RE: Danger of DRM technologies stack

Duncan Bayne wrote:
> 
> > Everything else is fairy dust: wishing and hoping for a better world
> > where everyone sings Kumbia and has free everything aint gonna
> happen. It
> > simply won't.
> 
> That is a strawman argument.  We are not arguing for any of that; we
> are
> saying that the W3C should reject EME, just as it rejected
> patent-encumbered standards a decade ago.  Nothing magical there.
> 

...and 'round and 'round we go.

What practical outcome will be achieved there Duncan? Seriously.  

Imagine a world where instead of the W3C, those very same vendors took the
very same technology to a different standards organization (IETF? ECMA?
ISO?) and the very same browser vendors implemented the very same EME API
into their software. Or worse, simply didn't publish the standard at all and
kept it to themselves as some form of proprietary business 'secret sauce'
(you know, like Google's search and indexing algorithms)?

Now what?  You've won the battle and lost the war? 

In yet a different scenario, those mighty and evil Hollywood Content Owners
say "To hell with it, we'll build our own browsers with Content Protection
built in, so that when users subscribe to our streaming service (and hey,
let's pick on Hulu for a change, OK?), not only will they be able to see our
Premium Content movies, but they can use that same browser to go to Yahoo or
CNN or BBC or naughtypictures.com, or search with Google and Bing". The
Hulu-browse, powered by Blink. What's your response there?

If you can explain, in succinct terms, how work on EME being driven away
from the W3C will benefit anyone, please do explain. Yours is a battle that
is simply not worth fighting here, because the W3C cannot mandate a browser
manufacturer or a content owner to do a single darned thing. With or without
W3C "sanctioning", this technology will continue to exist, and that is no
strawman argument, that is a cold hard fact.

JF

Received on Friday, 22 November 2013 21:45:24 UTC