Re: Alternatives to DRM?

On 4/23/2013 5:00 AM, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 5:18 AM, Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org> wrote:
>> On 4/22/2013 8:00 AM, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>>> DReaM is covered in footnote 198 of
>>> http://wendy.seltzer.is/writing/seltzer-anticircumvention.pdf (PDF
>>> page 46; journal page 956):
>>> "This is the flaw in the purportedly “open source” model behind Sun’s
>>> DReAM platform. Even if anyone can build an implementation of the
>>> specification, it would win “authorization” to play protected content
>>> only after proving its un-modifiability by others as a prerequisite to
>>> obtaining permission.
>> I don't see a basis for the assertion that it would win "authorization" to
>> play protected content only after proving its un-modifiability. That might
>> be true today, but where content owners are willing to compromise has
>> changed over the years and could change again.
> I wrote in my previous email:
> "DRM is premised on the user being untrusted. If a user-built
> implementation of the client side of a DRM scheme was allowed to
> receive and render content, it would amount to trusting the user,
> which would contradict the premise of DRM."
>
> So compromise here would mean the kind of compromise where content
> owners give up on DRM. Compromising to give up DRM would be very
> welcome in my view, but I think logic doesn't support the notion that
> there's a middle-ground compromise available that'd allow
> user-modifiable client-side DRM implementations that content owners
> would target without this amounting to giving up on DRM.

First, I would make clear that I don't believe that content owners are 
even close to giving up on DRM.  We are not engaged in a discussion 
about what will happen immediately, we are discussing what could be 
possible in the future.

So why could this change in the future?

DRM opponents have told me that DRM doesn't work.  They assert that 
every DRM system built has been broken and presumably every such system 
will be broken.

Based on that, why do content owners continue to advocate DRM?  I can 
only guess.  But I imagine that the combination of social contract and 
difficulty in avoiding the installed DRM system is what they are relying on.

DReaM is not an example of (as you call it), "giving up on DRM". Quite 
the contrary, it is an example of relying on a breakable DRM scheme 
which relies more on social contract and difficulty of avoidance, rather 
than on unbreakability.

So while DReaM would be easier to break than DRM, it shares some of the 
advantages (to content owners) as real DRM.  Positions evolve in time.  
So it is possible that once content owners learn that DRM is never 
unbreakable and open-source DRM has more community acceptability that 
their position could evolve.

>   I sure hope
> that the management of the W3C does not base its opinions on this
> topic on wishful thinking.

The CG forum is not where W3C management is expressing its opinions.  On 
April 12, Dom suggested that we use the CG to explore whether a DRM API 
could open the space for an open-source DRM solution (as Mark has 
suggested).  All I'm doing here is exploring that space.

  * I pointed out (on April 12th) in response to Dom that DReaM exists.
  * You pointed out (on April 22nd) that there are flaws in this.
  * I pointed out that there are answers to these flaws.


>
> Of course, it could be that the wishes of content providers don't
> follow logic, but still I think we shouldn't expect logically
> contradictory outcomes to emerge and save the day. If someone shows a
> successful deployment of a logical contradiction, that would be
> interesting. (In this case, it would be interesting if someone showed
> the Big Six of Hollywood agreeing to target movies to a
> user-modifiable CDM while still refusing to target movies to the Open
> Web platform without a CDM.)
>
>>>    Developers writing such code would be unable to
>>> comply with the downstream “freedom to modify” condition of the Free
>>> Software Foundation GPL. Cf. Gerard Fernando, Tom Jacobs & Vishy
>>> Swaminathan, PROJECT DREAM, AN ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW (2005),
>>> http://www.openmediacommons.org/collateral/DReaM-Overview.pdf."
>> I'm not a legal expert, but I concede that my superficial understanding is
>> that DReaM is incompatible with GPL3; although not with other open source
>> licenses.
> If a DRM scheme is incompatible with GPLv3, it's a pretty strong hint
> that it's incompatible with some important things typically associated
> with Open Source other than mere source disclosure, such as
> royalty-freeness and the disclosed source actually being useful to a
> downstream recipient.

I'm not sure I understand this argument.  Are you saying that DReaM is 
incompatible with other open source licenses as well?

>
> --
> Henri Sivonen
> hsivonen@iki.fi
> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
>