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This week, the chief arbiter of Web standards, Tim Berners-Lee, decided not to exercise his power to extend the development timeline for the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) Web technology standard. The EME standardization effort, sponsored by streaming giants like Google and Netflix, aims to make it cheaper and more efficient to impose Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) systems on Web users. The streaming companies' representatives within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) were unable to finish EME within the time allotted by the W3C, and had asked Berners-Lee for an extension through next year.
Berners-Lee made his surprising decision on Tuesday, as explained in an email announcement by W3C representative Philippe Le Hégaret. Instead of granting a time extension — as he has already done once — Berners-Lee delegated the decision to the W3C's general decision-making body, the Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee includes diverse entities from universities to companies to nonprofits, and it is divided as to whether EME should be part of Web standards. It is entirely possible that the Advisory Committee will reject the time extension and terminate EME development, marking an important victory for the free Web.
So it's not dead yet, despite Berners-Lee's decision. Let's not celebrate prematurely and keep up the fight to keep DRM out of the web!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday October 09 2016, @08:57PM
Arik has given the appropriate answer already, but let me suggest a few analogies that show you are in fact begging the question.
The argument against DRM is irrelevant as a world without DRM is a fantasy.
The argument against Nukes is irrelevant as a world without Nukes is a fantasy.
The argument against AIDS is irrelevant as a world without AIDS is a fantasy.
The argument against slavery is irrelevant as a world without slavery is a fantasy.
The argument against smallpox is irrelevant as a world without smallpox is a fantasy.
The argument against Pricilllianists is irrelevant as a world without Pricillianism is a fantasy.
The argument against child labor is irrelevant as a world without child labor is a fantasy.
The argument against Warcraft is irrelevant as a world of Warcraft is a fantasy.
Actually, that last one kind of works. . .
The argument against Microsoft is irrelevant as a world without Microsoft is a fantasy.
The argument against apartheid is irrelevant as a world without apartheid is a fantasy.
The argument against steam powered locomotives is irrelevant as the world of Steam Punk is a fantasy.
The argument against copyright is irrelevant as a world without copyright is a fantasy, despite the fact that copyright, like DRM, is a creature of law, and did not in fact exist for most of human history, the first creation of a copyright being The Statute of Queen Anne [wikipedia.org] in 1710. So clearly a world without DRM can not possibly exist.