Re: I strongly urge all supporters to reconsider the EME proposal. It is not in your best interests!

[Moving to public-restrictedmedia]

Zak, Piranna,

I think you and others have mis-understood the point of the EME proposal.
We are not here deciding whether DRM will be used on the web. DRM is used
on the web and will continue to be used on the web for as long as it is a
requirement of the licenses for content that web users want to watch. If
you are opposed to DRM, it's that last part you need to change: either the
licenses or what people want to watch.

This is just the way things are right now. If there is popular content on
the web that is supported in one browser, the other browsers will want to
support it too and they will do wo with or without the W3C. What the W3C
does or doesn't do has little influence on content license terms or on what
is or isn't popular.

What we are trying to do with EME is to *reduce* the amount of non-standard
proprietary technology needed to do this. I would reduce it to zero if I
could, I just don't know how to do that.

See also
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/05/drm-in-html5-is-a-victory-for-the-open-web-not-a-defeat/

A couple more comments below.

On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 7:43 AM, piranna@gmail.com <piranna@gmail.com>wrote:

> +1, you've exposed very clearly your arguments and I totally agree with
> them.
> El 15/05/2013 16:37, "Zak Fenton" <zak.fenton@gmail.com> escribió:
>
> DRM simply does not belong on the web, it is contrary to freedom of speech
>> and it is of zero benefit to the consumers who fuel the web economy. It
>> will only make browsers and servers more complicated and more error prone,
>> restrict the ability of people to use the web, and waste CPU cycles
>> encrypting what is probably already widely available to pirates.. As any
>> technologically competent person is aware, unless you can stream the media
>> direct to the viewer's brain, there will ALWAYS be ways to circumvent these
>> methods: A paying subscriber to a channel or buyer of a movie can simply
>> record their screen and audio output (without any quality loss if they're
>> smart), freely sharing the result with others.
>>
>
Avoiding a loss of quality - of one form or another - is actually much
harder than you suggest. There are barriers - understanding and buying an
HDPC ripper, re-encoding, a/v sync, redistribution, adaptive streaming etc.
that make things far less convenient - and much more work- than sharing a
URL to an unencrypted file (or the URL + key for an encrypted file). When
content is available legally at a reasonable price these barriers are
significant.


> You cannot beat piracy with technology. Suffice to say pirates have access
>> to better technology, because they get it free! The only thing that will
>> slow the continual increase in piracy is better content, content which is
>> actually worth paying for, and better content developers, content
>> developers who people actually want to pay.
>>
>
Yes, and we are finding in country after country that people are quite
willing to pay a modest price for access to range of content that is
available only with 'DRM-required' licences.


> This proposal will not help anybody, it will only make web standards more
>> complicated, harder to correctly implement, and less reliable as a result.
>> I'm really beginning to lose my faith in standards bodies like this to
>> develop standards which are actually of benefit to humanity, rather than
>> standards which have been set by investors desperately trying to squeeze
>> profit from a 20th century business model. This simply does not make any
>> sense.
>>
>
Since when is pay-per-use or subscription-based instant on-demand access to
content streamed over the Internet a "20th century business model" ? I
spent just under half of my adult life (so far) in the 20th century and I
didn't notice any paid-for internet video streaming. Maybe I was too busy
developing standards that don't benefit humanity (things like voice-over-ip
or mobile internet access) ?

The lone business model advocated by many opponents of DRM is a
download-to-own one, in which the only thing which can be sold is full
ownership rights in a copy of the content. This business model dates back
to the invention the printing press, when copies of creative works could
first be economically produced. Not that it's a bad model, it just isn't
new.


> Older generations developed the technology, but it was my generation that
>> made the internet and the web a popular success. Without the freedoms we
>> had, future generations will simply move towards underground protocols and
>> networks that protect their freedom, creating a new safe haven for real
>> criminals. If this proposal is accepted and widely implemented, it will
>> perhaps mark the beginning of the end for the relevance of web standards,
>> but certainly not for freedom online.
>>
>
DRM-protection of content on the Internet is and will continue to be widely
implemented for as long as the licenses require it and that content is
popular. You're in the wrong place if you want to change either of those
two things. I know plenty of people who do wish to change the first one and
are also in favor of EME. EME is about how the web fits into that reality.
 It's really a rather narrow choice between arbitrary, bloated plugins and
browser-controlled CDMs with consistent functionality and APIs (and, yes,
before someone comments, CDMs share some properties with plugins, but the
we think the differences are sufficient for this effort to be worthwhile).

...Mark



>
>> Again, I strongly urge all involved parties to reconsider their support
>> for this proposal.
>> Yours sincerely,
>> Zak Fenton.
>>
>