Re: Netflix HTML5 player in IE 11 on Windows 8.1

On Tuesday, Tue, 2013/07/02, Mark Watson wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 3:54 AM, cobaco <cobaco@freemen.be> wrote:
> > First: users do have a choice, there's always piracy (Big Content may
> > not like it but that's a lost battle for them).
> 
> I meant legal choices.

Not everone is in the US, e.g. here in the Netherlands downloading is legal

(hey look at that, lobbying for a tax on all storage media to compensate for 
piracy backfired)
 
> > Second: DRM is always and inevitably going to be more hassle for the
> > user then a non-DRM version of the same software/service.
> 
> If such an alternative is available, perhaps. We do invest a lot to make
> our service as hassle-free as possible, though, despite our use of DRM.

Seriously !?! 

As a consumer all I see is Big Content making things more annoying and 
killing good services through litigation or absurdly high licensing fees 
(yes digital media is a good with a marginal cost of near-zero, that means 
prices will and should be low, did you guys fail economy 101?)

Worse not only is Big Content killing good services through litigation, 
they're refusing to then step up and offer a similar (level of) service.

One illustration of that 'more annoying theme' is this very good 
infographic: http://boingboing.net/2010/02/18/infographic-buying-d.html

Hollywood has a documented history of abusing drm features to force 
commercials down our troats, and keep us from (legally) playing a DVD on our 
linux/BSD/... systems, keep us from watching a DVD bought on vacation, and, 
and, and  ...

One illustration of that 'killling good services without providing an 
alternative' theme: it's been 5 or 6 years since Big Content got allofmp3 
shutdown (3 different lawsuits failed to do it, so they finally managed to 
lobby a law change). 
I have yet to see a site sanctioned by big content that comes anywhere close 
the level of service that site offered (and drm has been dead for music for a 
while now, so that's obviously not the problem)

You're asking us to believe that 'this time will be different'. Why should we 
believe that?
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me is applicable here. 

Given Big Content's trackrecord, we need some proof/guarantee that abuse 
will not happen YET AGAIN. 

In the absense of such a guarantee, support for DRM is playing the fool and 
supporting an abusive business model. That's not something W3C should be 
doing, it calls into question the judgement of W3C, and by extention the 
validity of every standard they recommend.

> > Thirth: DRM is always and inevitably going to be more hassle for the
> > provider due to the extra overhead of managing the licenses and user
> > complaints (hey I've bougth  a new phone/tablet/computer, now my media
> > don't
> > work anymore)
> 
> True. This is a good reason to believe that just improving the client
> side with EME won't drive a significant increase in the use of DRM by
> providers.

What I'm sure will happen is yet some more iterations of the "we're 
abondoning DRM scheme X so all your bought content will become useless on 
date y, you'll have to rebuy it"-scam

This is not a hypothetical issue:
Microsoft, [1] Yahoo, [2], and Major League Baseball [3] are just 3 big 
companies who've pulled that at least once already. 

The track record of Big Business regarding keeping promises is .... bad (to 
put it mildly). 

DRM requires that ordinary users trust big business to keep up their part of 
the bargain, talk about requiring rose-colored glasses! 

Again I ask why should we believe that "this time will be different"?

In the absence of a believable guarantee why is W3C aiding and abetting 
similar abuses in the future?

> > Given the 2nd and 3th point, DRM content is at an inherent
> > disadvantage. Consequently in any competition between otherwise
> > equivalent DRM and non-DRM
> > content the DRM-content is bound to lose in the long run.
> 
> True, but such a competition between 'otherwise equivalent' services is
> unlikely to happen in practice. At least for video content services
> competition is mainly driven by content, price and device support.
 
Hollywood in particular has a history of fighting new media, loosing the 
fights and subsequently coming to the realisation that not only did the world 
not end, embracing the new thing lead to an increase in profits.

DRM vs No-DRM is no different from past iterations of that pattern (I thought 
the rise of iTunes wised up the industry to that fact, but apperently not). 
Stop dragging out the fight.

> > Given that an increasing amount of (individual/small) content producers
> > are _already_ doing the DRM-free thing. The most likely outcome is
> > that non-DRM will (slowly) reach critical mass, after which any
> > providers sticking to DRM are going to find themselves rapidly
> > irrelevant.
> > 
> > Whishfull thinking? Maybe, but on my part or yours? Time well tell
> 
> In the meantime, we'd like to work on improving the technology.

Abusive technology should not be improved. Sofar DRM-technology has been 
nothing but a long list of abuses.

I get that the serial abusers that make up Big Content demand it be done 
anyway.
I don't get why W3C is getting on board with that. 

This is a litmus test situation: "can W3C still be trusted or have they sold 
out"? Is W3C really going to follow ISO down the drain (see [4]) ?

[1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/04/drm-sucks-redux-
microsoft-to-nuke-msn-music-drm-keys/
[2] http://socialtimes.com/yahoo-music-to-turn-off-drm-server-apparently-
learns-nothing-from-msn-fiasco_b2457
[3] http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/11/major-league-baseballs-drm-
change-strikes-out-with-fans/
[4] 
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/259004/nations_question_iso_merit_following_dropped_ooxml_appeals/
--
Cheers, Cobaco (aka Bart Cornelis)