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

"I am still not sure what advantage to users comes from having EME worked
on outside W3C, or simply becoming a de facto standard, compared to a W3C
recommendation."

The point that is trying to be made here is that it is not benefiting users
at all to have EME or DRM. It is benefiting the copyright holders'
interests and nothing more. The W3C exists to make things accessible,
available and open to everyone. EME is just a gate to making things closed
to users. The argument that this makes "premium" content more accessible to
everyone is a farce. If you wanted it more accessible for everyone it would
not be necessary to use Digital Restrictions Management. Putting a lock and
a paywall in front of the content and then adding a nice new shiny super
highway to get there only benefits the copyright holders because it gets
more people funnelled to them. Once they're there, the only option they
have is to play the game of dealing in non-free software and digital
restrictions management.

Users currently have the option of dealing with the non-free DRM content
with plugins. It's not great because in order to view a film or a show they
would have to use non-free software and agree to the Digital Restrictions
Management. But it is not a standard and it is a big choice for small
content providers to put DRM on the content. If this is a standard it is
going to encourage more people to unnecessarily put their content into DRM.
This will make the web and media less open. As a whole big content
companies are going to benefit but not the users.


On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 9:01 AM, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 1:50 AM, Nikos Roussos <
> comzeradd@mozilla-community.org> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 2013-05-20 at 11:08 -0700, Mark Watson wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 10:53 AM, piranna@gmail.com
>> > <piranna@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >         > Un-spin welcomed. Actually, we're talking about replacing
>> >         one such system, plugins, with another with better properties.
>> >         With EME, websites will have far less control over users
>> >         browsers than we do today and the nature of the control will
>> >         be mediated via browser vendors and thus more transparent to
>> >         users.
>> >         >
>> >
>> >         Ok, if that's the point, EME is welcome to me, we only ask
>> >         please move it outside W3C, I think there shouldn't be any
>> >         problem in this point, is it?
>> >
>> >
>> > Can you explain why you think there will be a better outcome for users
>> > if EME is worked on outside W3C ?
>>
>> The best outcome for users would be if EME is not worked on at all. But
>> given the fact that it actually lies on the interest of copyright
>> holders and content providers (not users nor browsers), it certainty
>> doesn't have any place inside W3C.
>>
>
> I am still not sure what advantage to users comes from having EME worked
> on outside W3C, or simply becoming a de facto standard, compared to a W3C
> recommendation.
>
> Clearly, the W3C cares about things like interoperability, user security
> and privacy and transparency which will get less attention outside. To
> suggest that users will be better off in the short-term with a de facto
> standard ignores this. Now, I am not sure if anyone is suggesting that.
> Perhaps the suggestion is that users will be better of *long-term* after a
> period of short-term user pain dealing with incompatible implementations
> with poor security and privacy properties ? If so it would be good to be
> clear about this.
>
>
>
>
>>
>> An "Open Web" organization is not a place where you would expect that
>> should make technical recommendations that benefit copyright-holder over
>> user rights.
>>
>
> This view implies taking a position on legal and public policy issues
> which are not settled in the public sphere. You are saying that users have
> a right to purchase products on terms that the sellers presently don't
> offer. Users could certainly be given that right by courts or governments,
> but in the meantime sellers have a right to set the terms of their offer.
> Noone is forced to buy a particular product.
>
> Now, the W3C could take a position on this. It could clearly state that it
> believes the products we are discussing should be forbidden by law. And it
> could argue that until that time the W3C will take no action to facilitate
> the creation of such products, making them more inconvenient for users in
> order to encourage public opinion towards the same position.
>
> Is that what you are proposing ? That position is not at all obviously
> implied by the W3C goals.
>
> ...Mark
>
>
>>
>> --
>> Nikos Roussos
>> http://www.roussos.cc
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>


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