Re: I strongly urge all supporters to reconsider the EME proposal. It is not in your best interests!

Dear Mark, dear participants,

[This is my first email to this community group, so I still have
to get acquainted with how this works!]

We need to clarify a few things. 

First, whether DRM are a reality today is not in question, nobody
is denying this. Whether DRM is economically efficient or not is
not up for debate, people with different economic interests will
have different perspectives. I don't think it's useful to discuss
them here.

Second, whether some people will try to make DRM work outside of
Flash and Silverlight, this is also not worth denying. Google
already implements EME and CDM in Chrome OS according to
https://lwn.net/Articles/550847/ (← this is "premium content"
behind a Paywall, not sure if you can access it; but there's no
DRM so I can copy/paste it here:)

    Posted May 16, 2013 8:02 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (subscriber,
    #1804)
    Parent article: DRM in HTML5 published in draft form
    https://lwn.net/Articles/550424/

    I don't think you're missing anything. It's also available on
    Chromebooks, and apprently Netflix is already using it¹. The
    CDM does cease to function if you turn on ChromeOS developer
    mode, so while it runs on Linux there's no chance it'll be
    supported on a standard GNU/Linux distribution. 

    1. https://plus.google.com/u/0/100132233764003563318/posts/6QW8TLtV6q3

What we are discussing here is whether EME should get the W3C
“stamp of approval” which we equate with the “Open Web”. By Open,
it means this is something not discriminating or excluding anyone
regardless of which technology they use.

I understand that one of the core argument put forward by the W3C
is that the Open Web is not a synonym for "content free of charge"
(which is a straw-man argument). The W3C CEO made the distinction
between that and "premium content" which was implied to equate
content restricted by DRM, hence justifying EME's approval.

If I understand you correctly from your previous email to this
group (BTW thank you for moving the discussions here); this is
also your view.


I think it is important to draw some distinctions here. First, we
need to debunk the straw-man argument. AFAIK no one is claiming
that the Open Web should only be for distributing content free of
charge. Actually, such a requirement would be against the very
principles of freedom that are core to the Web and core to Free
Software (aka Open Source) licenses.

Now, the second bit of the argument for supporting EME is that
there need to be a place for "premium content" which by that I
suppose means copyrighted films produced by corporations such as
Hollywood studios, that Netflix has to stream.

But jumping from there to assume that it means we need to have DRM
is a whole other debate. 

Sure, you say that these companies require DRM and you say they
impose them to Netflix. Well, it's your problem if you cannot
negotiate better terms with them, there are *no reasons* why all
web users should have to bear the costs (directly and indirectly)
of these technological restrictions. 

Moreover, there are already "premium content" distributed on the
Web, where money is involved and that do *not* require DRM. For
instance, there are a lot of news media where you need to
subscribe and pay a monthly fee. These media are usually not
distributing their article under Creative Commons (which means
you're not allowed to make and distribute copies of it, that would
be copyright infringement). However, they are not imposing DRM on
their users.

On the other hand, it is important to keep in mind that a lot of
DRM today (in Flash, Silverlight, etc.) is actually applied to
content that is not "premium" at all, and usually gratis.

That shows that the two issues are actually separate and should
not be bind together to legitimate DRM, as if DRM was a
requirement for having paid-for content on the Web. Because it is
not.

Now, on why legal restrictions and technological restrictions are
not the same:

Le jeu. 16/05/13, 08:41, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com>:
> >From your site:
> 
> *Important note* - By viewing the content of this website you agree to the
> following:
> 
>    - Copy is right
>    - Free speech and privacy are not up for debate
>    - Non Free software is evil
> 
> 
> For the record I do not agree to the third of these, nor to the first if it
> means what I think it means (all copying is morally justified). These are
> huge and far-reaching propositions. You clearly believe it is reasonably to
> place these as conditions of access to your content. Why is it not
> reasonable for a content owner to require the use of DRM ?
> 
> ...Mark

This is like comparing apples and oranges. This is an entirely
different matter. Legal restrictions and technological
restrictions cannot be on the same metric.

You are right that the notice above is clearly claiming to have
legally far-reaching consequences. They are huge conditions of
access to the content. (BTW, it seems to me to be a parody of
Terms of Service rather than a real one)

But, unlike DRM, this notice is just texts and does not make the
user surrender anything.

For instance, you are able to access the website and "view its
content" without actually agreeing to these. If there's a problem,
you can got to a court of law and explain the judge why all this
is wrong and why this isn't reasonable. Or maybe it will be judged
to be reasonable (I doubt it), then you will have to answer the
consequences for your actions. This is what being an adult,
responsible person with legal powers means.

Unlike text, DRM technology restricts the user and thus takes
away its ability to perform some actions in his/her private
sphere, under his/her own responsibility. This is why DRM is
an unfair restriction that every person should refuse: it makes
users powerless.

The other problem is that with DRM, you are prevented from doing
things which can actually be entirely lawful under your
jurisdiction. To impose DRM on users can be a way to claim more
power than you are legally entitled to, and thus is morally wrong.

So you cannot compare legal restrictions with technological
restrictions. They are just entirely different matters, and W3C
should not replace legislators around the world by designing EME.



Now I understand that the position that DRM is bad is not
something Netflix can understand, as your commercial partners ask
you to stream content with DRM.

But, under the current EME proposal as far as I understand it
(please correct me if I'm wrong) any implementation of this
specification would ultimately impose unfree software on web users
(and by unfree software I do not mean gratis obviously, but
software that comes with the freedoms safeguarded by the
licenses).

You have written that the web browser could rely on the platform
providing the closed-source modules; but that would still mean the
obligation to use unfree software. You have also written in the
past, that it was okay because the closed-source parts could be in
hardware rather than software
(http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/02/unethical-html-video-copy-protection-proposal-criticized-by-standards-stakeholders.ars)

So that effectively means that EME would either exclude free
software users and impose unfree software, or  exclude users who
have not bought specific proprietary hardware.

If W3C approves EME, that would be W3C approving to impose unfree
software to Web users. I don't see how that's compatible with
anything claimed as “open”.


Hugo


-- 
Hugo Roy | Free Software Foundation Europe, www.fsfe.org
FSFE Legal Team, Deputy Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/legal
FSFE French Team, Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/fr/
 
Support Free Software, sign up! https://fsfe.org/support

Received on Friday, 17 May 2013 12:26:13 UTC