media companies do not have our interests or the interests of an open web at heart. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. Why shouldn't they? The fact is that DRM benefits media companies almost exclusively while seriously harming user freedom. That's not vague paranoia, and imagining it evolving into something worse isn't an unfounded fear either. It is vague paranoia. You're still just throwing out rhetoric without any concrete reasons. It doesn't harm user freedom, I don't know how to express this any clearer: "THEY'RE ALREADY DISTRIBUTING THROUGH DRM-ENABLED PLUGINS". All this would do is standardize it and allow users to access DRM content from website like hulu/netflix without needing two different private closed-source plugins. >Do you mean logging in to Gmail? That has nothing to do with HTTPS. HTTPS ensures that two parties can communicate in any way they wish without being eavesdropped on. (And it also suggests trust, but that's a different issue and the spec allows the same eavesdropping protection using self-signed certificates.) >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. You're still ignoring the meat of my argument. Lets just drop the whole HTTPS analogy/credentials analogy. The rest of what I said is still valid.

by acabal 14y ago

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.

acabal 14y ago
> So vague paranoia about the web "evolving" into something bad is why this shouldn't be allowed? We should be paranoid. Media companies do not have our interests or the interests of an open web at heart. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. Why shouldn't they? The fact is that DRM benefits media companies almost exclusively while seriously harming user freedom. That's not vague paranoia, and imagining it evolving into something worse isn't an unfounded fear either. > I can open an HTTPS connection to gmail.com, I still need to provide some credentials for anything to happen. Do you mean logging in to Gmail? That has nothing to do with HTTPS. HTTPS ensures that two parties can communicate in any way they wish without being eavesdropped on. (And it also suggests trust, but that's a different issue and the spec allows the same eavesdropping protection using self-signed certificates.)
- gph 14y ago
  >We should be paranoid. Media companies do not have our interests or the interests of an open web at heart. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. Why shouldn't they? The fact is that DRM benefits media companies almost exclusively while seriously harming user freedom. That's not vague paranoia, and imagining it evolving into something worse isn't an unfounded fear either. It is vague paranoia. You're still just throwing out rhetoric without any concrete reasons. It doesn't harm user freedom, I don't know how to express this any clearer: "THEY'RE ALREADY DISTRIBUTING THROUGH DRM-ENABLED PLUGINS". All this would do is standardize it and allow users to access DRM content from website like hulu/netflix without needing two different private closed-source plugins. >Do you mean logging in to Gmail? That has nothing to do with HTTPS. HTTPS ensures that two parties can communicate in any way they wish without being eavesdropped on. (And it also suggests trust, but that's a different issue and the spec allows the same eavesdropping protection using self-signed certificates.) >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. You're still ignoring the meat of my argument. Lets just drop the whole HTTPS analogy/credentials analogy. The rest of what I said is still valid.