Re: Being functional : describing what we're looking at (Was: Alternatives to DRM?)

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 7:44 AM, Innovimax W3C <innovimax+w3c@gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> It seems we're probably taking the problem from the wrong end
>
> Can we see and describe what be people want to achieve and see how we
> can solve it.
>
> It seems to me like talking about DRM is the wrong side of the equation
>
> If we could achieve to get the list of what people want to do (or want
> to limit) we probably be able to have a bigger picture that may or may
> not give an answer
>

Of course you are right, but unfortunately - at least at the level I think
you mean - that's a big "if".

What's clearly understood is that if the existing DRM solutions can be
integrated with HTML5 then this can meet the requirements of content
providers. But I think you are asking for the functional requirements of
the content providers. (And you don't want the answer "whatever the
existing DRM solutions provide").

It's a worthy aim to distill this down. Perhaps there are solutions which
are simpler than what we have today and which mitigate some of the other
concerns. But I'd guess that is a multi-year project during which different
solutions are developed and proven (or not) to work in practice through
actual deployment.

There's the obvious high-level requirement that it must be difficult to
obtain a playable copy of the media, for example in the form of a regular
unprotected mp4 file. For use-cases where the license is time-limited (for
example rental or subscription) it must be difficult to play the content
after the expiry of the license or the end of the playback session. If the
license contains other requirements (such as output protection) it must be
difficult to override these. But the devil is in the details of "how
difficult", exactly what measures are sufficient and other issues
like revocation. The people who have solved those problems - including
actually fathoming out what is/is not acceptable to content providers - are
exactly the people who offer commercial DRM solutions today.

 ...Mark


> My two cents
>
> Mohamed
>
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