Re: Letter on DRM in HTML from the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus

Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org> wrote:

> > The Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus supports the Electronic
> > Frontier Foundation concerns regarding DRM in HTML5
> 
> There is nothing in the content protection discussion which impacts
> to HTML5.  The HTML Working Group works on several specifications and
> the one related to content protection - Encrypted Media Extensions
> (EME) is a separate spec.  HTML5 is not affected by EME.

Ok, so maybe I should clarify that in our letter, the term “HTML5” is
meant in the somewhat broader sense that includes all the outputs of
the current activities of W3C's HTML Working Group, and how they are
likely to be implemented in practice.

I would suggest that this is the meaning that matters to civil society
persons (such as those who are organized in the Internet Governance
Caucus) whose interest is not in whether there are several
specifications or whether everything is contained in a single one,
but who are concerned about the social impacts of how the Web is going
to evolve.

(“HTML5” might have a strictly defined technical meaning in which the
term is used within W3C, but given the huge importance of W3C's work
for the future of the world, these matters also get discussed outside
of W3C, and no-one is really in control of how the meaning of terms
evolves during such discussions. The meaning of words will always
evolve to match distinctions that are meaningful and relevant to the
participants in any given discourse.)

> To clarify, the HTML WG Draft Charter neither mentions DRM or EME.
> All that it states is that content protection is in scope for the
> HTML Working Group.
> 
> It is true that EME is the spec that the Working Group is currently 
> working on and we have accordingly published a Draft of that spec. 
> However, this spec has not yet received W3C endorsement or the
> approval of the W3C Director.

ACK.

Indeed the key point of contention is whether “content
protection” (where “protecting” content is meant in the sense of
trying to prevent it from being used in ways to do not correspond to
the desires of the copyright holders) should be considered in-scope or
out-of-scope for W3C.

The specifics of EME, and of how EME will likely be used with DRM
systems (and what are the likely social consequences of that), are
relevant in deciding whether one considers it acceptable for W3C to
work on “content protection”, or not. After all, how can one judge the
merits or dismerits of a particular decision without thinking about its
likely consequences?

Best regards
Norbert Bollow
(in the role of co-coordinator of the IGC, http://igcaucus.org )

Received on Monday, 17 June 2013 07:57:45 UTC