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

On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 1:50 AM, Nikos Roussos <
comzeradd@mozilla-community.org> wrote:

> On Mon, 2013-05-20 at 11:08 -0700, Mark Watson wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 10:53 AM, piranna@gmail.com
> > <piranna@gmail.com> wrote:
> >         > Un-spin welcomed. Actually, we're talking about replacing
> >         one such system, plugins, with another with better properties.
> >         With EME, websites will have far less control over users
> >         browsers than we do today and the nature of the control will
> >         be mediated via browser vendors and thus more transparent to
> >         users.
> >         >
> >
> >         Ok, if that's the point, EME is welcome to me, we only ask
> >         please move it outside W3C, I think there shouldn't be any
> >         problem in this point, is it?
> >
> >
> > Can you explain why you think there will be a better outcome for users
> > if EME is worked on outside W3C ?
>
> The best outcome for users would be if EME is not worked on at all. But
> given the fact that it actually lies on the interest of copyright
> holders and content providers (not users nor browsers), it certainty
> doesn't have any place inside W3C.
>

I am still not sure what advantage to users comes from having EME worked on
outside W3C, or simply becoming a de facto standard, compared to a W3C
recommendation.

Clearly, the W3C cares about things like interoperability, user security
and privacy and transparency which will get less attention outside. To
suggest that users will be better off in the short-term with a de facto
standard ignores this. Now, I am not sure if anyone is suggesting that.
Perhaps the suggestion is that users will be better of *long-term* after a
period of short-term user pain dealing with incompatible implementations
with poor security and privacy properties ? If so it would be good to be
clear about this.




>
> An "Open Web" organization is not a place where you would expect that
> should make technical recommendations that benefit copyright-holder over
> user rights.
>

This view implies taking a position on legal and public policy issues which
are not settled in the public sphere. You are saying that users have a
right to purchase products on terms that the sellers presently don't offer.
Users could certainly be given that right by courts or governments, but in
the meantime sellers have a right to set the terms of their offer. Noone is
forced to buy a particular product.

Now, the W3C could take a position on this. It could clearly state that it
believes the products we are discussing should be forbidden by law. And it
could argue that until that time the W3C will take no action to facilitate
the creation of such products, making them more inconvenient for users in
order to encourage public opinion towards the same position.

Is that what you are proposing ? That position is not at all obviously
implied by the W3C goals.

...Mark


>
> --
> Nikos Roussos
> http://www.roussos.cc
>
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