[wbs] response to 'Call for Review: Encrypted Media Extensions is W3C Proposed Recommendation'

The following answers have been successfully submitted to 'Call for Review:
Encrypted Media Extensions is W3C Proposed Recommendation' (Advisory
Committee) for Vivliostyle Inc. by Florian Rivoal.

Regarding the "Encrypted Media Extensions" specification, the reviewer 
suggests the document not be published as a Recommendation [Formal
Objection] (your details below).


Additional comments about the specification:
   I do not support publication of EME. Not due to details of the
specification, but due to the nature of the topic itself EME (together with
a CDM) is a closed system. The goal is to prevent the UA from being the
Agent of the User, and makes it an agent of the content provider instead.
Various safety valves can be baked in, for instance provisions to support
certain specific accessibility features, but it remains at the core a
closed system designed to prevent the user from fully controlling their
computer and the software that runs on it. This seems fundamentally at odds
with the core tenets of the Open Web, and makes it impossible for Free
Software to provide the full web experience.

While DRM is not an effective tool against piracy, it is an effective tool
to give more control to the content industry over end users, browser
vendors, and other intermediaries. Of course, if some browsers have the
feature, those that do not will be at a competitive disadvantage as they
fail to provide access to some content.

The W3C is supposed to be a consortium with a mission and a vision, not
merely following industry trends, but also attempting to set them. Of
course the pressure in this case is enormous, and the path of least
resistance is to standardize EME, but the W3C ought to be a leading voice
in the search for fully open alternative approaches.

I regret that the W3C has failed to give a full chance to negotiations
about alternative approaches, including the covenant. Yes, the W3C did
encourage discussion on the topic and attempts to find consensus, and it
did make a number of proposals, including the current plan to document best
practices about security researchers, to try and get an outcome that would
take everybody's interests into account. I believe W3M was honestly trying
to find common ground. However, it's public stance has all along been
supportive of standardization in this area, making it fairly clear to all
that in the absence of consensus, work would be allowed to go forward. This
completely removed any incentive for those who favor EME to try and
compromise. It is not obvious that a compromise would have been found
otherwise, but it was never really given a chance.

All in all, I believe that this is a combination of a lost opportunity and
a strategic mistake, but I also recognize that it is most likely too late
to change course. I have been able to discuss this topic with W3M already,
and do not feel the need to have one more talk on this topic. What needed
to be said already has been said. I do want the record to be clear, and the
voting numbers to reflect the strong disagreements on this topic, and
therefore formally object.


Answers to this questionnaire can be set and changed at
https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/33280/eme-pr-2017/ until 2017-04-13.

 Regards,

 The Automatic WBS Mailer

Received on Tuesday, 28 March 2017 07:42:07 UTC