Re: walling of the web

On Friday, Fri, 2013/06/28, Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org> wrote: 
> The public debate is taking place at the W3C Restricted Media Community 
> Group [1].  I encourage you to join the CG, read the postings, and 
> participate in the debate.
>
> Additional comments in-line.

right, moving discussion over to that forum

> cobaco wrote:
> > I'm flabbergasted to read [1] that you said:
> > 'Web technologies need to support DRM-protected media to reduce the
> > risk of parts of the web being walled off'

> For clarity, W3C has not at this stage supported DRM on the Web.

Blatantly stating that DRM is necessary definately falls under the heading of 
supporting DRM.

With the above quote you, the CEO of W3C, have personally and explictly 
stated support for DRM.

You're not disputing the quote so I'm assuming it's accurate.

Given the above, stating that: 
'w3c has not at this stage supported DRM on the web' 

is disingenuous at best, and frankly comes across as outright weaseling.

Since you personally have explictly stated support for DRM 
You need to take responsibility for that statement and either publicly 
retract it or publicly elucidate the reason for that support.

(if it was a personal opinion instead of a statement as CEO of W3C that did 
not come across in the article and would still require a public statement of 
the W3C correcting that impression)

> W3C recognizes that content needs to be protected and has asked the HTML
> working group to develop solutions.  

'protection by technological means' is the definition of a wall in the used 
analogy. 
Consequently your stated reasoning for wanting EME makes no sense 
whatsoever.

Secondly:

'Content needs to be protected' is an unproven assumption, not a known fact.  

The (open) web has, if anything, disproved that notion: there has never been 
a period in history where more content was more widely available, and that 
margin is getting wider every day.

Looking at historical evidence the amount of available content seems:
- directly related to the easy of (re)production, distribution and access
  (jumping hugely with the printing press, again with telecomunication ,and
   again with computing and the web)
- inversely related to the amount of barriers in the way of reproduction, 
distribution and access.

Given that, why on earth would W3C through EME want to publicly support new 
technological means for restricting reproduction, distribution and access?

A plain filled with walled compounds is no longer an open space.
I'd have thought that was self-evident. But apperently not.

EME explictly facilitates the presence of walled compounds on the open web.
By doing so, it implicitly and unavoidably approves and supports those 
walled compounds.

How is that anything other then a semantic game redefining the idea of what 
the open web is? 

> There is a draft specification (EME) that provides open interfaces to DRM
> systems that the working group is looking at.
 
> To directly answer your question, I would like to have all content
> accessible via web browsers in a consistent and interoperable way. 

All content ... or all open content? 

I you believe in an Open Web it's the open content that matters, closed and 
gated content is irrelevant to that particular interaction space.
Closed and gated content is part of the dark web, not the open web.

as for interoperable, AFAIK it's not only possible but expected that CDM 
controlled content will not automatically be accessible to every user agent 
supporting the EME spec, but only to approved user agents. That's pretty 
much the antithesis of interoperable IMO

> I would not like important content to find itself in a parallel web that
> is walled off from the real web.  

Declaring the walled web parts to be part of the 'real', i.e. open, web is 
semantic fiddling it does not change the actual situation at all. 

(in sofar as it does it worsens the situation as this semantic fiddling now 
allows the walled compounds to stamp 'open and standards based' on their 
doors)

> EME might be an accommodation that accomplishes that.

EME doesn't remove any walls, it simply standarizes how to ask for entry 
through the gate.

A binary blob remains, it's now called an 'content decryption module' 
instead of a 'Plugin' (flash and silverlight being the most used ones). 
But that doesn't change:
- the security implications of being forced to use a binary black box 
- the practical and philosophical considerations of having to convince the 
black box manufacturer to support your device/os/browser

> > [1] http://www.zdnet.com/reject-drm-and-you-risk-walling-off-parts-of-
the-web-says-w3c-chief-7000017388/
--
Cheers, Cobaco (aka Bart Cornelis)