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Comment by cheald | Hacker News Reader

Hope you also stop watching all movies and television, buying ebooks, and purchasing or streaming music, because otherwise you're just funding the entities who are actually the ones driving the quest for HTML5 DRM extensions.

I've said it before, I'll say it again - attacking Netflix is like boycotting the grocery store because of the nutritional content of the food they sell.

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Indeed. I don't know who's behind this site, but reading this screed makes me feel embarrassed for them. What do they expect Netflix to do in response to this? Do they believe Netflix is some Dickensian villain who just wants to make everybody miserable through DRM?

I really doubt Netflix cares that much about DRM. Probably a lot of people there would rather not have it. But they can't have a business without content, and the content owners demand DRM.

If you were in Netflix's position, would you say, "Well, there's no way to do this without DRM, so I may as well close up shop"?

I wonder why Netflix even needs to stream through a web-browser anymore. It's easy to install apps on all major mobile and desktop platforms.

netflix is the us company to which drm in html5 is the most beneficial as they're the business using it the most. that doesnt look like a grocery store to me. (the analogy is pretty off course anyways)

Nope, the movie studios are the companies to which DRM is most beneficial. Netflix just happens to currently be the biggest distributor.

Let's do a little thought experiment: Let's say #CancelNetflix goes massively huge and Netflix goes out of business next week. Do you think that's actually going to keep DRM off the web? (The studios would be ecstatic at this outcome.)

yes actually, it would - without any really working online distribution system, no amount of money can force W3C to implement DRMs since there is point.

but that would also keep netflix off the web/tv, which is what, I presume, you and many do not want to see happening (since obviously, if they disappear, getting content is even harder than it is now)

HTML5 DRM is already in wide distribution via Widevine, which is used by Google Play in addition to YouTube, Netflix, Blockbuster, and Vudu. It's embedded in millions of devices and distributed to millions of client desktops. The W3C's ratification or rejection of the technology isn't going to stop its spread, or the desire that consumers have for streaming video.

Netflix disappearing would be inconvenient for consumers, but the vacuum left by them would be rapidly filled by a competitor happy to acquiesce to the studios' DRM demands in order to get their replacement product to market the fastest.

Widevine is owned by Google. Google also owns the biggest mobile platform and the biggest desktop browser, and is making a strong push into owning the living room through devices like the Chromecast, as well. I will happily argue that the W3C's acceptance of HTML5 DRM (or Netflix's work towards developing a workable spec) is utterly irrelevant to its inevitable deployment across the connected internet.

The HTML5 spec is about allowing for pluggable CDMs. It failing isn't going to stop the actual deployment of CDMs and their enabling of DRM-protected content on the internet. The CDMs already exist, are already deployed, and aren't going away. We can either have a unified way to use them, or we can just continue to slog on through a bunch of crappy solutions like we've been doing for the last decade, but they just aren't going away, period. Making Netflix out to be the bad guy here is naive at best, and malicious at worst.

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