Re: WebVR and DRM

> On Jul 10, 2017, at 13:12 , Florian Bösch <pyalot@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jul 10, 2017 at 10:02 PM, David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:
> I think we’re going to be a lot more productive if we stay on engineering questions, and the opinion aside. Please? Your messages are coming across more as political point than engineering insight.
> 
> I see harm to society, users and developers, I point out how that harm is affecting us. I see anti-competitive behavior, I point out how that'll not pass forever. The point isn't political. There's no politics in common sense. The currently growing generation of future leaders, lawmakers, policy makers and engineers universally abhor DRM. You believe that harming society on a massive scale for decades while breeding a generation of future leaders with nothing but utter contempt for the content industries anti-competitive antics is going to be without consequence, without a monstrous bill to pay eventually?

Please stop it. Now you are attributing beliefs and motives to others, and stating that people are committing crimes. Stop now. Thank you. This is off-topic and out of place here. Invective does not make your case.

> Why you assume this is necessarily true of WebVR is less clear.
> 
> Timing would be used for audio synchronization in your spatial audio solution. It could also be used to display subtitles and the like (to which you don't have access). The DRM layer assumes that subtitles and the like would be rendered onto the retarded surface, but that's in ignorance of resolution limitations, and that there are font-rendering solutions specifically tailored to VR rendering that provide more readability than simply splatting texels on screen indiscriminately. 

I am not sure where anyone proposed "simply splatting texels on screen indiscriminately”. Perhaps you have a pointer?

Look, I don’t claim that working out how to handle protected content in WebVR is automatic or even easy. But if Louay and others want to work out what the problems are, and particularly what kinds of system designs would make VR and DRM orthogonal systems that can be used independently or together, I wish them well. What I would request that no-one does is (a) pre-judge how and whether it can be done (b) make wild accusations.

David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Monday, 10 July 2017 20:20:15 UTC