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

On Tuesday, June 18, 2013, Nikos Roussos wrote:

> On Mon, 2013-06-17 at 09:50 -0700, Mark Watson wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 12:57 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb@bollow.ch> wrote:
> >         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 foYou are right that even if W3C rejects the EME
> proposal, the content
> providers and some browsers, who want to have a DRM solution, will go
> ahead and implement it. What the users will lose if this implementation
> is a W3C recommendation is that they'll lose an ally on the fight for
> the Open Web.
>

Do you mean specifically a "world wide web without DRM" ? It's not clear to
me how the W3C ignoring the issue of content protection helps in that
fight. Nor it is clear that there is consensus amongst W3C members that the
W3C is indeed an ally in that fight. Especially given that it's likely the
major implementors of W3C specifications will ship DRM solutions.


>
> It's safe to say that there is a consensus among those who object to
> EME, that we believe it contradicts with Open Web principles and
> therefore W3C's mission. If EME gets approved the most important thing
> we'll lose is W3C.
>

I still have not seen it explained whether this "in principle" position
comes with a corollary that the situation for actual users will be improved
(and how), or whether it is accepted that the situation for users may be
worse - in terms fo security, privacy, interoperability, accessibility - if
W3C does not get involved here, but that is a price worth paying for
avoiding a compromise of principles ?

I'm not trying to make a point here, just trying to understand the
position. Do you believe your position will make things better for users
and if so exactly how ?

...Mark


>
> --
> Nikos Roussos
> http://roussos.cc
>
>
>
>