Re: What is the "open web" ?

Le jeu. 06/06/13, 10:12, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com>:
> >>>>>> Since the EME spec doesn't specify the CDMs, someone could certainly
> >>>>>> create an open CDM (for whatever definition of open they prefer) and
> >>>>>> EME would work with that.
> […]
> Your missing my point. You can implement EME under the well
> established definition you refer to. And you can implement a CDM under
> that definition too. There can be no doubt about those things.

You wrote “someone could certainly create an open CDM” and you
basically say there can be no doubt about such a thing as Free
Software DRM.

Allow me to doubt that.

> What there is doubt about is what content would be distributable using
> such solutions, but this is not a technical or legal issue, only a
> business decision.

It is too easy to dismiss these doubts just because they are not
strictly legal or technical. It does not have to be about business
models, it just has to be reasonable common sense.

If EME is designed for CDM and that the existence of
non-proprietary CDM is entirely hypothetical, not real, because no
one has a need for them; then it means EME is a specification that
only addresses needs of proprietary software and that will
effectively require users install proprietary software (or use
proprietary platforms providing the effective part of the CDM).


> > We even have legal tools (licenses) to clearly draw the line
> > between what's open source/free software, and what is not.
> >
> >> You can certainly implement EME and
> >> a CDM under whatever open source terms you choose.
> >
> > Can you really? You need to define what a CDM is then. Because if
> > a CDM can be free software, that means the recipient of the CDM
> > can modify the CDM and thus bypass the limitations set forth by
> > the CDM
> 
> Yes, that would be true of a free software CDM that performed
> decryption and decoding itself. A CDM that made use of platform APIs
> for decryption/decoding might be more difficult to bypass.
> 
> Both could be useful.

Platform APIs which would not be free software themselves...

> >
> > If the recipient of the CDM cannot get the source code and modify
> > it, that means your CDM *is not* by any definition, Free Software
> > or open source, regardless of which licenses we are talking about.
> 
> Yes, this is clear.

> […]
> >>
> >> The point is that whether a useful CDM can be built in open source is
> >> clearly not a technical issue. It depends on the ingenuity of people
> >> creating CDMs and the requirements of content producers.
> >
> > You need to demonstrate how CDM can be “built in open source”
> > because the very usefulness of DRM lies in its secrecy,
> > obfuscation and restriction of users', all of which are 100% at
> > odds with Free Software.
> 
> As has often been pointed pointed out, DRM does not make it impossible
> for people to make copies of the content. Someone can always point a
> camera at a TV screen, buy an HDPC ripper etc.

Yes, but this is irrelevant to whether DRM can be Free Software.

> The question is how difficult it is to obtain a copy, what form is
> that copy in, what is the quality of the copy, are there A/V sync
> problems etc.

I do not think this is the question at all. What you're asking
here is how effective DRM is at preventing copies. This is
unrelated to the question how DRM can be Free Software (which is
your argument from the beginning, which you need to demonstrate).

> You'll no doubt note my use of equivocal language: maybe, might etc.
> I'm sorry for this, but I don't have a crystal ball. I can't predict
> how content protection requirements will evolve. As a technologist I
> believe we should provide technical support for a variety of future
> paths, lest we artificially restrict evolution which might otherwise
> happen.

Netflix is free to provide technical support for paths leading to
restrictions of their own customers. 

I do not believe that the W3C should provide support for paths
imposing proprietary software to Web users.
 
> Finally, as noted above, on some platforms it may become possible to
> implement a FOSS CDM that makes use of platform APIs. Of course this
> will not be very interesting to you since such a thing is merely a
> shim between EME API and very similar looking OS API and what lies
> below the OS API may not be Free.

Exactly. Which means, as I pointed out many times, EME will
effectively requires users to install unfree software.

-- 
Hugo Roy | Free Software Foundation Europe, www.fsfe.org
FSFE Legal Team, Deputy Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/legal
FSFE French Team, Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/fr/
 
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Received on Thursday, 6 June 2013 10:47:20 UTC