HTML5 DRM is already in wide distribution via Widevine, which is used by Google Play in addition to YouTube, Netflix, Blockbuster, and Vudu. It's embedded in mi

HTML5 DRM is already in wide distribution via Widevine, which is used by Google Play in addition to YouTube, Netflix, Blockbuster, and Vudu. It's embedded in millions of devices and distributed to millions of client desktops. The W3C's ratification or rejection of the technology isn't going to stop its spread, or the desire that consumers have for streaming video. Netflix disappearing would be inconvenient for consumers, but the vacuum left by them would be rapidly filled by a competitor happy to acquiesce to the studios' DRM demands in order to get their replacement product to market the fastest. Widevine is owned by Google. Google also owns the biggest mobile platform and the biggest desktop browser, and is making a strong push into owning the living room through devices like the Chromecast, as well. I will happily argue that the W3C's acceptance of HTML5 DRM (or Netflix's work towards developing a workable spec) is utterly irrelevant to its inevitable deployment across the connected internet. The HTML5 spec is about allowing for pluggable CDMs. It failing isn't going to stop the actual deployment of CDMs and their enabling of DRM-protected content on the internet. The CDMs already exist, are already deployed, and aren't going away. We can either have a unified way to use them, or we can just continue to slog on through a bunch of crappy solutions like we've been doing for the last decade, but they just aren't going away, period. Making Netflix out to be the bad guy here is naive at best, and malicious at worst.