Re: Need for culture access with non-mainstream OSes (was Re: Campaign...)

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 11, 2014, at 12:30 PM, cobaco <cobaco@freemen.be> wrote:

> On 2014-01-11 07:24 Mark Watson wrote:
>> On Jan 11, 2014, at 2:18 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb@bollow.ch> wrote:
>>> Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com> wrote:
>>>> On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 7:32 AM, cobaco <cobaco@freemen.be> wrote:
>>>>> On 2014-01-10 07:11 Mark Watson wrote:
>>>>>> FWIW, EME *can* be fully implemented under a copyleft open source
>>>>>> license on platforms that expose the necessary capabilities. That
>>>>>> is presently only Windows, but nontheless.
>
>>>>> we've been over this...
>>>>>
>>>>> EME is only half the system,
>>>>> the other half is an unspecified black box by design
>>>>>
>>>>> so, no, it can not be fully implemented, half the implementation
>>>>> depends on the blessing/help from the CDM-manufacturer, which
>>>>> automatically means anything non-mainstream can forget about it
>
>>>> Please re-read what I said more carefully. When the CDM component is
>>>> included in the platform and available through public APIs, then a
>>>> complete working implementation of client-side content protection
>>>> using EME can be supported in a FOSS browser. I believe this is the
>>>> case (or soon will be) for Windows.
>
>>> Unless you consider “Microsoft Windows” to be “non-mainstream”, this is
>>> not a counterexample to what cobaco wrote.
>>>
>>> W3C must not develop recommendations that will (if they're widely
>>> adopted by the “content industry”) have the effect of making it
>>> impossible to access a significant part of culture (that which is
>>> distributed by the “content industry”) using non-mainstream operating
>>> systems (including non-mainstream versions of Free Software operating
>>> systems)!
>
>> If anything has this effect, it's certainly not W3C recommendations,
>> as we have extensively discussed.
>
> current W3C recommendations haven't had that effect,
> EME+CDM with black box CDM parts *will*
>
> it goes as follows:
> - only half the spec part is specified, the other part is a black box
> - to get to play, you need both parts, which means you'll need to convince the
> black box manufacturers to support your setup
> - simple economics means that inevitably everyone on a non-mainstream platform
> will be left out in the cold for the black box part, and it being a black box
> they won't be able to help themselves out

There are content owners who require such a 'black box' today and the
reach of their content is limited to platforms that support that
capability today. So, (legal) access to that content is not available
on some platforms today. That situation will continue, based on the
economics, as you say, irrespective of what W3C does. W3C
recommendations are not what cause that effect, now or in the future.

With EME we're hoping to make it *easier* to support more platforms,
so if anything EME will have the opposite effect.

Again, all this has been extensively discussed.

...Mark


>
> A spec where half the spec is a black box explicitly tilts the playing field.
> Standards are supposed to level the playing field, not tilt it.
>
> A standards organization that approves 'standards' that tilt the playing field,
> is a standards organization that has lost its credibility .
>
> W3C hasn't fallen yet, but the content industry is definitely trying to push it
> of the cliff.
> --
> Cheers
>

Received on Saturday, 11 January 2014 22:28:13 UTC