Re: EME and proprietary plug-ins

Actually, Henri, you're conflating Flash (or Silverlight) availability with
"known licensing terms for DRM module".  That's not actually true, for two
reasons - first, that Flash (or Silverlight) is not universally available
beyond desktop systems, and secondly, just having Flash doesn't mean that
Flash-DRMed content is universally available.  (E.g., much DRMed content
was blocked on Google TV, despite having the Flash runtime.)

My point is simply that using Flash (or Silverlight) as a prerequisite
runtime for DRM does not mean having Flash/SL is the same as having a
license to the DRM "box".  All that using Flash/SL meant was that that
runtime was a prerequisite, not that it was sufficient to equal "you can
run this on an arbitrary machine with Flash/SL." Owners still could (and
did) restrict the content further.


On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 6:51 AM, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 4:01 PM, Robin Berjon <robin@w3.org> wrote:
> > The question that lies open before us is: given that DRM exists, should
> it
> > be implemented through proprietary plugins or should it be possible to
> hook
> > it somehow into the open web platform?
>
> That's not really the question EME poses. Rather, EME poses the question:
>
> Should DRM be implemented as a large non-user-modifiable black box
> whose licensing characteristics are known[1] with a broad existing
> API[2] that doesn't integrate into <video> or should it be implemented
> as a smaller non-user-modifiable black box whose licensing
> characteristics are unknown with a narrower yet-to-be-defined API[3]
> that integrates into <video>?
>
> It's easy to see making the black box smaller and the API narrower as
> an improvement over the status quo. Moving from known licensing and
> API to yet-unknown licensing and API (potentially multiple licensing
> models and APIs) may not be an improvement.
>
> [1] On Mac and Windows, the user gets the DRM box (Flash or
> Silverlight) for $0 and the browser vendor doesn't need a contractual
> relationship with the DRM vendor.
> [2] NPAPI
> [3] EME doesn't define the API between the CDM and the browser.
> --
> Henri Sivonen
> hsivonen@iki.fi
> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
>
>