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

Le lun. 20/05/13, 08:49, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com>:
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On May 20, 2013, at 8:22 AM, Hugo Roy <hugo@fsfe.org> wrote:
> 
> > Le lun. 20/05/13, 08:00, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com>:
> >> Second, I addressed the idea that this is an affront to ordinary users
> >> earlier in the thread. Modest security measures are not generally
> >> considered an affront even when they are inconvenient to ordinary
> >> users. Users understand that there are a minority of people who want
> >> to get stuff without paying. Now, you can reasonably argue that the
> >> measures are disproportionate to the threat. There are plenty of
> >> examples where people go too far with security measures, causing too
> >> much inconvenience to those who are not in fact a threat. But it makes
> >> no sense in such cases to argue that, therefore, there should be no
> >> security measures.
> >
> > This is not about a minority of users who want to get stuff
> > without paying. This is not about security either. This is about
> > who controls what, this is about freedom. Not about the freedom to
> > do whatever you like and get away with it for free; but the
> > freedom of a person to act responsibly and to control their own
> > computing.
> 
> And no one is taking that away. Should I not also have the freedom to
> give up a little bit of control of what my computer does with some
> specific data at a specific time and in a specifically constrained way
> if I am offered something in return ? Or would you have it that people
> are forbidden from offering or forbidden from accepting such a deal ?
> What about if the service performs financial transactions, but only if
> I agree to have some trusted module on my computer ? Is that about
> freedom too ?

That is not what this discussion is about. You are free to give up
your control on your computer. But a W3C specification should not
make users give up on this (the specification is designed to work
for proprietary CDMs, so the argument that the CDM are "outside"
of the spec is not relevant).

> Yes, I agree there are some more subtle issues at play and I described
> one balance of different public interests in another mail, but please,
> let's get away from this idea that anyone is losing some fundamental
> freedom of action here. No one who does not wish to has to install
> DRM.

Of course, but having a recommendation and a W3C specification is
making this a whole other debate. This is about the “open web” and
I don't see how this is compatible with making users install
proprietary software or requiring them to use specific
platforms/hardware.

> >
> > The fact is, with EME, users are not free any more: the CDM
> > controls what they can do; and the CDM can claim to have more
> > power than copyright-holders are legally entitled to.
> 
> Are you claiming that the terms of service of some or all services
> that require DRM are illegal ? I would think that could be taken up in
> the courts.

Whether specific DRM and terms of service are illegal or not is
an interesting question. The answers vary from jurisdictions. (I
actually work on terms of service of online services, and yes I
often find clauses which are not enforceable in some European
jurisdictions, but challenging them in court is a very different
matter).

> As I said in my previous mail, clearly there is a public interest in
> ensuring the limitations of copyright actually apply in practice, but
> this is a complex legal and public policy issue, which is the subject
> of ongoing public debate and it can't be reduced to simple statements
> about freedom. The EME proposal is not about that, it is just about
> making DRM *as it is used on the web today* simpler and more
> transparent.

Yes, this is a legal and public policy issue. So this is not just
about making DRM simpler and more transparent; because DRM also
bear on more fundamental issues which are not merely technical.
You cannot disconnect them.

-- 
Hugo Roy | Free Software Foundation Europe, www.fsfe.org
FSFE Legal Team, Deputy Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/legal
FSFE French Team, Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/fr/
 
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Received on Monday, 20 May 2013 18:36:07 UTC