Content providers will stick with technologies like Flash because HTML5 alone could not provide EME. Lack of such feature set HTML5 backwards because huge content providers would shy away from using web as the dominant platform of media delivery.
The alternative is non-DRM browsers. EME does nothing to protect content, so the "content is their bread and butter" argument doesn't work.
> Content providers will stick with technologies like Flash because HTML5 alone could not provide EME.
Or, they'd give up on EME because all the major platforms were hostile to it and it provides them no defensible value.
> Lack of such feature set HTML5 backwards because huge content providers would shy away from using web as the dominant platform of media delivery.
Including EME sets the web platform back because we no longer have control of that part of our browsers.
That's absurd. Netflix would sooner stop supporting web browsers on desktop OS's before they started allowing DRM-free streaming. Regardless of your own view on DRM, Netflix's licenses to the content they provide almost certainly requires the use of DRM, and the companies that own the content would never be willing to relicense them for DRM-free streaming.
Without EME, Netflix would be relying on proprietary browser plugins forever, and if a platform with a significant userbase appeared that didn't support any form of proprietary plugin, and they wanted to support that platform, they'd develop their own proprietary application for it instead of providing DRM-free streaming (think of how Netflix has applications for mobile OS's and even consoles, both living room consoles and handheld consoles).
Don't be so sure. People were saying exactly this several years ago about music. We owe it to Jobs that he realized it's stupid idea, and put an end to it.
> they'd develop their own proprietary application for it instead of providing DRM-free streaming (think of how Netflix has applications for mobile OS's and even consoles, both living room consoles and handheld consoles).
That seems better to me, than poisoning a whole standard just to get their way, or the highway.
You don't rent out stuff and let people keep it after they stop renting.
> That seems better to me, than poisoning a whole standard just to get their way, or the highway.
The open web has been losing a lot of traction to a closed competitor on iOS and Android. Businesses in China are on WeChat long before they are on the web. Giving up streamed music and video completely to apps would damage the world wide web immensely by shifting more user to over to closed app systems. The web would go the way of the newsgroup.
The open web lost a lot of traction to a closed competitor when it integrated EME.
Your argument here is basically "companies won't use the open web, so we shouldn't have an open web".
Music and video have always been very different markets. Among other things, music has always been available in high quality form without DRM (on CDs). And the consumer habits around music are different than those of video. And as wodenkoto said, we're talking here about streaming video, not purchased music
Don't buy into this nonsense Jobs sainthood. He was a person who went whichever way the wind was blowing.
And they should! They distribute proprietary software, so they should be able to deal with relying on other proprietary software.
This idea that we must sacrifice the ideology of the web for the benefit of large corporations like Netflix is completely insane.
So let them, and let a competitor arise that allows a similar service with DRM-free streaming. That's what the free market is for. I'm not sure why implementers of the open web should care about Netflix's concerns.
> Without EME, Netflix would be relying on proprietary browser plugins forever, and if a platform with a significant userbase appeared that didn't support any form of proprietary plugin, and they wanted to support that platform, they'd develop their own proprietary application for it instead of providing DRM-free streaming (think of how Netflix has applications for mobile OS's and even consoles, both living room consoles and handheld consoles).
So let them do that and suffer the consequences of the inferior user experience that would provide.
The reason you don't see any DRM-free video streaming of non-independent content is because the content producers require DRM. They won't license their content without it. It's quite literally not possible for a DRM-free Netflix competitor to arise, because they'd have no content (or at least, no content worth watching).
And the DRM does absolutely nothing to stop anyone from doing whatever they want with it. DRM punishes paying customers at the expense of being a slight pain-in-the-ass for pirates. Plain and simple: they delivered content to my computer and I have a key to decrypt it - there's nothing stopping me from doing whatever I want with those bits but the time to break their silly DRM scheme.
Had Apple, Google, Netflix et al. the backbone enough to stand up to the media companies, we'd never have been inflicted with such stupidity. Now, Google's taking it upon themselves to start using their own DRM module with their own media - so much for the company that prided itself on Do No Evil.
It's a quirk of classical information theory that you can't transmit a piece of data for a limited period of time. As an approximation, they apply a silly DRM scheme that takes time to break, and ask customers if they are willing to pay for time-limited access.
Unlike with DRM on music downloads or (worse) physical copies of software or games, there's no expectations mismatch here. If you sell a download, the average buyer expects to be able to copy that download, etc. If you stream a movie, the average buyer no more expects to be able to retain a copy than the average movie-ticket holder does. They didn't think they paid for a copy of those bits for all time.
There's nothing stopping someone who visits a movie theater from doing whatever they want with those photons, other than the time to build a sufficiently concealed camera, is there? And pirates do show up to movie premieres with concealed cameras... but would you argue that the security guards stopping you from carrying in a giant camcorder are "punishing paying customers" while not effectively deterring pirates?
