Re: Chromebook DRM specification

On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 9:38 AM, Florian Bösch <pyalot@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 6:25 PM, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com> wrote:
>
>> We are defining an extension point that is in some way like <object> but
>> with greatly restricted functionality and with the expectation that
>> browsers control and curate the extensions they support. These extensions
>> may implement DRM, but we are not proposing to standardize a complete DRM
>> solution.
>>
> You are defining an extension point, that nobody can extend because the
> extension activation is selective (by UA vendor), and the only example of
> an extension in the wild is not independently implementable (Widevine)
> which incidentially belongs to Google, who is also promoting the
> standardization effort, to what amounts in practise to a licensing scheme
> for their own pockets. It should be self evident that this is isn't going
> to foster compatibility going forward once other players start doing the
> same.
>

We don't have any requirement that all browsers/devices implement the same
DRM. This isn't like video codecs. As long as they all support the same
encryption format (for example ISO Common Encryption as described in the
specification or WebM encryption) we can deliver the same files to all
devices with the same interaction model (as defined by the specification).
There's some per-DRM back end work, but this is manageable and a great
improvement on what we have today.

...Mark