Re: Widevine, "necessary requirements", "silent monitoring" etc. Re: Encrypted Media proposal

While I respect your opinion, there are many who disagree with you. None
of them (to my knowledge) want to harm the end users (which seems to be
your main concern). What they DO want is to provide a better, more
standardized way to deliver protected content (that for now is not legally
available without protection) over the Internet to these users.

This is a problem. As an engineer, I refuse to believe it is intractable.
I think there is plenty of common ground. There is a very vocal collection
of really smart people here.

The conclusion that we should not consider ANY proposal having to do with
content protection doesn't follow.

Refusal to address this in W3C will just drive the solution (I would argue
a worse solution) elsewhere. I don't believe that helps users.

-Clarke

On 3/2/12 3:15 PM, "Andreas Kuckartz" <A.Kuckartz@ping.de> wrote:

>Hi Mark,
>
>you do not have to apologize to me, I do not think that you made false
>or misleading statements.
>
>But I am now convinced that not only this proposal should be rejected by
>the W3C but there should be a decision not to consider *any* other
>proposal which aims at introducing *anything* having to do with "content
>protection", DRM, CDM etc.
>
>Cheers,
>Andreas
>---
>
>On 02.03.2012 22:56, Mark Watson wrote:
>> Hi Andreas,
>>
>> Regarding,
>>
>>> Reading the above there can no longer be any real question
>>> what the proposal is really about.
>>
>> Apologies if the purpose of the proposal wasn't originally clear - I
>>though it was. Yes, the expectation is that in addition to the clearkey
>>CDM vendors such as Microsoft and Google will produce CDMs based on
>>PlayReady, Widevine and other existing content protection systems that
>>enable playback of content covered by licenses that require this kind of
>>protection. I don't think we need to evaluate the marketing claims of
>>these solutions, but we do need a way to integrate with them in order to
>>make this content available in HTML5.
>>
>> ...Mark
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mar 2, 2012, at 1:44 PM, Andreas Kuckartz wrote:
>>
>>> On 01.03.2012 22:57, Mark Watson wrote:
>>>> The underlying content protection systems are things like
>>>> PlayReady (from Microsoft), Widevine (from Google) and Marlin.
>>> Thanks, I had a look at widevine.com. That was more enlightening than I
>>> had expected.
>>>
>>> Currently available desktop platforms:
>>> - Apple Mac platforms
>>> - Microsoft Windows platforms
>>> (in other words: no Linux, what a surprise!)
>>> http://www.widevine.com/available_platforms.html
>>>
>>> The page "Prevent Screen and Stream Recording Piracy" is particularly
>>> revealing. If you want to know what the "Encrypted Media proposal"
>>> proposal is really about then read *all* of it:
>>>
>>> "Widevine's Digital Copy Protection adds an additional level of
>>> protection against the hundreds of software tools available on the
>>> internet that record content and enable piracy. Known as stream
>>> recorders and screen scrapers, these tools copy content while it¹s in
>>> the clear‹typically after traditional DRM systems have done their job.
>>> Digital Copy Protection monitors, detects and protects content on any
>>> internet connected device, preventing this method of piracy from
>>>occurring.
>>>
>>> This addition level of protection is a necessary requirement for
>>> preserving the revenue streams of content owners, Internet digital
>>>media
>>> providers and payTV operators.
>>>
>>> Here's How It Works:
>>> Content is encrypted, stored and distributed to the user who then
>>> watches it in a browser or video player. During playback, encrypted
>>> content has been decrypted and the video is now vulnerable to piracy
>>> simply by downloading a free software tools such as screen scrapers and
>>> stream recorders which can pirate the video stream to a DRM-free file.
>>>
>>> In the background, Widevine¹s digital copy protection solution monitors
>>> for the acceptable usage of content. If a user attempts to use a screen
>>> scraper or other piracy method, Digital Copy Protection will detect
>>>this
>>> and produce a number of customizable responses from silent monitoring
>>>to
>>> revocation of viewing rights."
>>> http://www.widevine.com/digital_copy_protection.html
>>>
>>> I think that enough time was spent on discussing the Encrypted Media
>>> proposal. Reading the above there can no longer be any real question
>>> what the proposal is really about.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Andreas
>>>
>>> BTW: That Linux is not a platform supported by Widevine is not because
>>> Linux knowledge is missing there. Quite the opposite!
>>>
>>> The list of "Required skills and background knowledge for training and
>>> certification" of the "Certified Widevine Implementation Partner
>>> Program" contains this outrageous detail:
>>>
>>> "Experience with OS (Redhat Linux)
>>> Our only supported OS is Redhat, therefore, all students are expected
>>>to
>>> have an intermediate knowledge of Redhat commands to complete the lab."
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>

Received on Friday, 2 March 2012 22:50:03 UTC