6 ms·

I wasn't a vehement opponent of W3C implementing DRM, but I'll put my two cents in; I don't mind if private companies implement DRM in their own products. I do

by gph 12y ago

I wasn't a vehement opponent of W3C implementing DRM, but I'll put my two cents in; I don't mind if private companies implement DRM in their own products. I do mind DRM being standardized, meaning every vendor has to implement it in order to be complaint with the standard. Ubuntu != linux, it is just a distro. Similarly Chrome is not the browser standard, it's only an implementation. If this story was actually "Linux adds DRM to kernel for netflix and other media companies" I think you would see a huge reaction.

warfangle 12y ago
W3C implementing DRM is only an extension of W3C implementing encryption. And W3C implementing encryption is a Good Thing, IMHO. DRM may be a stupid, silly idea: one that causes more problems than solved; one that can and will be circumvented. For media you have purchased to own, it is arguably Evil(tm). But for media that you have rented, or media that you have access to via a subscription? I don't see the problem with it. The bigger discussion shouldn't be about DRM, but about the new commercial paradigm of not even owning the copies of the media you purchase outright. DRM in this case is a red herring.
- riffraff 12y ago
  > W3C implementing DRM is only an extension of W3C implementing encryption. why do you think so? Encryption is good for every interested party (except NSA, perhaps) while DRM means at least someone is being screwed. It's like saying that "fast lanes" are only an extension of TCP. (I don't have a strong opinion on whether DRM should be standardized by W3C or not, but I disagree with this reasoning)
  - chc 12y ago
    In the scenario "Now you can watch Netflix" (which entails implementation of DRM), who is being screwed?
    - riffraff 12y ago
      to continue the simile, that is like asking in the scenario of "you can get more bandwidth" who is being screwed? And the answer is: the same person, if you just look at the whole issue instead of the single positive angle. Of course, if you think that DRM is a good thing (i.e. inability to have open source implementations, need to load binary blobs, limiting use of content to what the provider decides etc) then yes, DRM is exactly like encryption for you. Yet, since there is a substantial number of people who do _not_ believe it, this still makes the two things different.
- kaoD 12y ago
  Nope. DRM is about accepting unsafe binary blobs into my browser as a standard. Completely different from "encryption". That's like saying infecting everyone with ebola is "medical research".
  - jonny_eh 12y ago
    I'm not a fan of DRM either, but it's hardly Ebola. It's more like a persistent rash. Well, except maybe in the case of Sony music CDs.
    - kaoD 12y ago
      > Well, except maybe in the case of Sony music CDs. That's the problem. My mom taught me not to drink from unknown binary blobs because you can never be sure what's in there.
jgraham 12y ago
That sounds logical at first blush, but you're actually looking at the problem backwards. Markets have power, standards organisations don't. If the W3C had for some reason told browser vendors "now you have to ship DRM to comply with the standard", with no evidence that it was something that consumers wanted, they would have been told to go to hell. Exactly that happened with a whole bunch of other W3C "standards" that no one was actually interested in shipping; XHTML2, SMIL, XForms, etc. In practice what happened with DRM is that consumers made it clear that they were very happy to run DRM systems in exchange for access to media. For example almost everyone is prepared to install Flash and Silverlight to get access to video services like NetFlix. Media companies also made it clear that they had no intention of giving up on using DRM on their products, especially whilst consumers were showing themselves to be so ready to embrace DRM-using services. So it's already been the case for some years — essentially for as long as bandwidth sufficient for streaming video has been commonplace — that, as a browser vendor, you have the choice between supporting content that uses DRM (e.g. through your plugin system) or losing so much marketshare you become irrelevant. More recently browser vendors, including Microsoft, Apple, and Google, decided to cut out the plugin middleman and start shipping their own proprietary DRM systems baked directly into their browser. It was at this point the W3C got involved in standardizing the interface between the browser and the DRM system. But this was long after there was any hope of keeping DRM off the web; everything that's happening now is a retroactive damage limitation exercise.
- gph 12y ago
  Yea, I agree, that's why I wasn't that opposed to W3C adopting DRM into the standard. But I think most the resistance is more ideological than pragmatic. People are upset because the standard represents a shared platform that every actor in the market has a say in. People who are anti-DRM, for whatever reason, saw it as an attack on something they identified with or felt like they were apart of. But those people don't really identify with Canonical or Google in the same way and feel those companies are within their right to implement whatever is best for them even if it's something they disagree with.
- bad_user 12y ago
  There is a difference between a product with market power and a standard. A product's lifecycle is always limited and its market share after going up can only go down. Witness Flash, witness IExplorer and ActiveX, witness Symbian. A standard on the other hand can potentially live forever. And all implementations must follow it. And for example, a browser with DRM in it can no longer be fully open-source, which should be reason enough for W3C to not standardize DRM. Plus let's be honest, DRM is fundamentally flawed, its main purpose for which it actually works being the lock-in of honest users, purpose that is incompatible with the concept of a browser. If Netflix wants to serve DRM-ed content, they apparently have no problem in implementing their own thing, so I fail to see what the W3C is trying to solve. And yes, next we'll talk about the Linux kernel, because DRM is only "secure" if the whole chain is "secure". And also if users want Netflix, that's fine, I'm actually happy that it works on Linux now, but I don't want DRM and users may not want DRM forever, as could be seen with MP3s and pushing for standardization is shoving it on people's throats.
jiggy2011 12y ago
I've made this point before on HN. The standard does not require browser vendors to include any DRM scheme to be fully compliant. Netflix however can require a specific DRM component in order to play their content.
- gph 12y ago
  Alright, I'm going to use an analogy that's a bit thin, but just stick with me on it. Imagine some private organizations decided it would be safer if everyone that came to their establishment had a fully loaded gun with their specified ammunition requirements (I know this is a ridiculous presumption, but just suspend disbelief for a second). So say a bunch of businesses like gas stations and restaurants implement this policy. If you are anti-gun or a pacifist, you can just avoid those establishments. But what if the practice became wide spread enough that a state or the federal government decided to mandate that everyone had to own a gun. They didn't need to buy ammunition or ever use it, but they had to have the gun. Obviously that would piss off a lot of ideologues who are vehemently opposed to guns and violence. You can pragmatically say, "Well if you're against it, then just don't use it. I mean the majority of people will use it or won't care." But forcing even the outline of something onto people who are ideologically opposed to it is obviously going to be met with resistance. So I know that analogy isn't all that great, but I think the principle is mostly the same. This standard is forcing the outline of DRM to be enabled on everyone's browser (since pretty much every major or usable browser is going to implement it). Yea, you can never go to a web site or download a specific DRM component. But you're still forced to have the "unloaded gun" of DRM. I'm not personally that much of an ideologue, so I don't think it's that big of a deal. But there's a pretty strong contingent that is ideologically opposed to all forms of DRM. It's not that hard to see why they are upset about the standard if you try to look at it from that point of view.
  - jiggy2011 12y ago
    I'm not sure I follow the analogy, if you want you can use iceweasel for a guaranteed DRM free experience and still use 99.9% of the web.
    - 12y ago

