Re: What change could we make? (was Re: Letter on DRM in HTML)

On 6/25/2013 1:33 PM, L. David Baron wrote:
> On Friday 2013-06-21 02:42 -0400, Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
>> On 2013-06 -20, at 23:15, Wendy Seltzer wrote:
>>> This is, to me a key question the restrictedmedia group can address:
>>> What is the best way for W3C, starting from where we are now, to make
>>> the world better for users -- whatever your perspective on "better for
>>> users" is.
>>>
>>> For those who don't like DRM, recognizing that W3C likely doesn't have
>>> the leverage to kill it, should we try to slow it down or open it up?
>>> Are there ways we can usefully make the restrictions less onerous
>>> without merely driving their proponents elsewhere?
>>>
>>> For those who like the business models DRM enables, are there ways to
>>> make the encrypted-media content more web-accessible (linkable, privacy
>>> protective, accessible) and to shrink the restrictions on open source
>>> development, to broaden the base of support for these models?
>> Let me broaden that to -- how can we make it better for the planet?
>> This includes 'users' and also publishers.   Discussions of DRM often start
>> off with a mindset of a a few locked down dominant publishers
>> ripping off/being ripped off by individual consumers/citizens/criminals.
>>
>> A more enlightened mindset is of everyone being producers and
>> consumers.  If DRM is important to a market, can we open it
>> up so that anyone can participate.
>>
>> Remove the assumption that only one company holds the
>> key to DRM playing on your machine.
>>
>> Allow a garage band to set up the same provider-based system as Sony
>> does?
>>
>> Nikos's statement "... EME [...] contradicts with Open Web principles"
>> is rousing but doesn't say which principles those are nor
>> how they are necessarily contradicted.
>>
>> One principle of the open web is "anyone can publish",
>> Can we design an EME system where that is true, and anyone can
>> publish content using it?
> I think there are other important principles of the open Web that we
> should care about, from the implementation perspective, such as:
>
>   * Anybody should be able to build an interoperable implementation
>     from the relevant specifications.
>
>   * They should be able to do this without paying licensing fees,
>     such as for patents.  (I think this principle underlies much of
>     the W3C's patent policy.)
>
>   * They should be able to create an open-source implementation.
>
> Open Web specifications not only allow these things to be true, but
> generally they *ensure* that they're true.  (We don't always succeed
> at the first, but we do try, by trying to write specifications that
> are thorough enough.)
>
> While EME allows for abitrary CDMs, and there *could* exist a CDM
> for which these principles hold, EME is far from ensuring that they
> are true, and I expect these principles would not hold for the
> existing DRM systems that EME is likely to be used with.  (And I'm
> talking here about an implementation of EME that is usable for
> viewing the Web content that uses the EME specification, not simply
> a conformant implementation without useful CDMs.)

To strengthen this principle, should W3C or someone try to stimulate the 
construction of an open source, patent-free CDM?  Would any of the 
browser companies be willing to include that in their browser to try to 
encourage content owners to utilize it?

>
> I think these principles are important and the W3C shouldn't
> sacrifice them lightly.  I also think it's preferable to make an
> exception to them for a specific reason than to abandon them
> entirely.
>
> -David
>

Received on Tuesday, 25 June 2013 18:52:36 UTC