Netflix, Microsoft, and Google just quietly changed how the web works
theoutline.com
theoutline.com
Self-proclaimed "standard bodies" W3C and WHATWG have failed to address the Web's rampant problems: privacy enforcement standards (or lack thereof), and oligopolistic or even monopolistic concentration of large parts of the web infrastructure in the hands of Google, Facebook, Cloudflare, and very few others, with a lack of incentive to do something about it because of W3C's and WHATWG's financial dependency on the very parties having no interest in changing the status quo.
What W3C and WHATWG do have delivered instead: DRM, and privacy-invading de-facto requirement of JavaScript for even the simplest of interactivity features, and WASM (even more privacy-invading, procedural features, from the guys that brought you JavaScript).
Asymmetrical negotiations in all aspects of society produce asymmetrical outcomes.
I wouldn't assume the "general public" cares at all about DRM/EME on the web. Given the choice between being able to watch Netflix and not, I think the vast majority of people would like the web to be a platform enabled for copyrighted content, including myself. I was happy when DRM came to Linux browsers, not because I am a fan of DRM, but I am a fan of being able to legally pay for and watch copyrighted content. Before that the options were piracy, or not watching content I was interested in. There is no 4th option at this point in time.
I think if the general public had a seat at these negotiations, there would be more support for EME, not less.
I find it odd that for a community that largely works in software or other technology, many HN commenters are so hostile to DRM. Where is the outrage to software-enforced licencing for copyrighted software (much of which is trivially bypassed, like current media DRM)? Its more or less the same, to me. If you want to take a hardline Richard Stallman-esque philosophy, thats perfectly fine, but dont claim that your beliefs represent anything resembling general public sentiment, or even the general sentiment here.
Controversial opinion, flame on.
But that is not what the web should be about at all! Yes in any social gatherings there will be a large corpus of passive participants but we should never just bifurcate the community into consumers and producers because of that. Between the active and passive participants there's a large space of interesting levels of participation, the commentators, remixers, transducers, the ones keeping quiet until they don't and and so forth.
The web should be about this large interactive space where people can exchange and collaborate in any chosen capacity. Not a distribution infrastructure of "content".
So please forget any arguments about what "consumers want to consume" it just promotes this unproductive bifurcation.
"Before the EFF quit, the organization offered a compromise that would have forced rights holders to sign a covenant saying they would not use copyright law to sue people who interacted with their soon-to-be standardized DRM in the course of doing security research or accessibility work. "
Nothing called a “consortium” will ever have the general populace’s best interests in mind.
And there’s no opposing force that could leverage a penalty of any merit.
So they can just do what they like and will earn themselves or their host companies the most money.
Thus the major differences between DRM and DRM-free products are:
1) The DRM-free product you own for the rest of your life. You can legally do format conversions for future proofing your ownership.
2) The DRM product you can use for a time which is usually less than your lifetime. Sometimes the physical product format deteoriates (e.g. DVD) or the file cannot be used anymore (e.g. if Audible shuts down its login servers).
In the case of a streaming provider I do not understand why to go through so much hassle to prohibit private copying. You could just include a text that says "private copying prohibited". This would be an easier way to achieve the same thing.
I have a feeling that there are some people actively misleading copyright owners to use these DRM solutions and pay for their use. After all they only pay for delivering this message to the end user in an overly complicated manner.
Browser DRM is no different from <font> in that respect. The only difference here is that the W3C didn't take years to bend over, but months.
This is like a kid crying "wolf!!" in the zoo.
My point is OP acts as if W3C ever had any authority and the DRM affair took it away. In reality, they never had much authority.
Browser vendors will pretty much do as they please, as they always have.
DRM is just a natural consequence of commercialisation of the web and the pushes and pulls that big money brings into the picture. We won't be going back on this. The best we can hope for is govt regulation and more awareness leading to better choices from the end user, who has the power to shape the web but sadly remains distracted, diverted and ignorant, by and large.
They already do, it browses only Netflix, and they call it an app - at least on all non-general purpose computational devices e.g. smartphones, smart tvs etc.