Re: Is EME usable regardless of the software/hardware I use ?

On 2013/06/10 20:04, Mark Watson wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Emmanuel Revah <stsil@manurevah.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> On 2013/06/10 17:25, Mark Watson wrote:
>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> Sent from my [your ad here]
>> 
>> On Jun 10, 2013, at 6:20 AM, Emmanuel Revah <stsil@manurevah.com>
>> wrote:
>> On 2013/06/10 04:47, Jeff Jaffe wrote:
>> On 6/9/2013 2:20 PM, Joshua Gay wrote:


>> I do believe that it is a fact, not an opinion, that DRM
>> (especially with EME/CDMs) functions by asking a customer to trust
>> the content provider and/or their 3rd party(ies) (CDMs) with
>> privileged access to their computer. I don't see which part of this
>> would be false, let me know.
> 
> Yes.


At least we agree on some basic facts. I like.



>> This situation only exists because the content provider cannot
>> trust 100% of their customers. To address that the content provider
>> asks the customer to trust them. In other words, because I can't
>> trust you a bit I will need you to trust me a lot.
> 
7> Because I can't trust a certain minority of users at all, and because
> I can't identify that minority, then yes, I will need all users to
> trust me or, more precisely, today, the plugin provider I choose or,
> with EME, their User Agent provider. The shift from "plugin provider
> of my choice" to "User Agent of the users choice" is a big shift
> enabled by EME.


In short, the same thing I said. We are still on the same page.



>> Why should there even be an authoritarian relationship with the
>> customer ?
> 
> I wouldn't call it 'authoritarian', but you answered your own question
> above.


You say tomato I say tomato (sounds better when said out loud), 
regardless the factual part is agreed on.



>> To bring things back to context: Why should the W3C take the side
>> of the publishers by endorsing something that would place the client
>> as an adversary and try to solve that by enabling a mechanism of
>> user control.
> 
> Because the W3C is in a position to mitigate some of the concerns
> people have,


Which concerns ?



> by standardizing a model that places browsers (which the
> users trust) in control,


Users trust various browsers for various reasons. Some will go to the 
extent of trusting Microsoft completely, others will want to compile 
their own copy (and even remove some bits), in the middle there are 
those that will trust their OS distribution based on it's values 
(open/Free/non-free) and so on.

EME is a spec that breaks this.

This is not a Free vs non-free argument either, some users may trust 
non-free software, like Opera, how does that make them trust some or all 
CDMs ? This just means that users need to trust even more various 
entities. I'm puzzled on how, because I trust my browser, it would imply 
that I could trust my browser + CDMs.



> heads off some of the interoperability
> concerns that would otherwise arrive


I am going to guess that a binary might need to be compiled specifically 
for a platform, if that happens to be true for some reason, then I guess 
EME doesn't solve the "Flash problem". It might even be the opposite, 
because Flash is "one plugin", whereas CDM is CDMs. And with that, some 
CDMs may or may not support certain platforms, it's a scenario that 
nothing can prevent.

In other words, EME does not in any way imply that magically every 
modern OS/browser can plug-in to the CDM matrix. Some CDMs will support 
GNU/Linux in general, others only x86, all will support Windows on every 
possible architecture. I will guess that the more rare your setup the 
less chances CDMs will support it.

Tell me I am wrong.

Tell me that regardless of my computer's CPU, whichever OS I employ, no 
matter what browser I surf with as long as it supports EME, if I accept 
to install the CDM that whatever website is asking me to install, it 
will work. Because that's the case with the W3C spec up to here (as far 
as I know, tell me if wrong etc).



> and brings the services concerned
> out of proprietary plugin environments and into the HTML5 environment,


I guess.


> with all the prospects for innovation that this entails.


Aaaah.. Innovations. Good point.



>>> Also, fears are certainly not allayed when those who claim to be
>>> defending to fair use defend such actions as recording rented or
>>> subscription content to play back after the rental or
>>> subscription
>>> expires (IANAL but I'd appreciate being pointed to legal
>>> references
>>> that support this being fair use) or (in another thread) brag
>>> about
>>> their own use of pirated content. Indeed the defense of fair use
>>> is
>>> undermined by such comments.
>> 
>> Please don't use things you've read in other threads from other
>> people as an argument against my views on EME.
>> This is low.
> 
> I was replying to Joshua's mail. I pointed out that which comments
> came from another thread. The point stands that the people making
> those comments - not you - undermine those defending fair use. I don't
> think anyone could mis-interpret my comment above as a slight against
> you - it was certainly not intended as such.


If that was an apology I'll take it.


More seriously, making those comments should not undermine anyone 
defending fair use. Those who will decide on what happens next with EME 
should hopefully be wise enough to not be over impressed by a comment 
that would brag about using content copied without permission from the 
file copy authorities.

It's not because someone use's my religion/culture/favourite_food to do 
bad things that it should undermine my 
(religion/culture/favourite_food)'s legitimacy.



-- 
Emmanuel Revah
http://manurevah.com

Received on Monday, 10 June 2013 21:03:16 UTC