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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday May 13 2015, @08:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-so-open-anymore dept.

Mozilla Firefox 38 has been released. It adds the <picture> element, Ruby annotation support, and Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), a form of digital rights management for HTML5 video. It also automatically downloads Adobe's Primetime Content Decryption Module (CDM) on 32-bit versions of Firefox on Windows Vista and newer Windows systems. The Register reports:

The nonprofit grudgingly agreed to add EME support to Firefox last year, despite the vocal objections of both Mozilla's then-CTO Brendan Eich and the Free Software Foundation. "Nearly everyone who implements DRM says they are forced to do it" the FSF said at the time, "and this lack of accountability is how the practice sustains itself."

Nonetheless, Mozilla promoted Firefox 38 to the Release channel on Tuesday, complete with EME enabled – although it said it's still doing so reluctantly. "We don't believe DRM is a desirable market solution, but it's currently the only way to watch a sought-after segment of content," Mozilla senior veep of legal affairs Danielle Dixon-Thayer said in a blog post.

The first firm to leap at the chance to shovel its DRM into Firefox was Adobe, whose Primetime Content Delivery Module for decoding encrypted content shipped with Firefox 38 on Tuesday. Thayer said various companies, including Netflix, are already evaluating Adobe's tech to see if it meets their requirements. Mozilla says that because Adobe's CDM is proprietary "black box" software, it has made certain to wrap it in a sandbox within Firefox so that its code can't interfere with the rest of the browser. (Maybe that's why it took a year to get it integrated.)

The CDM will issue an alert when it's on a site that uses DRM-wrapped content, so people who don't want to use it will have the option of bowing out. If you don't want your browser tainted by DRM at all, you still have options. You can disable the Adobe Primetime CDM so it never activates. If that's not good enough, there's a menu option in Firefox that lets you opt out of DRM altogether, after which you can delete the Primetime CDM (or any future CDMs from other vendors) from your hard drive. Finally, if you don't want DRM in your browser and you don't want to bother with any of the above, Mozilla has made available a separate download that doesn't include the Primetime CDM and has DRM disabled by default.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 13 2015, @09:53PM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 13 2015, @09:53PM (#182649) Homepage Journal

    Filter error: Comment too short

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @10:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @10:59PM (#182689)

    Why? DRM is your friend. DRM is here to help you. DRM is the future of video on the intarwebz. DRM lets you watch Daredevil on Netflix. DRM prevents fair use. You do not want fairness do you citizen? DRM is amazing. DRM is like UHD and 7:1 sound in improving the user experience. DRM is more inconvenient then torrenting for free. DRM means "theft". "Theft" means legislation. Legislation means control. Sieg Heil! DRM is amazing. DRM helps you watch videos. DRM lets you watch Hollywood films. DRM will enable the zionist new world order. DRM is cuddly. DRM loves you like no other. DRM wants complete control of your computers. DRM is the saviour of the starving artist. DRM is above and below all other applications. DRM is your new god. DRM helps old ladies cross the road. DRM helps cats from trees. DRM is inevitable. DRM is a long-term business strategy that prevents media conglomerates facing capitalist market forces and competing against zero marginal cost. DRM is American. DRM is gold. DRM is in Firefox. Firefox is open source. Open Source is cool. DRM is cool.

    • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 13 2015, @11:05PM

      by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 13 2015, @11:05PM (#182695) Homepage Journal

      quite commonly the record labels assert that artists will suffer if we download music.

      That's not really the case, because the artists don't get much money at all from the sales of their recording, because of the contracts they've signed with the labels. The artists make most of their money from ticket sales, for live performances.

      Also, there are plenty of artists who encourage downloads, as I do by providing my piano compositions from my websites. However, the artists who do so are not typically signed with the labels.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @11:08PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @11:08PM (#182698)

        ** woosh **