Re: Technical Review of EME (DRM in HTML5)

Mark Watson:
>>> I doubt browsers will create plugin mechanisms for CDMs, though of
>>> course this is up to them. Having more control over the code which
>>> is executing here - for privacy as well as other reasons - is one
>>> of the reasons for that.
>>
>> How does Mozilla implement this stuff since their entire code base is
>> open source?
>
> Personally, I think the most likely
> way forward is to try and get OS/platform vendors to
> expose system APIs for these capabilities so that -
> like many other system capabilities implemented in a
> closed-source proprietary way - they can be accessed by any and
> all applications, Open Source or otherwise.
>
> Remember that whilst there are software-only DRM implementations,
> the widest range of content is available to those implementations
> with hardware support.

Can you please be more specific about these "system APIs". Where are
they specified?

> As I said, I would expect browsers To be quite particular about the
> CDMs they support, including requiring quite detailed information
> about the CDM so that they can properly asses the privacy risks etc.

How can they know all the relevant information when the complete source
code of the CDM is not available?

> IANAL and fair use is a legal issue. I think we have to assume that
> content providers will abide by the law and take whatever measures
> they are required to by law to enable fair use - if any. I appreciate
> that some may argue that those requirements (if they exist and here
> the IANAL really kicks in for me) should be strengthened, but W3C is
> not the place for that discussion.

Fair use is _not only_ a legal issue. Other aspects play a role as well,
including technical ones.

And, no, due to experience I do not assume that all content providers
will abide by the law (hint: root kits).

Cheers,
Andreas

Received on Tuesday, 5 February 2013 12:45:13 UTC