Re: Encrypted Media proposal (was RE: ISSUE-179: av_param - Chairs Solicit Alternate Proposals or Counter-Proposals)

On Mar 1, 2012, at 1:14 PM, L. David Baron wrote:

On Thursday 2012-03-01 18:06 +0000, Mark Watson wrote:
Reading your mail I have a feeling we are talking a little at
crossed purposes. Part of this could be because the proposal is
not yet clear enough on the nature of CDMs and these discussions
are very helpful in eeking out the issues which need to be
explained/addressed.

To clarify:
- a browser can have multiple CDMs for different keysystems
- what we propose to standardize is the discovery, selection and
 interaction with CDMs, not the CDMs themselves (not unlike the
 current situation with codecs).

The proposal doesn't restrict how browsers integrate with CDMs,
how they are installed, discovered by browsers etc. This is up to
browser developers and there are many options. Most of your
questions are about commercial choices by browser developers and
CDM developers.

You say there are many options.  But many people on this list don't
know what the space of options looks like:  how many options they
are, what characteristics the options have, etc.  Could you describe
the current market in key systems, as I asked in
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2012Feb/0366.html ?

The underlying content protection systems are things like PlayReady (from Microsoft), Widevine (from Google) and Marlin. Adobe have something, but I don't know what they call it.

The kind of options I can imagine are:
- CDMs embedded into device firmware, most likely for TVs and similar devices
- CDMs shipped with an OS
- CDMs shipped with a browser
- CDMs shipped with a browser in 'inactive' form and 'activated' by a service which needs them
- CDMs installed by the user
- CDMs whose installation is triggered by a particular service (and presumably oked by the user)

For each of these options there are sub-options as to who pays for any license fees.

This is just a brainstorm-quality list. I doubt all of these will be seen (or needed). Some of them require business relationships which don't presently exist. Which options a browser supports is up to that browser developer.

My point is just that the proposal doesn't prescribe any particular model in this respect. The options are limited only by your ingenuity, which is why I was reluctant to give a list. I don't have a crystal ball. But it should be an improvement on the current model where the only option for such capabilities on desktop browsers is a plugin installed by the user.

...Mark


-David

--
𝄞   L. David Baron                         http://dbaron.org/   𝄂
𝄢   Mozilla                           http://www.mozilla.org/   𝄂