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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: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @08:41AM
Would you prefer a bunch of individual proprietary DRM formats/standards that require their own programs and plugins?
or a single common standard implemented across the board?
Choose one.
The argument against DRM is irrelevant as a world without DRM is a fantasy.
I vote to make reality a little less shit by eventually having DRM support built into my browser rather than having to install separate proprietary DRM plugins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday October 09 2016, @08:52AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:31PM
This is the wisest comment in the entire debate.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday October 09 2016, @07:43PM
Talk is cheap. For example, I can say No to Arik abusing pre/code tags, but he'll still keep abusing them, so the only solution is to take matters into my own hands and remove those tags forcefully using userscripts.
Similarly, we can all say No to Web DRM, but it's going to be added one way or another and the only solution is user-level/client-side blocking. Having a standard will actually make it easier to block.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @09:21PM
I don't usually respond to trolls like this, but without intending to, you've actually hit on some truth. Or, well, at least hit close to some.
Of course, I'm not actually posting any tags, let alone 'abusing' them, which is why this is just trolling on your part, but still, you're right that the solution lies in your browser. You shouldn't need to do any userscript, although some browsers might be brain-damaged enough to require it I suppose, but generally you just need to go to your font settings. In Firefox, for instance, go to tools - options - content then hit the advanced button. See the checkmark? It turns on brain damage, turn it off, set fonts that work for your screen and your eyes, and you're good!
Seems like that would be easier than following me around like a spurned schoolgirl and blaming me for your browser, and at any rate it will certainly be more effective!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @10:53PM
Seems like that would be easier than following me around like a spurned schoolgirl and blaming me for your browser, and at any rate it will certainly be more effective!
Inigo Montoya: "Who are you?"
AC: "No one to be trifled with. Quit following me."
Inigo: "But you are an AC, so once again I must ask, who are you?"
Six-fingered AC: "Stop saying that!"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @09:13AM
In this case, I'd rather have the shitty competing versions that conflict and always crash. It will be so popular with the users.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @11:45AM
It might also be easier to circumvent the drm and capture the source that way.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @09:14AM
Making the world less shitty by having every browser download pure binary plugins that don't work on half the platforms (let's make sure to cement that Intel monopoly in all eternity!), are full of security holes and allow to identify each browser uniquely?
Maybe you are just ignorant of the real effect of this?
Also a world without DRM does exist for a lot of people.
It is called YouTube and torrents.
Even with DRM, the alternative to standardized (and thus encouraged) DRM is not just proprietary plugins (which won't be an option once plugin support is removed) but special-purpose devices like FireTV for those that believe they cannot do without DRM.
I.e. make everyone choose: Provide your videos on the web without DRM or provide them with DRM and not on the web.
If EME becomes standard, an absolute minimum requirement should be that the plugins work on Linux, OSX, Windows, FreeBSD, on x86, x86-64, ARMv7, ARMv8, MIPS, SPARC, PowerPC (LE and BE). Though I am fairly certain that would have the same effect as killing it, as the people behind it aren't willing to support even 2 architectures, and barely willing to support 3 OS. And then want to call it "open".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @10:24AM
A broken situation is by far preferable....
So yes.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday October 09 2016, @10:32AM
Would you prefer a bunch of individual proprietary DRM formats/standards that require their own programs and plugins? or a single common standard implemented across the board?
The former. Then the ensuing chaos will hopefully kill off any further attempts at digital restriction management.
That's if I really HAVE to choose one. Fortunately, I don't have to - I prefer to not buy* or use drm infected material.
The argument against DRM is irrelevant as a world without DRM is a fantasy.
Only if we let it - ie if we refuse to vote with our wallets.
*As an aside, If, as the ads tell me, I "own it on DVD" doesn't that mean I can do whatever I like with it? Or is it just another example of false advertising?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @05:59PM
The former is the status quo and hasn't killed off anything yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @10:31PM
this is feeding the trolls probably, but i'll bite
when you buy a dvd, you are buying a disc with a licensed copy of the film. you aren't buying the rights to the film itself (if you want to do that you'd be forking out a lot more than a few measly bucks)
but of course you already knew that
(Score: 4, Informative) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday October 10 2016, @01:08AM
when you buy a dvd, you are buying a disc with a licensed copy of the film. you aren't buying the rights to the film itself...
That's right, despite the "own it on DVD!" plastered all over the ad - they just forgot to put in an asterisk with "for a nonstandard meaning of the word "own""
but of course you already knew that
Sorry, forgot the [sarcasm] tag.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday October 09 2016, @12:28PM
Would you prefer a bunch of individual proprietary DRM formats/standards that require their own programs and plugins?
I would actually prefer this, because at least it wouldn't appear to give DRM legitimacy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:50PM
More importantly, competing DRM implementations gives the lock-in power to the various distribution channels over the content creators. This is what killed DRM on music: Apple was able to manage a vertical monopoly (iPod, iTunes Music Store), which made it impossible for other music stores to compete and also implement DRM: if you didn't implement Apple's DRM, you couldn't put DRM'd music on the iPod, and Apple didn't license their DRM scheme. The only way for the music studios to regain control was to license music for DRM-free downloads.
In spite of the pronouncements from the music industry that DRM was essential in their fight against piracy, since allowing DRM-free downloads the industry has enjoyed record profits.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @05:18AM
record profits
I see what you did there.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @02:46PM
> or a single common standard implemented across the board?
It isn't just about making it easier. It is about mainstreaming DRM as normal.
Whenever DRM is used it should be seen as an exception, not a standard.
It doesn't matter if it actually is common. Treating it as abnormal is central to ever beating it. Once we accept it as standard, then the social pressure to just accept it and all the crap that comes with it as just a fact of life becomes enormous.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Sunday October 09 2016, @07:55PM
This depends. If the unified requirement contained enforceable provisions that after the expiration of copyright on the material it would become publicly accessible, I'd find it acceptable. But the provisions would need to be enforceable without appeal to a legal process...and would also need to contain some equally enforceable guarantee that the material would be available to be distributed.
Copyright is supposed to be a protection for a limited period of time. If that requirement is not adhered to in a reliable way, then I see no reason to respect it. My normal form of rejecting it is to refuse to purchase the merchandise, but I see no ethical grounds for condemning those who reject it in some other way.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(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.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday October 10 2016, @05:46AM
I would rather there be a bazillion different plugins needed, with different versions needing to be made depending on OS, browser, time of day and zip/postal code.
It should be as horrible for an end-user to actually get to work as possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @04:57PM
that's the whole point.(you poor, dumb bastard) we want the scumbags to have to make their own stupid plugins for their stupid drm to work. that will make it harder on them and the ignorant slaves who consume their excrement.