RE: Brightcove retreats from HTML5, pushes refreshed SDKs for native Android, iOS apps

Dominique Hazael-Massieux wrote:
>
> > We can either work with them towards an open technical solution, or
> > they can go off and do it without our help, and let the chips fall
> > where they may. Me, I prefer to be on the inside where I can be
> > involved in the dialog, rather than on the outside watching from a
> > distance.
> 
> But I think it's making a pretty big leap of faith to assume that
> having
> an open API for interacting with a DRM blackbox will open up DRM
> technical solutions, esp. since these solutions only get accepted by
> the
> said premium content creators with some guarantees of non-openness.

 "Thanks to the new HTML5 Encrypted Media Extensions aka EME: a set of APIs designed to control playback of protected content... At first, it looks like DRM - yes I said it. And in a way, it is... but not really. Let me explain. This HTML5 new feature is actually not "the" DRM module.  Big media companies won't stop asking for encryption to broadcast their videos. So, in order to have a seamless web experience (I mean no plug-in here), EME has been created to provide a unique way to interact with protected content."
https://plus.google.com/u/0/100132233764003563318/posts/6QW8TLtV6q3 

I'm not making that assumption Dom. 

I am simply saying that if we want <video> to be anything more than an also-ran, it (<video>) will need to meet the needs of everyone who might be using it. The encryption of Premium Content is not going to magically go away because the W3C refused to address that business need. Wishing and hoping for some kind of utopian world where all entertainment content is freely available without restriction is naïve at best. 

We need to be pragmatic and reasonable here: if some content creators want to protect their content using an encryption method, we should be looking on how to make that user-experience as "seemless" as possible (as Francois notes above). 

Will it be perfect? Likely not but then, is the 'whole open web' completely accessible as well? No - does that mean then that we should give up and abandon that quest too? Or that we should insist that only images with appropriate alt text render on screen - that inaccessible images not display for anyone? Where do we draw the line?

JF

Received on Friday, 22 March 2013 17:26:08 UTC