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posted by mattie_p on Tuesday February 18 2014, @02:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the if-you-can't-beat-'em dept.

An anonymous coward writes:

"In March, 2013 Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, proposed adopting DRM into the HTML standard, under the name Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). Writing in October 2013, he said that "none of us as users like certain forms of content protection such as DRM at all," but cites the argument that "if content protection of some kind has to be used for videos, it is better for it to be discussed in the open at W3C" as a reason for considering the inclusion of DRM in HTML.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has objected, saying in May of last year that the plan 'defines a new "black box" for the entertainment industry, fenced off from control by the browser and end-user'. Later, they pointed out that if DRM is OK for video content, that same principle would open the door to font, web applications, and other data being locked away from users.

public-restrictedmedia, the mailing list where the issue is being debated, has seen discussion about forking HTML and establishing a new standard outside of the W3C."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday February 18 2014, @04:00AM

    by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Tuesday February 18 2014, @04:00AM (#1382) Homepage

    Yes and no.

    A big part of the original glory of the Internet was that every node was both client and server; which was which depended only on what role the node was playing in the context of that particular communication.

    That concept kinda sorta still exists, but only in the most diluted of forms. Realistically, if you want to publish content, you either have to "upgrade" to a "business-class" network account, or you have to pay somebody else (with money, eyeballs, privacy -- or, increasingly, all three) for the privilege of publishing your own content for you.

    Done right, especially with a store / forward / cache topology, the distinction between consumer and producer should again go away. Once that happens, not only does a great deal of power flow back to the people, it levels the playing field in such a way that you really do have to compete on the quality of your offering and not simply rest on your monopolistic laurels.

    Cheers,

    b&

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  • (Score: 1) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 18 2014, @11:38AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday February 18 2014, @11:38AM (#1540) Homepage

    Yes and no.

    The original glory of the internet was that the people who were running the clients also had interesting stuff to share, and so them being servers too made sense.
    Nowadays, the vast majorty of the users of the internet have nothing worth keeping to share, they're mostly just consumers rather than creators. Ability to comment on something you've just consumed is not creative, it's paliative - to make you feel involved and keep you on the drip wanting to consume more.

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  • (Score: 1) by nukkel on Tuesday February 18 2014, @05:51PM

    by nukkel (168) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @05:51PM (#1758)

    This.

    The internet was supposed to be all about decentralization. Somewhere along the way, things didn't quite pan out that way.

    • (Score: 1) by jonh on Tuesday February 18 2014, @09:02PM

      by jonh (733) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @09:02PM (#1908) Homepage

      The internet was supposed to be all about decentralization. Somewhere along the way, things didn't quite pan out that way.

      There's a lot of vested interest in centralization. Practically all commercial broadcasting is more interested in selling/telling you stuff than listening to what you have to say. I'm actually hoping that this may start to change as the TV generations die off. Kids raised on (say) reddit and 4chan will probably resent being told to sit quietly and consume their culture.