by gph 12y ago

warfangle 12y ago

W3C implementing DRM is only an extension of W3C implementing encryption. And W3C implementing encryption is a Good Thing, IMHO. DRM may be a stupid, silly idea: one that causes more problems than solved; one that can and will be circumvented. For media you have purchased to own, it is arguably Evil(tm). But for media that you have rented, or media that you have access to via a subscription? I don't see the problem with it. The bigger discussion shouldn't be about DRM, but about the new commercial paradigm of not even owning the copies of the media you purchase outright. DRM in this case is a red herring.

riffraff 12y ago
> W3C implementing DRM is only an extension of W3C implementing encryption. why do you think so? Encryption is good for every interested party (except NSA, perhaps) while DRM means at least someone is being screwed. It's like saying that "fast lanes" are only an extension of TCP. (I don't have a strong opinion on whether DRM should be standardized by W3C or not, but I disagree with this reasoning)
- chc 12y ago
  In the scenario "Now you can watch Netflix" (which entails implementation of DRM), who is being screwed?
  - riffraff 12y ago
    to continue the simile, that is like asking in the scenario of "you can get more bandwidth" who is being screwed? And the answer is: the same person, if you just look at the whole issue instead of the single positive angle. Of course, if you think that DRM is a good thing (i.e. inability to have open source implementations, need to load binary blobs, limiting use of content to what the provider decides etc) then yes, DRM is exactly like encryption for you. Yet, since there is a substantial number of people who do _not_ believe it, this still makes the two things different.
kaoD 12y ago
Nope. DRM is about accepting unsafe binary blobs into my browser as a standard. Completely different from "encryption". That's like saying infecting everyone with ebola is "medical research".
- jonny_eh 12y ago
  I'm not a fan of DRM either, but it's hardly Ebola. It's more like a persistent rash. Well, except maybe in the case of Sony music CDs.
  - kaoD 12y ago
    > Well, except maybe in the case of Sony music CDs. That's the problem. My mom taught me not to drink from unknown binary blobs because you can never be sure what's in there.

