Re: What would we have to demonstrate to change your mind?

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 3:53 PM, Duncan Bayne <dhgbayne@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Jeff, & those in favour of the EME proposal:
>
> In order to change *my* mind - that is, for me to start supporting the
> EME proposal, you'd need to show either:
>
>  - a use case for EME that is not DRM, and which has demand from
>  industry
>
> ... or ...
>
>  - that CDM implementations would honour the W3C mission, that is,  be
>  "available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network
>  infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or
>  physical or mental ability."
>

It's hard to see how either of these things could be demonstrated in
advance of deployment and experimentation with EME. On the second one
though, there is a strong business incentive for a CDM vendors make their
solution available on as many platforms as possible. Platform support is
one of the major features on which they compete. As with anything there
will be platforms where the volume makes it uneconomical and as Jeff
mentions some platform implementors may not accept integration of certain
CDMs.


>
> What would those of us opposed to the EME proposal have to demonstrate
> in order to change your mind - that is, in order for you to abandon
> support for EME and start opposing it instead?
>

For my part, you would need to demonstrate that the likely alternatives
would be better for users. Most importably users of our service, but also
users more generally.

We would need to agree on what the likely alternatives are. I think there
are three likely outcomes in the absence of a W3C standard:
(1) the status quo of installable native code plugins persists
(2) one or more de facto standards emerge
(3) premium content is available only through native applications

...Mark


>
> --
> Duncan Bayne
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>
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