Protecting open internet: let's keep W3C standards free without DRM
From the translator: this is a translation of an EFF fund article with an analysis of the situation around the proposal to introduce DRM into HTML 5 standards. I found this material important because the problems discussed in it will affect most Intrnet users in our country and the world.
upd: If possible, help change the type of topic to post-translation. I apologize to readers for a technical error in creating a post
This is the new front of the war against digital rights management (DRM) technologies. These technologies, which many people believe exist to enhance copyright, did nothing to help pay creative people. Instead, either as intended or because of the prevailing circumstances, they interfere with the introduction of modern developments, the fair use of technology and competition, the compatibility and the exercise of our rights to our own things.
')
That's why we were shocked when we found out that the initiative under discussion was proposing that the W3C HTML5 Working Group should include the next generation of fundamental web standards DRM. This initiative is called Encrypted Media Extensions-EME . Accepting this offer would be a very dangerous step and should be stopped.
The previous two decades were marked by the struggle of two points of view on the work of the Network. One of them argues that the Network should be a universal ecosystem based on open standards, which it is possible to fully implement to any member of the Network, no matter where he is, on the same conditions without the need to obtain permits or approvals from anyone, no matter where . This technological tradition gave us first HTML and HTTP, and then the technologies that defined the era, such as wikis, search engines, blogs, email, applications written in JavaScript, online maps that can be used in other projects and hundreds of millions special web resources for which the paragraph is too short to list.
Another view was presented by corporations that are trying to take control of the Network with their proprietary extensions. These extensions are represented by technologies such as Adobe flash, Microsoft silverlight and pushed by Apple and other telephone companies with highly closed and limited platforms . These technologies are only available from one source or require permission for an alternative implementation. When these technologies become popular, they poison the open ecosystem around them. As a rule, it is difficult to correctly refer to flash-dependent sites, it is impossible to index, they cannot be translated by machines, are inaccessible for users with disabilities, such sites cannot work on many devices, put the security and privacy of users at risk. Platforms and devices restricting their users stifle important new technologies and market competition.
EME suffers from many of these problems, as it explicitly refuses attention to compatibility issues and requires special third-party proprietary software or even special hardware as well as specific operating systems from websites. All of this is referred to under the general name “data stream decoding modules” and none of them is defined in the EME proposal. The authors of the proposal state that the essence of these modules, their functions, the sources of their distribution, are entirely outside the purview of this proposal and EME itself cannot be considered DRM technology, since not all such modules will be DRM modules. If the user cannot use the proprietary components that the site requires and, therefore, does not have the necessary decoding module, then the contents of the site will not be shown to him. Awful that this is exactly the opposite of the main task of the W3C. W3C creates comprehensible, stanarty-accessible, implementations that do not guarantee portability in order for a multitude of incompatible proprietary software and services available from certain devices or applications to appear. EME is just an initiative that regresses the development of HTML5, which threatens to bring us back to the “bad old days before the Web” with consciously poorly developed portability and compatibility.
It is well known that the open standards community is very suspicious of DRM and the implications of using this technology for software portability and compatibility, so the proposal from Google, Microsoft and Netflix states: "DRM is not added to the HTML5 specification" using EME. It sounds like this: "We are not vampires, but we invite them to your home."
DRM proponents further tell us that EME is not a DRM scheme. However, the author of the proposal, Mark Watson, recognizes that “definitely, our interests are associated with those use cases that most people refer to as DRM” and that implementations require the use of secret information that is outside the specification. It is difficult to support the claim that EME is needed for anything other than DRM.
DRM offers in W3C exist for a simple reason: W3C agrees to indulge Hollywood, who is angry with the Internet for almost the entire time of its existence , and has always demanded to give itself a developed infrastructure, which allows controlling the functioning of users' computers. One gets the feeling that Hollywood will never allow the placement of films on the Web without DRM restrictions. The idea that Hollywood will take its toys and go home is illusory. Every film that Hollywood releases is already available to those who really want to get a pirated copy . iTunes, Amazon, Magnatune and many other vendors selling music and without any DRM. The streaming services Netflix and Spotify are successful because they offer a good, practical alternative distribution model, not because DRM gives them any economic benefit. There is only one logical reason for the Hollywood DRM requirements - the desire of film companies to have the right of veto on the development of new technologies. Film companies use DRM for various restrictions, including a ban on fast-forwarding and strict regional control of recording and playing back their products on different media , and thus creating complex and expensive modes of operation that must "comply" with competing technologies. As a result, a small consortium of media corporations and technical-oriented corporations have the right of veto on technology development .
Too often, technology companies build technology walls against each other, satisfying the vagaries of Hollywood, selling their users along with it. However, open standards are a vaccine against this development. It would be a big mistake for the Web community to leave the open door for Hollywood's ganster and anti-technological culture, infecting it with W3C standards. This undermines the purpose of the existence of HTML5: the creation of open alternatives for all the functionality that was previously absent in the standards. Creation of alternatives, non-limiting devices, incompatibility and opacity, created by platforms such as flash. HTML5 is supposed to be a better flash and eliminating DRM from it will make it really better.
