- From: David Singer <singer@apple.com>
- Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 15:49:52 -0700
- To: "public-restrictedmedia@w3.org" <public-restrictedmedia@w3.org>
On Jul 3, 2013, at 15:33 , Duncan Bayne <dhgbayne@fastmail.fm> wrote: >> So, in a sense, don't tell us that the existing answer is bad. We know >> that. It reminds me of Tom Lehrer: >> >> We are the Folk Song Army. >> Everyone of us cares. >> We all hate poverty, war, and injustice, >> Unlike the rest of you squares. >> >> >> >> Tell us a better answer. > > That's a strawman, and you know it. Don't tell me what I know; that's rude. Disagree if you like, but I actually happen to believe what I said. > Although some people opposed to the EME proposal are opposed to DRM on > principle, the argument I am making is that: > > DRM is inimical to the goals of the W3C, therefore, it should entirely > reject the EME proposal. I also disagree with this. > If you want to foist DRM upon your customers, fine, that's your call and > they can vote with their wallets if they like. Just don't compromise > the W3C mission by having them shill it for you. OK, let's look at this. Yes, we can say "go elsewhere, we don't want your content on our web". I don't see that we can achieve this -- people will use plug-ins, and so on -- and I don't see how it helps, either. I generally think it a poor strategy to tell people who want to use your technique "go elsewhere". When plug-ins are used, they not only take over the handling of the media, but often (think Flash) of the control, markup, user-interface, and so on. That's bad. Now the media is not only protected, but the controls aren't in the browser and so don't respond (for example) to the same kind of accessibility provisions, user style-sheets, and so on. Often the media no longer has a visible URL of its own, so linkability is also damaged, and so on. Some media suppliers only make their experience and content available through their own applications. It's not possible under those circumstances to say (for example) "the movie is available (at a cost) from ExampleFlix Inc. at http://exampleflix.com/attack_of_flying_weasels", and that's bad. So, at the moment, I think EME reduces the 'footprint' of the problem quite markedly, and keeps the web as a place with all kinds of content, and we get better linkability, user-control, accessibility, and so on. Yes, I see the problems. I just don't see a better balance at the moment. But I am open to hearing of one. David Singer Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.
Received on Wednesday, 3 July 2013 22:50:39 UTC