jgraham 12y ago

That sounds logical at first blush, but you're actually looking at the problem backwards. Markets have power, standards organisations don't. If the W3C had for some reason told browser vendors "now you have to ship DRM to comply with the standard", with no evidence that it was something that consumers wanted, they would have been told to go to hell. Exactly that happened with a whole bunch of other W3C "standards" that no one was actually interested in shipping; XHTML2, SMIL, XForms, etc. In practice what happened with DRM is that consumers made it clear that they were very happy to run DRM systems in exchange for access to media. For example almost everyone is prepared to install Flash and Silverlight to get access to video services like NetFlix. Media companies also made it clear that they had no intention of giving up on using DRM on their products, especially whilst consumers were showing themselves to be so ready to embrace DRM-using services. So it's already been the case for some years — essentially for as long as bandwidth sufficient for streaming video has been commonplace — that, as a browser vendor, you have the choice between supporting content that uses DRM (e.g. through your plugin system) or losing so much marketshare you become irrelevant. More recently browser vendors, including Microsoft, Apple, and Google, decided to cut out the plugin middleman and start shipping their own proprietary DRM systems baked directly into their browser. It was at this point the W3C got involved in standardizing the interface between the browser and the DRM system. But this was long after there was any hope of keeping DRM off the web; everything that's happening now is a retroactive damage limitation exercise.

gph 12y ago
Yea, I agree, that's why I wasn't that opposed to W3C adopting DRM into the standard. But I think most the resistance is more ideological than pragmatic. People are upset because the standard represents a shared platform that every actor in the market has a say in. People who are anti-DRM, for whatever reason, saw it as an attack on something they identified with or felt like they were apart of. But those people don't really identify with Canonical or Google in the same way and feel those companies are within their right to implement whatever is best for them even if it's something they disagree with.
bad_user 12y ago
There is a difference between a product with market power and a standard. A product's lifecycle is always limited and its market share after going up can only go down. Witness Flash, witness IExplorer and ActiveX, witness Symbian. A standard on the other hand can potentially live forever. And all implementations must follow it. And for example, a browser with DRM in it can no longer be fully open-source, which should be reason enough for W3C to not standardize DRM. Plus let's be honest, DRM is fundamentally flawed, its main purpose for which it actually works being the lock-in of honest users, purpose that is incompatible with the concept of a browser. If Netflix wants to serve DRM-ed content, they apparently have no problem in implementing their own thing, so I fail to see what the W3C is trying to solve. And yes, next we'll talk about the Linux kernel, because DRM is only "secure" if the whole chain is "secure". And also if users want Netflix, that's fine, I'm actually happy that it works on Linux now, but I don't want DRM and users may not want DRM forever, as could be seen with MP3s and pushing for standardization is shoving it on people's throats.

jiggy2011 12y ago

I've made this point before on HN. The standard does not require browser vendors to include any DRM scheme to be fully compliant. Netflix however can require a specific DRM component in order to play their content.

gph 12y ago
Alright, I'm going to use an analogy that's a bit thin, but just stick with me on it. Imagine some private organizations decided it would be safer if everyone that came to their establishment had a fully loaded gun with their specified ammunition requirements (I know this is a ridiculous presumption, but just suspend disbelief for a second). So say a bunch of businesses like gas stations and restaurants implement this policy. If you are anti-gun or a pacifist, you can just avoid those establishments. But what if the practice became wide spread enough that a state or the federal government decided to mandate that everyone had to own a gun. They didn't need to buy ammunition or ever use it, but they had to have the gun. Obviously that would piss off a lot of ideologues who are vehemently opposed to guns and violence. You can pragmatically say, "Well if you're against it, then just don't use it. I mean the majority of people will use it or won't care." But forcing even the outline of something onto people who are ideologically opposed to it is obviously going to be met with resistance. So I know that analogy isn't all that great, but I think the principle is mostly the same. This standard is forcing the outline of DRM to be enabled on everyone's browser (since pretty much every major or usable browser is going to implement it). Yea, you can never go to a web site or download a specific DRM component. But you're still forced to have the "unloaded gun" of DRM. I'm not personally that much of an ideologue, so I don't think it's that big of a deal. But there's a pretty strong contingent that is ideologically opposed to all forms of DRM. It's not that hard to see why they are upset about the standard if you try to look at it from that point of view.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  I'm not sure I follow the analogy, if you want you can use iceweasel for a guaranteed DRM free experience and still use 99.9% of the web.
  - 12y ago