The main point of concern for this writer is that companies would move
DRM-restricted media off of the Web.
My answer to that is: so what?
After all, it wasn't (legally) on the Web before. The Web was just fine.
Heck, the fact that they weren't offering a legal source of media was
probably the biggest reason file sharing took off so strongly. They lost!
That's why they gave in and started selling MP3 files without DRM. Because if
they didn't, we were just going to continue sharing the media files
ourselves.
So why should I care if they each start requiring their own specialized app
to play their DRM-restricted media rather than using Web standards? It would
just be more of the same, and they would lose. Plain and simple. So if they
know what's good for them, then they will offer the same media DRM-free, just
like the music industry did.
This won't happen so easily if DRM is considered a standard feature for Web
browsers to support. Hey, remember in the early 2000s when everyone and their
grandma had a stupid plugin they required for their site to work? Yeah, it
would be just like that.
