RE: Formal Objection to Working Group Decision to publish Encrypted Media Extensions specification as a First Public Working Draft (FPWD)

On 2013/05/30 22:29, John C. Vernaleo wrote:
> On Thu, 30 May 2013, John Foliot wrote:
> 
>> <non-technical post, with apologies>
>> 
>> Your stated reasoning appears to be that if you are "successful" you 
>> will
>> have somehow stopped Digital Rights Management from being used on the 
>> web,
>> or being supported by commercial browsers developed by privately held
>> commercial companies today. The Web "MUST REMAIN FREE!!!" you rally. 
>> As an
>> analogy, I see this as akin to stating that you support freedom of 
>> religion
>> as long as that religion is based upon a form of Christianity - anyone 
>> who
>> deviates from that myopic perspective is "wrong", misguided, or simply
>> "greedy".
>> 
> 
> I don't think anyone has suggested that stopping the EME proposal (or
> whatever exactly it technically is at this point) will stop DRM on the
> web.  That is an pretty serious mischaracterization of the positions
> of the people who do not agree with it.  Speaking largely for myself,
> I  don't like the idea of the w3c endorsing such a think and I
> disapprove of DRM on a variety of grounds, but I don't believe
> stopping this proposal will magically make DRM go away.  So I don't
> appreciate you suggesting such ignorance or magical thinking on "our
> side" (and I also hate this seems to turn into and our side vs. their
> side argument).  I know that I have not suggested such things about
> you or anyone else who is in favor of EME.
> 
> John
> 

Thanks John for putting that properly. +1


I'll add that, from what I've always felt, the W3C standards are not 
just "open standards", but also and mostly "standards for all", implying 
that it should be usable by all. If using EME requires a 3rd party 
and/or non-free software to provide the desired function then maybe it 
should be taken outside.

"We should be able to publish regardless of the software we use"

If it is possible to use EME to restrict media content on the web, 
"regardless of the software we use" then I'd have one less reason to be 
against EME in W3's spec.



-- 
Emmanuel Revah
http://manurevah.com

Received on Thursday, 30 May 2013 21:08:38 UTC