If they paying customer would pay anyway, it is punishing, because it requires that they: are limited to the set of browsers that support the DRM scheme, are limited to the platforms that the DRM scheme is available for, and perhaps most importantly, the content provider can dictate rules that may not considered to be entirely fair. E.g. Netflix makes it impossible to temporarily download a copy to view when you don't have a (high-bandwidth) internet connection (e.g. those of us traveling a lot outside their country).
Also, if DRM was not supported by the technology companies, it would be more attractive to come up with a form of subscription that would offer both streaming and downloading.
'Pirating' doesn't have all these downsides.
Of course, on the flip-side for many people DRM-ed 7.99 p/m streaming services are more price-effective than the previous 7.99 per album DRM-free purchases. But you may be left out if you run FreeBSD or Linux on non-x86_64.
How is that punishing a paying customer?
Just like games, pirates don't have issues with online license verification,since they play pirated games that got rid of them.
Obviously vendors did a nice job not only brainwashing the legislator but also the client.
I think that we are remembering "DRM" from the days of DRM'd downloads, which was a terrible thing, and applying that memory here where it does not fit.
I hear what the proponents of DRM-encumbered browsers are saying - media streaming companies control huge chunks of our popular culture, and significant political power, and it's expedient to give in to their demands and stop threatening their business model. But when I look back at the last thousands years of technological progress, I cannot bring myself to say "yes, this is good enough. We should legislatively freeze our technology at early-21st-century levels forever." Our civilisation has benefited from technology so much already, I can't in good conscience deny people the benefits of future technology, even in exchange for the right to stream Game of Thrones.
I'm so sick of seeing Game of Thrones offered as the standard example. Sure, HBO has more more money than any of us would know what to do with. I, on the other hand, make my living working on films with budgets that only amount to a few hundreds of thousands of dollars, and believe me that does not go very far - the lower cost of digital vs. celluloid film is only one line item in the production process, whereas you still have to pay for locations, costumes, props, housing, transport, food, lighting, and a whole bunch of other things before you even get to handing out any wages.
It's very, very hard to monetize a low-budget film. And there's constant downward pressure on production budgets, because indie films don't usually have fat box-office payoffs, and instead depend on small-scale releases in festivals and the art-house cinema circuit, followed by (you hope) some international box office and (you really hope) a long tail of DVD/streaming sales. And that long tail is highly vulnerable to piracy, and the existence of piracy is a big deterrent to investors.
So when you're saying Big Studio makes enough money with their latest superhero franchise movie, or HBO makes enough money with their huge base of cable subscriptions, and so you don't feel bad about pirating Superhero 4 or Game of Thrones well sure, I understand that - none of the producers are in any danger of losing their shirts, everyone on the cast and crew got paid handsomely at the fairly generous rates their guilds/unions have negotiated over the years, and the shareholders still make plenty of money and get a nice dividend check every quarter.
On the other hand, lots of smaller content providers are getting fucked financially because it's a lot harder to answer the question of 'how will investors make their money back?' than it was a few years ago. So spare me the stereotypes of evil media barons trying to stop the brave plucky technological underdogs. That same technology is also massively disruptive to creative professionals and small businesses that work outside the Big Media tent, and actively hinders their ability to make a living.
As you point out, it's already hard to monetize a low-budget film and it's not getting any easier. But that's not because people are freeloaders or because they refuse to allocate their resources responsibly (although both may be true). Ultimately, the real problem is that the world changed, and things that had been difficult became easy. We can't put the genie of general-purpose computing back in the bottle, and I think it would be irresponsible to lock it down in its current state. The only reasonable alternative is to move forward: this will mean a great economic upheaval for artists, just like the invention of the printing press and recorded music and television were, but I don't think that's a deal-killer. Humans have been creating art, with or without economic recompense, for thousands of years, they're not going to stop now.
Humans have been creating art, with or without economic recompense, for thousands of years, they're not going to stop now.
And for the longest time art was the preserve of the wealthiest segment of society that used it as means of keeping the population in line. The idea that people who work in the arts should not be allowed to use technology to monetize the product of their labor is a bunch of self-serving bullshit. Nobody is entitled to have an artwork they produce become successful, but if it does become successful (in terms of people wanting to watch/listen/read) then they're entitled to something in return for the utility their product has provided to the consumer.
How do you rationalize the movie industries increasing year to year profits with the idea that the entertainment industry is no longer viable?
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140328/11442826721/pirac...
Although I don't have numbers, it is my impression that many more musicians / songwriters are making a full time living at their music than in the past. In today's world it is a lot easier to 'go at it alone'.
