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

On 2012-03-05 18:55, Mark Watson wrote:
> If you propose to restrict the services which can be offered on the
> web in any way, you restrict innovation. Just as evolution in
> constrained environments produces dodos.

Let's just be very clear about where the true barriers to innovation in 
video lie, and it certainly doesn't lie with those opposed to 
restrictive DRM technologies.

There is absolutely no significant technological reason why video 
service providers can't start to offer streaming video to all HTML 
<video> implementations now and in the future.

The real barrier to innovation is the content providers who are 
unwilling to adapt to the changing environment, and who are conveniently 
absent from this entire debate; instead leaving it up to middle-men like 
yourself (Netflix, Cox, etc.) to proxy their demands for a 
not-clearly-defined protection system with seemingly strict yet 
unspecified CDM requirements.

The real barriers to innovation occur when content providers try to use 
legal tools to stop countless companies from offering useful and 
innovative products and services to consumers, all because it chips away 
some of their control over the market (which, by the way, is the real 
reason they demand DRM).

It was the MPAA who stopped both Kaleidescape and RealDVD from offering 
a personal copying/backup solution for DVDs, despite maintaining the CSS 
encryption scheme, for ironically circumventing said DRM scheme in 
violation of the DMCA; (This, despite the fact that making a personal 
backup copy of unencrypted media is otherwise perfectly legal in the US).

It was the MPAA who stopped Time Warner Cable offering a network DVR 
service, tried (but failed) to stop Cablevision offering a slightly 
different network DVR service; and then sued Zediva for offering remote 
DVD rental/playing service.

It was Warner Bros. who relentlessly attacked RedBox, trying to prevent 
them from renting DVDs too cheaply, and ultimatley forcing them, along 
with Netflix and Blockbuster, to accept wholly unnecessary, and 
ultimately harmful to themselves, release windows.

And the list goes on...  Any time someone does something remotely 
innovative without first seeking permission from the gatekeepers, you 
can be sure the MPAA (or RIAA in the case of music) and/or their member 
companies or international affiliates, are going to have something 
negative to say about it.  (Oh, and by the way, not a single one of 
those innovative products and services I listed could be considered to 
be promoting "piracy" - their usual bogus reason for insisting on DRM.)

So when discussing innovation, and restrictions thereof, please be sure 
to let the blame rest with the appropriate party.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

Received on Tuesday, 6 March 2012 14:39:01 UTC