On 2013/10/08 16:34, Alastair Campbell wrote:
Emmanuel Revah wrote:
Why is that finding a better "thing" is considered as the only way
to avoid W3C's recommendation of EME ?
I'm going to come back to this point, as I think it is key to
progressing.
CURRENT SITUATION:
People producing paid video-content want a protection mechanism. We
all know DRM is not very effective, but the content-providers consider
it effective enough, and don't see a viable alternative.
The video services (Netflix, Google, Amazon prime etc.) have to
provide something the content-providers agree to, and so far that is
DRM. The service providers would like to move away from
Flash/Silverlight, so some form of HTML5 video DRM is inevitable, and
has already happened.
This is key (as you said too). It is not because the industry wants to
move away from X solution that "we" must provide an alternative.
I understand that Flash and Silverlight is not working out for them.
Meanwhile open web standards has progressed, among many things, they
introduced audio/video tags and it's beautiful. I don't care to see
corporate needs spoil this, and it will.
Once EME is an open standard that anyone can implement, everyone that
actually can, will (highly probable). There will also be demand to
protect other forms of content, like images, texts and anything really,
why shouldn't there be ? Maybe I'd like to display HD images on my
photo gallery but need the guarantee that it is impossible to copy. I
cannot see why it would be okay for videos and not still images, text
and other forms of digital content.
[...]
The general public don't care about DRM unless it obviously gets in
the way, so there is no reason to think these businesses approaches
will fail. (See sales figures from Chromecast, iTunes, Apple TV, or
Netflix usage figures.) Any points about "respecting users" fail as
(in those terms) most users don't respect themselves. The friction of
using Flash/Silverlight will become bigger than EME based solutions.
Personally, I never said that DRM/EME and others would not work
commercially. I actually think that for the masses, you could openly
install control-ware on their systems, as long as you provide a myriad
of "free" and convenient services it will generally be accepted. And
it's already the case.
The argument that DRM is commercially accepted is not a valid one. Most
users don't have a clue about what's going on. I've recently given mini
talks about "how the Internet works" and realised that even well
educated people had zero clues about what happens beyond their own
screen. I really mean ZERO clues.
"We" can't expect everyone to understand everything, of course, but "we"
shouldn't take advantage of that either. If we do, we break the trust.
FUTURE:
So the question isn't about whether EME is a good idea, it is:
1. Is it better for HTML5 based DRM to be specced within the W3C?
Those who say yes say "because it's better than Flash" or "If there's
going to be DRM it might as well be in the spec".
Those who say no, say things like "it goes against the W3C principles".
This is a never ending debate, unless we're honest that proponents care
more about corporate business needs than keeping the Web open. Instead
many claim that the W3C has no clear guidelines.
The most honest EME proponent must weigh the benefits of bringing big
media to the web and the security/privacy/openness of the user and the
web. In the end, to be pro EME is to believe that it is more important,
even if by a hair, than keeping the W3C's standards truly open (and
accessible, trustworthy, etc etc).
2. Is there a better alternative that the content-producers will
accept?
Again, I think this question is unhealthy. It's the same question as the
previous one. These questions insinuate that the community owes the
movie/tv/music industry a technical solution within the W3C standards,
even if it bends the rules.
The real question should be:
Is it possible to create a DRM system that does not require users to run
vendor software on their systems ?
If that were the current proposition for EME, I'd have a hard time
arguing against it on the W3C mailing list. Instead the debate is
constantly shifted to "Yes, but what can we do to satisfy their business
needs ?".
--
Emmanuel Revah
http://manurevah.com
