Re: Letter on DRM in HTML from the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus

On Mon, 2013-06-17 at 09:50 -0700, Mark Watson wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 12:57 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb@bollow.ch> wrote:
>         Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org> wrote:
>         
>         > > The Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus supports the
>         Electronic
>         > > Frontier Foundation concerns regarding DRM in HTML5
>         >
>         > There is nothing in the content protection discussion which
>         impacts
>         > to HTML5.  The HTML Working Group works on several
>         specifications and
>         > the one related to content protection - Encrypted Media
>         Extensions
>         > (EME) is a separate spec.  HTML5 is not affected by EME.
>         
>         
>         Ok, so maybe I should clarify that in our letter, the term
>         “HTML5” is
>         meant in the somewhat broader sense that includes all the
>         outputs of
>         the current activities of W3C's HTML Working Group, and how
>         they are
>         likely to be implemented in practice.
>         
>         I would suggest that this is the meaning that matters to civil
>         society
>         persons (such as those who are organized in the Internet
>         Governance
>         Caucus) whose interest is not in whether there are several
>         specifications or whether everything is contained in a single
>         one,
>         but who are concerned about the social impacts of how the Web
>         is going
>         to evolve.
>         
>         (“HTML5” might have a strictly defined technical meaning in
>         which the
>         term is used within W3C, but given the huge importance of
>         W3C's work
>         for the future of the world, these matters also get discussed
>         outside
>         of W3C, and no-one is really in control of how the meaning of
>         terms
>         evolves during such discussions. The meaning of words will
>         always
>         evolve to match distinctions that are meaningful and relevant
>         to the
>         participants in any given discourse.)
>         
>         > To clarify, the HTML WG Draft Charter neither mentions DRM
>         or EME.
>         > All that it states is that content protection is in scope
>         for the
>         > HTML Working Group.
>         >
>         > It is true that EME is the spec that the Working Group is
>         currently
>         > working on and we have accordingly published a Draft of that
>         spec.
>         > However, this spec has not yet received W3C endorsement or
>         the
>         > approval of the W3C Director.
>         
>         
>         ACK.
>         
>         Indeed the key point of contention is whether “content
>         protection” (where “protecting” content is meant in the sense
>         of
>         trying to prevent it from being used in ways to do not
>         correspond to
>         the desires of the copyright holders) should be considered
>         in-scope or
>         out-of-scope for W3C.
>         
>         The specifics of EME, and of how EME will likely be used with
>         DRM
>         systems (and what are the likely social consequences of that),
>         are
>         relevant in deciding whether one considers it acceptable for
>         W3C to
>         work on “content protection”, or not. After all, how can one
>         judge the
>         merits or dismerits of a particular decision without thinking
>         about its
>         likely consequences?
> 
> 
> Hi Norbert,
> 
> 
> Could I ask if your group has also considered the likely consequences
> of the W3C NOT getting involved in this work ?
> 
> 
> The fact that DRM is and will continue to be used for certain video
> content on the web is not seriously disputed. I know many people would
> like to end or at least discourage the use of DRM altogether, but this
> is not that fight.
> 
> 
> Our view is that the W3C is the best place to ensure that the
> integration of DRM with the web is done in a way that mitigates as far
> as possible the legitimate interoperability, security, privacy and
> accessibility concerns. I'm struggling to understand how the W3C
> ruling these discussions out-of-scope would result in a better outcome
> for users.

You are right that even if W3C rejects the EME proposal, the content
providers and some browsers, who want to have a DRM solution, will go
ahead and implement it. What the users will lose if this implementation
is a W3C recommendation is that they'll lose an ally on the fight for
the Open Web.

It's safe to say that there is a consensus among those who object to
EME, that we believe it contradicts with Open Web principles and
therefore W3C's mission. If EME gets approved the most important thing
we'll lose is W3C.

--
Nikos Roussos
http://roussos.cc

Received on Tuesday, 18 June 2013 08:31:07 UTC