Proposed Video Copy Protection Scheme For HTML5 Raises W3C Ire 412
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "A new Web standard proposal authored by Google, Microsoft, and Netflix seeks to bring copy protection mechanisms to the Web. The Encrypted Media Extensions draft defines a framework for enabling the playback of protected media content in the Web browser. The proposal is controversial and has raised concern among some parties that are participating in the standards process. In a discussion on the W3C HTML mailing list, critics questioned whether the proposed framework would really provide the level of security demanded by content providers. The aim of the proposal is not to mandate a complete DRM platform, but to provide the necessary components for a generic key-based content decryption system. It is designed to work with pluggable modules that implement the actual decryption mechanisms."
And this is why Flash and Silverlight will survive (Score:5, Interesting)
All this HTML5 hype isn't going to change the fact that the studios are NOT NOW, NOT EVER, NEVER going to support streaming of content on a format with no DRM option.
Impossible in open source is just impossible (Score:5, Interesting)
Compiled code is just very, very hard to read source code. Luckily, we've got these things called computers that can do all sorts of information processing, gathering millions of data points a second and sorting them for humans to interpret.
If it's impossible to implement securely in an open-source program, it's impossible to implement securely, period. There is nothing magical about machine instructions. A compiled program is just harder to interpret. For one person, out of the 7 billion on this planet. And then it's out there, forever and ever.
This entire debate is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of software.
Re:... that content makers demand. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, technically we can, and that's their preferred option ... make all technology subservient to copyright.
Even if every browser maker on the planet suddenly co-opted to every demand by the entertainment industry, people would simply stop using newer web browsers. The demands of the industry and market are such that any initiative like that would insta-fail. That's why they've been slowly increasing the penalties, throwing up road blocks here and there, feigning here and there about what they're up to, negotiating backroom deals with other governments, and making high profile arrests all over the place. They can't win the war by swaying public opinion -- the public is stupid. Very stupid. Monumentally stupid... but not that stupid. And I say this knowing full well that whenever I say "Nobody can be that stupid" in this industry, an example comes along to prove me wrong. Every average everyday thing that even the lobotomized flatworms of the IT world use depends on the internet being a two-way communications medium. They can restrict, throttle, beat, manipulate, and mutilate it to the point that it barely resembles the internet you and I know... but they can't fundamentally erase what it is right now without segmenting the network off from the rest of the world, and spending a ludicrious amount of money to keep it "pure" according to their standards.
As long as two-way packet-based communication is possible on the chunk of wires, routers, and "tubes" known as the internet, Big Copyright will never have a complete victory. I mean, even if they run around with portable execution squads and electric chairs and are given full reign to do whatever they want, ala the Spanish Inquisition... they won't be able to get what they want.. and they'll be utterly oblitherated by the first person who creates a system of communication they can't control.
Call it the Hacker's Law -- there will always be a place for the free exchange of information. Somewhere.
But it won't be the studios that end up paying (Score:4, Interesting)
It won't be the studios worrying about streaming and DRM implementations. It will be services that want to implement different kinds of pricing model, maybe pay-per-view or a NetFlix-style flat rate subscription, which have contractual obligations to protect the content and will inevitably pass on the cost of meeting those obligations to their customers.
DRM is going to happen, on a wide scale, for the foreseeable future, and if it's used responsibly that's not necessarily a bad thing (because without it those new business models are unlikely to work commercially, yet many people apparently prefer to pay for their content in those ways). The only result of not standardising DRM for philosophical reasons will be introducing inefficiency into the supply chain, which will ultimately cost consumers more for no benefit or in the worst case make a business fail instead of offering a service that consumers would have enjoyed.
Re:So what is your suggestion then? (Score:4, Interesting)