DRM in HTML5 A Betrayal of Public Trust

The nice thing about Web Apps and HTML 5 Web Apps has always been they're openness compared to the native apps available for mobile devices available thru the Apple App Store and other proprietary digital storefronts like Google Play (i.e. Android Marketplace) and the Windows Store. I remember when Apple rejected Adobe Flash Player for its iOS devices and other proprietary web plugins it urged the development of HTML 5 web apps. Apple criticized Flash for being proprietary and insecure. It's not like Apple technologies aren't proprietary a number of them are although they have also contributed somewhat to the open source community. A reason they never cited in their objections to Flash that was also likely is their disappointment that Flash caused a decline in the QuickTime streaming market as more web sites added support for the Flash codec in browser streaming of QuickTime videos declined on the web. It still exists and iOs devices despite not having QuickTime Layer on them use the technology for in browser web streaming.

That being said abandoning proprietary plugins for the open web was the point behind developing HTML5. All stakeholders who design web apps can code/write their apps once and they'll work across all mobile platforms iOS, Android, Windows Mobile (Windows Phone, Windows RT whatever Microsoft now calls it) whereas for native apps they have to code separate apps for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows devices and users can benefit from the open web.

Unfortunately, the MPAA's push for DRM in HTML5 is being entertained without asking users what they think. There are 377 organizations in the W3C but over a billion Internet users. No one is asking us what we want? This is a betrayal of trust. In politics those with power get heard and get to influence policy and everyone else gets screwed. All the stakeholders from Google to Microsoft and Netflix pushing this I say shame on you for not listening to your customers/users. Say NO to Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) in HTML5. 

Received on Wednesday, 12 June 2013 07:34:36 UTC