Re: Brightcove retreats from HTML5, pushes refreshed SDKs for native Android, iOS apps

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 22, 2013, at 5:32 PM, "Fred Andrews" <fredandw@live.com<mailto:fredandw@live.com>> wrote:



> From: john@foliot.ca<mailto:john@foliot.ca>
> To: dom@w3.org<mailto:dom@w3.org>
...
> Dominique Hazael-Massieux wrote:
> >
> > > We can either work with them towards an open technical solution, or
> > > they can go off and do it without our help, and let the chips fall
> > > where they may. Me, I prefer to be on the inside where I can be
> > > involved in the dialog, rather than on the outside watching from a
> > > distance.
> >
> > But I think it's making a pretty big leap of faith to assume that having
> > an open API for interacting with a DRM blackbox will open up DRM
> > technical solutions, esp. since these solutions only get accepted by
> > the said premium content creators with some guarantees of
> > non-openness.
...

> The encryption of Premium Content is not going to magically
> go away because the W3C refused to address that business
> need.

You could use the same argument to support DRM on all the
web content.  If you follow this to the limit then the open web
platform becomes nothing but a web router passing opaque
traffic to DRM components.  This is not a vision that many of
us share.

You can't make the same argument, because it is really only premium video content that is using DRM on the web today and all John said is that this is not going to magically go away.


> Wishing and hoping for some kind of utopian world where
> all entertainment content is freely available without restriction
> is naïve at best.

I believe this is a misrepresentation because this it is certainly
not the basis for my objection to the EME.

The W3C's 'DRM and the Open Web' post made a similar
statement 'In building the Open Web, we do not equate
"open" content with material that must be available free
of charge.'

Further, the description of this group seems to have a
similar bias by including 'restricting access' to content
as a key concern.

It is possible that the W3C misunderstands the objections
or is this an explicit tactic to misdirect the discussion and
discredit opposition?

Granted that the statements are rather ambiguous and
could have alternative interpretations.

Perhaps you mean: Wishing and hoping for some kind
of utopian world where open web content is freely usable
once legally received on an open web platform is naïve
at best?

Perhaps the W3C means: We do not equate 'open'
content with material that must be usable free of charge
once it has been legally downloaded?

You seem to imagine a world where the only supported business model on the web for video content is a download-to-own one. The problem is that this is not a very popular model with consumers for video (unlike music). The Internet has been very successful at supporting new business models, so a one-size-fits-all approach there for the 'open web' would be unfortunate, to say the least.

Rental and subscriptions models are examples where the content is not 'freely usable' once legally obtained, any more than you are free to do anything with a rental car that you would be free to do with your own car. Consumers understand and appear very happy with this situation as it provides access to content for a far lower price than 'ownership', which - as I said - most people don't want for video.

Are you really advocating that such business models not be supported by the open web ? That the only model should be one where content is 'freely usable' once received (for example can be stored indefinitely for later use).

...Mark

cheers
Fred