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posted by takyon on Tuesday September 19 2017, @12:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the community-consensus dept.

Submitted via IRC for boru

Dear Jeff, Tim, and colleagues, In 2013, EFF was disappointed to learn that the W3C had taken on the project of standardizing "Encrypted Media Extensions," an API whose sole function was to provide a first-class role for DRM within the Web browser ecosystem. By doing so, the organization offered the use of its patent pool, its staff support, and its moral authority to the idea that browsers can and should be designed to cede control over key aspects from users to remote parties.

[...] The W3C is a body that ostensibly operates on consensus. Nevertheless, as the coalition in support of a DRM compromise grew and grew — and the large corporate members continued to reject any meaningful compromise — the W3C leadership persisted in treating EME as topic that could be decided by one side of the debate. In essence, a core of EME proponents was able to impose its will on the Consortium, over the wishes of a sizeable group of objectors — and every person who uses the web. The Director decided to personally override every single objection raised by the members, articulating several benefits that EME offered over the DRM that HTML5 had made impossible.

[...] We believe they will regret that choice. Today, the W3C bequeaths an legally unauditable attack-surface to browsers used by billions of people. They give media companies the power to sue or intimidate away those who might re-purpose video for people with disabilities. They side against the archivists who are scrambling to preserve the public record of our era. The W3C process has been abused by companies that made their fortunes by upsetting the established order, and now, thanks to EME, they'll be able to ensure no one ever subjects them to the same innovative pressures.

[...] Effective today, EFF is resigning from the W3C.

Thank you,

Cory Doctorow
Advisory Committee Representative to the W3C for the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jcross on Tuesday September 19 2017, @01:59AM (12 children)

    by jcross (4009) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @01:59AM (#570011)

    I think you're right. And to some extent the market has already decided, because Netflix et al aren't currently pushing out video in straight HTML5 formats; as I understand it they're using browser plugins to do their DRM, at least in Chrome. So this standard would in theory make it so they only have to target a single system rather than one per browser. You likely still won't be able to watch Netflix on Chromium, although there might be some fights about whether it should be added to make the browser fully standards-compliant. Maybe it becomes an optional plugin there. The W3C's stamp of approval is disappointing for sure, but I'm just not seeing how this changes the landscape much.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 19 2017, @02:55AM (11 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @02:55AM (#570031)

    And to some extent the market has already decided, because Netflix et al aren't currently pushing out video in straight HTML5 formats; as I understand it they're using browser plugins to do their DRM, at least in Chrome.

    Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought Netflix et al were already using this standard, it just hadn't yet been quite finalized. We can already watch Netflix on Linux using Chrome (not Chromium).

    The W3C's stamp of approval is disappointing for sure, but I'm just not seeing how this changes the landscape much.

    I agree; I think they're just rubberstamping what Google has already put into Chrome, and has probably already been built into Safari and Edge. Firefox and Chromium and the minor open-source browsers are the holdouts.

    Also, remember what things were like before this: to watch Netflix, you had to use Silverlight, which of course wasn't available on Linux (some people did come up with a workaround called "pipelight", but it was quickly rendered obsolete by the move to browser-based decryption), or you just had to go without. Companies that wanted to DRM their content were already doing it long before this standard was proposed, using proprietary plug-ins like Flash and Silverlight. So yeah, I don't see how this really changes anything. Perhaps the worry is that everyone and their brother will start using it, unlike now where it's only certain large players like Netflix. Imagine if Youtube's stuff was all DRMed; we wouldn't be able to download anything on there with youtube-dl.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:05AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:05AM (#570037)

      People are also worrying because this makes digital restrictions management officially accepted as part of a major standard, which can give the appearance of it being ethical on some level. DRM should be condemned in the harshest terms for restricting users, and especially so by organizations like the W3C.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by melikamp on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:09AM (4 children)

        by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:09AM (#570111) Journal

        Thanks, AC. More to the point, EFF is right to run like hell. An ethical equivalent of this fine deed would be a technical standard for torture: "make the ropes this tight, turn so many degrees...", or something like that. WTF is DRM, anyway? It's a pure con, no silver lining. There's no need for DRM on a kiosk-type thingy, as it just does with physical protection. There's no such thing as DRM on a personal computer, because that thing just does whatever I tell it to, thank you very much libreware. The only place DRM is even feasible is a sleazy rental that spies on you for no other reason than you are trapped by an oppressive government or an equally oppressive market force, or (sigh) you are channeling Homer Simpson and just buying the first thing you see advertised on a freeway. In that last case, we can't really help, just as we cannot help people who like being tortured, but I do believe most of us are in the much bigger trapped category. And we don't need this standard at all, in fact it's an amazingly brazen insult, rather than a technical standard. And we can do a standard, can't we? And make sure our libreware Web browsers support the real standard, which doesn't start by bending user over? I don't know, talking to some people, I feel a lot of doubt about this, which I find perplexing, as to me it just seems like another fork. adblock plus [wikipedia.org] all over.