Making a movie is simply not something you can do on your own - it's orders of magnitusde more complex and expensive, in both time and dollar terms. Also, you can't make money on live performances or merchandising swag in the same fashion that musicians do; it's not impossible to build other streams of revenue besides ticket/rental channels, but it's a lot more difficult and the ancillary revenue potential varies enormously with the subject matter.
OK, so "no longer viable" is perhaps a bit of hyperbole. Perhaps a better word would be "doomed", which is to say that the economic axioms it was built on are no longer as firmly true as once they were, so the industry cannot continue in its current form indefinitely. It may continue for a little while from sheer momentum, and until the future becomes more evenly distributed, and it may eventually reinvent itself (and I hope it does) in a way that is sustainable under these new conditions, but something's got to change.
> Although I don't have numbers, it is my impression that many more musicians / songwriters are making a full time living at their music than in the past.
My impression is that a lot of these musicians and songwriters are finding fans over the Internet, playing small venues and touring small areas, with maybe the help of a manager or two. When most people think of a phrase like 'rock star', they probably imagine someone who finds fans by paying for lots of radio play, who fills stadiums and tours the world with the help of a giant record label who might have hundreds or thousands of artists signed to it. When I say 'the entertainment industry is doomed', I'm heavy on the 'industry' - the giant record labels, the world tours and saturating advertising are doomed because digital reproduction puts a cap on how much money can be extracted from a particular recording. These musicians and songwriters you talk about have already figured out how to earn a living in the post-Internet era, and I hope they can serve as an example to artists in other media who currently believe that the existing industry must be propped up indefinitely so they can earn a living.
I often like to think that we don't really need big budget productions; sure, they're fun but they are stifling our culture with marketing, big name actors, risk/controversy-free scripts.
Distribution is the other big problem. The internet has changed/balanced things and it looks like DRM is just attempts to curb that.
My sincere questions for you:
In the end, do you consider DRM good for you?
Also, aren't you afraid that if we keep going like this, with DRM embedded in our OSes and processors (with no alternatives), we will soon reach a point of no return? I'm talking App-Store like distribution, where they get 30% and handle everything for you, even what you're allowed to say.
No, I'm not afraid about the OS thing to be honest. In ~30 years of using computers the trend has continually been in favor of openness, and I think anxiety over DRM taking over OSes and CPUs is wildly overblown, and largely a psychological projection of sociopolitical anxiety.
I'm talking App-Store like distribution, where they get 30% and handle everything for you, even what you're allowed to say.
Well it's not like the existence of DRM means you lose the ability to give it away in another format if nobody wants to publish it on a commercial platform. This, too, is continually getting better in historical terms, and it's an issue I care very much about personally.
This has always been so with DRM: the only ones it inconveniences are the paying customers. Incredible stupidity.
Sorry, but those are bullshit first world problems. Your life is not significantly impacted by this.
You're not the first person to claim this, so I have to wonder: is there an unspoken guideline for finding the "DRM-free video watchers car" where I can hang out with these VLC-using folks?
So, reading about your no netflix in the train inconvenience, I thought: what a great occasion to read plenty of books, or a handful of long and important books that make you a better/finer human being (e.g. Proust).
And there's so much more to HTML5 than video; I disagree that lack of DRM video support would set the rest of HTML5 back in any way.
EDIT: I guess the sandboxing aspect of EME is a significant improvement over Flash running as a plugin.
I know a lot of elearning content creators that really miss being able to use flash for most things... yeah, the player was horrible, and the formats sucked.. but the content creation experience was so nice. Creating data driven projects with Flex wasn't bad either.
I don't get most of the arguments on this thread. And I'm very much on the fence about DRM as a producer of licensed content, and a consumer of it.
It's not a false equivalence fallacy when the alternate argument only inverts the parameters while violating the same logical foundation. And it's insulting to suggest I (or anyone else) have been brainwashed because my world view is a bit more pragmatic than, "give me all the rights."
I'll eat the down votes for that, no problem, because this shouldn't be an adversarial debate between producers and consumers. There may be better ways to approach acknowledging producer rights and consumer usage, even if the consumers who feel their rights are violated are outnumbered by those who have no problem. Sure, the argument could be made, "if only they knew how their rights are being violated!" That argument could be made about any number of situations where one class feels like they need to lift up another one. And it's just as meaningless unless you do something to change the situation.
DRM is evil, blah blah blah, I get it, as a consumer, I do. I also get that there are arguments for DRM that are perfectly valid from the point of view of the producer, even if the consumer thinks that the producer is off his nut. Surely there are people out there on HN who aren't so polarized by this issue? Sometimes, it feels like the US Congress in here.
Refuse to use Netflix and co.!
>Lack of such feature set HTML5 backwards
No, giving in on DRM set it backwards. The web is intended to be "free and open", which means that DRM is not welcome.