Support the fight against DRM on the web .
Original article:
Original article authors: Peter Eckersley and Seth Schoen
upd: If possible, help change the type of topic to post-translation. I apologize to readers for a technical error in creating a post
This is the new front of the war against digital rights management (DRM) technologies. These technologies, which many people believe exist to enhance copyright, did nothing to help pay creative people. Instead, either as intended or because of the prevailing circumstances, they interfere with the introduction of modern developments, the fair use of technology and competition, the compatibility and the exercise of our rights to our own things.
')
That's why we were shocked when we found out that the initiative under discussion was proposing that the W3C HTML5 Working Group should include the next generation of fundamental web standards DRM. This initiative is called Encrypted Media Extensions-EME . Accepting this offer would be a very dangerous step and should be stopped.
The previous two decades were marked by the struggle of two points of view on the work of the Network. One of them argues that the Network should be a universal ecosystem based on open standards, which it is possible to fully implement to any member of the Network, no matter where he is, on the same conditions without the need to obtain permits or approvals from anyone, no matter where . This technological tradition gave us first HTML and HTTP, and then the technologies that defined the era, such as wikis, search engines, blogs, email, applications written in JavaScript, online maps that can be used in other projects and hundreds of millions special web resources for which the paragraph is too short to list.
Another view was presented by corporations that are trying to take control of the Network with their proprietary extensions. These extensions are represented by technologies such as Adobe flash, Microsoft silverlight and pushed by Apple and other telephone companies with highly closed and limited platforms . These technologies are only available from one source or require permission for an alternative implementation. When these technologies become popular, they poison the open ecosystem around them. As a rule, it is difficult to correctly refer to flash-dependent sites, it is impossible to index, they cannot be translated by machines, are inaccessible for users with disabilities, such sites cannot work on many devices, put the security and privacy of users at risk. Platforms and devices restricting their users stifle important new technologies and market competition.
EME suffers from many of these problems, as it explicitly refuses attention to compatibility issues and requires special third-party proprietary software or even special hardware as well as specific operating systems from websites. All of this is referred to under the general name “data stream decoding modules” and none of them is defined in the EME proposal. The authors of the proposal state that the essence of these modules, their functions, the sources of their distribution, are entirely outside the purview of this proposal and EME itself cannot be considered DRM technology, since not all such modules will be DRM modules. If the user cannot use the proprietary components that the site requires and, therefore, does not have the necessary decoding module, then the contents of the site will not be shown to him. Awful that this is exactly the opposite of the main task of the W3C. W3C creates comprehensible, stanarty-accessible, implementations that do not guarantee portability in order for a multitude of incompatible proprietary software and services available from certain devices or applications to appear. EME is just an initiative that regresses the development of HTML5, which threatens to bring us back to the “bad old days before the Web” with consciously poorly developed portability and compatibility.
It is well known that the open standards community is very suspicious of DRM and the implications of using this technology for software portability and compatibility, so the proposal from Google, Microsoft and Netflix states: "DRM is not added to the HTML5 specification" using EME. It sounds like this: "We are not vampires, but we invite them to your home."
DRM proponents further tell us that EME is not a DRM scheme. However, the author of the proposal, Mark Watson, recognizes that “definitely, our interests are associated with those use cases that most people refer to as DRM” and that implementations require the use of secret information that is outside the specification. It is difficult to support the claim that EME is needed for anything other than DRM.
DRM offers in W3C exist for a simple reason: W3C agrees to indulge Hollywood, who is angry with the Internet for almost the entire time of its existence , and has always demanded to give itself a developed infrastructure, which allows controlling the functioning of users' computers. One gets the feeling that Hollywood will never allow the placement of films on the Web without DRM restrictions. The idea that Hollywood will take its toys and go home is illusory. Every film that Hollywood releases is already available to those who really want to get a pirated copy . iTunes, Amazon, Magnatune and many other vendors selling music and without any DRM. The streaming services Netflix and Spotify are successful because they offer a good, practical alternative distribution model, not because DRM gives them any economic benefit. There is only one logical reason for the Hollywood DRM requirements - the desire of film companies to have the right of veto on the development of new technologies. Film companies use DRM for various restrictions, including a ban on fast-forwarding and strict regional control of recording and playing back their products on different media , and thus creating complex and expensive modes of operation that must "comply" with competing technologies. As a result, a small consortium of media corporations and technical-oriented corporations have the right of veto on technology development .
Too often, technology companies build technology walls against each other, satisfying the vagaries of Hollywood, selling their users along with it. However, open standards are a vaccine against this development. It would be a big mistake for the Web community to leave the open door for Hollywood's ganster and anti-technological culture, infecting it with W3C standards. This undermines the purpose of the existence of HTML5: the creation of open alternatives for all the functionality that was previously absent in the standards. Creation of alternatives, non-limiting devices, incompatibility and opacity, created by platforms such as flash. HTML5 is supposed to be a better flash and eliminating DRM from it will make it really better.
Support the fight against DRM on the web .
Original article:
Original article authors: Peter Eckersley and Seth Schoen
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/179221/
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