        Anyways, here's my 2013 email to TBL, I think he might have printed it out and wiped with it, as is his right, but I hope you enjoy it :)

        Dear Mr. Berners-Lee,

        As a Web user, I believe W3C is making a grave mistake by accepting a notion of digital restriction management in a Web standard. The only conceivable goal of a Web standard such as HTML 5 is to make it possible for users (such as myself) to browse the Web and enjoy its full functionality simply by using a standard-compliant Web browser. No informed user considers DRM a "functionality": in fact, it is easy to argue that it's a bug from the point of view of every user, and a "feature" only in the eyes of a few intellectual monopolists, almost all of them giant multinational corporations. These players are neither the major users of the Web, nor its primary intended benefactors, an no standard should cater to their needs if it comes at a cost to the users.

        Having said that, I would like to appeal to you personally, since I understand that the argument above can be taken apart and countered. What I am going to say next, though, is not an argument but a prediction of an extremely likely outcome which will affect you personally. Unless W3C removes DRM from the standard and pledges not to put it back, both the standard and W3C (and everyone in W3C responsible for this decision) will quickly become irrelevant to the development of the Web. None of the free browsers will implement the standard; instead, a new standard will be rapidly forked or developed from scratch by a few volunteers, adapted by the free software community, and become the de facto replacement for HTML 4 and XTHML 1.

        My kindest regards, and many thanks for helping to create an open and user-friendly WWW we have today.

        • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday September 19 2017, @01:03PM (1 child)

          by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @01:03PM (#570168)

          Mr. Berners-Lee

          My my, the Interwebs tell me you're right. I'd always assumed he had a PhD.

          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:57PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:57PM (#570228)

            Crazier yet, Cory Doctorow isn't a doctor either.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 19 2017, @04:58PM (1 child)

          by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Tuesday September 19 2017, @04:58PM (#570255) Homepage Journal

          As with most things, the Golden Rule [quoteinvestigator.com] applies.

          Who are the members [w3.org] of the W3C? How much do they pay [w3.org] for that privilege? Who else makes monetary contributions [w3.org] to the W3C?

          When you answer (you're welcome) those questions, the people upon whom pressure needs to be brought becomes clear.

          Tim Berners-Lee is a figurehead. Those that matter are the ones paying the bills.

          Many of the members might have an interest in opposing DRM and many members have a vested interest in supporting DRM.

          Individuals are not members of the W3C, it's corporations and other organizations who pay anywhere from US $2,250.00 to US $77,000.00 (depending on the size of the organization) in the US (I didn't investigate other countries, but you can at the W3C Membership costs link [w3.org] I posted above). These folks aren't just giving away their money because they want to make the world a better place, they're doing so to achieve specific goals which, for many of these companies, includes DRM.

          IMHO, letter writing campaigns and negative publicity are completely useless for an organization which survives on contributions from many who not only support DRM, but feel that their business models depend upon it.

          Perhaps I'm too cynical, but that's the way I see it.

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
          • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:24PM

            by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:24PM (#570294) Journal
            Totally, and the only reason I took my time to write to TBL is that I have plenty of respect for the guy and his work, and didn't want to see a bucket of garbage water dumped on him as well, but hey, to each his own, right? Whatever floats his boat.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @09:37AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @09:37AM (#570128)

      Silvershite was such a piece of crap as well. On a slow connection it would only buffer a tiny amount however long you waited, making shows unwatchable. Maybe the publisher could reconfigure that but they didn't.

      • (Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:34AM

        by anubi (2828) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @05:34AM (#570536) Journal

        Yeh, I installed it too, and had the same result. Unusable.

        Trashed it as unworkable with consumer-grade ISPs.

        --
        "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by Chromium_One on Tuesday September 19 2017, @04:21PM (1 child)

      by Chromium_One (4574) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @04:21PM (#570242)

      We can already watch Netflix on Linux using Chrome (not Chromium).

      No, the widevine plugin works under Chromium. Check if your distribution offers it repackaged or not. Mine does. Also Netflix works just fine on recent Firefox on Linux.

      --
      When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
      • (Score: 2) by jasassin on Wednesday September 20 2017, @11:20PM

        by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 20 2017, @11:20PM (#570896) Homepage Journal

        Also Netflix works just fine on recent Firefox on Linux.

        Firefox works great, but with NetFlix it only supports 720p. On my e2180 CPU Firefox works great. They recently (maybe six months to a year) fucked up Chrome on Linux so bad I can't even play standard definition video stuttering without stuttering! Chrome is shit for Netflix on any OS. Load a Netflix video and press cntrl-alt-shift-d and it toggles a diagnostic display of the current playback. Chrome drops frames like hot potatoes. Firefox doesn't drop a single frame on my system.

        --
        jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
    • (Score: 2) by jasassin on Wednesday September 20 2017, @10:02PM

      by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 20 2017, @10:02PM (#570869) Homepage Journal

      Imagine if Youtube's stuff was all DRMed; we wouldn't be able to download anything on there with youtube-dl.

      That would ruin YouTube for me! My computer, under Linux (no browser video hardware acceleration), cannot play 1080p video (MPV works great). I really hope they don't go this route.

      --
      jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A