RE: Danger of DRM technologies stack

Fred Andrews writes:
>
> Satisfying the use-cases is completely irrelevant.  We do not want the
> EME in its current form and would prefer the work to stop.  We will vote
> to this end and we have the numbers.   The proponents of the EME are
> welcome to publish their work elsewhere, but please do not attempt to
> pass it off as the work of the open web community.

Fred, do you even understand how the W3C works? From your statements above I
am seriously concerned that you do not.

Satisfying the use-cases is exactly the reason why engineers gather at the
W3C to work on technologies together. You cannot just "ignore" the use-cases
because you don't like them: they exist with or without your approval.  I am
not sure who this "we" is you are referring to (outside of a number of vocal
opponents such as yourself), and I personally have never heard of a "vote"
over technical standards at the W3C, nor (AFAIK) a public vote over a W3C
Recommendation - once again, you can use W3C Recommendations or not use them
- they have no legal binding, and implementers are free to adopt or not
adopt any standard published by the W3C. 

This is a political debate, not an engineering one. The technology DOES
exist, it IS being implemented and shipped (today), and this work is
happening in a Consortium of engineers and their companies, under what I and
others believe is the best of many possible scenarios. If you want to
eliminate DRM, go tell the politicians, not the engineers, because AFAIK
what is happening today is perfectly legal, lawful and accepted by many
(perhaps even the majority) as not unreasonable. (Put another way: I am
opposed to lax or non-existent gun-laws, but the solution is to not try and
stop R&D at the gun-makers, but rather to go after the politicians to effect
that change.)

The fact of the matter is that browsers are already implementing EME, and if
you really want to stop them, then go vote at Google or Microsoft: purchase
shares of those companies and make EME a point at the annual share-holders
meetings if you want to vote somewhere. On my open web however, you don't
need somebody else's permission to do something, that's the beauty of the
web being truly open.

JF

Received on Monday, 25 November 2013 15:28:14 UTC