[LINK] HTML5's Consumer-Hostility Yet Worse

[Roger Clarke]

[W3C long ago ceased to be consumer-oriented, controlled as it is by 
software companies that are heavily dependent on content, and 
copyright.

[What with governments trying hard to re-architect lower layer 
protocols to exercise control over citizens, and corporations 
re-engineering upper layer protocols and software products to 
exercise control over consumers, the government-industrial complex is 
looming as ever-greater threat to freedoms of every kind.]


DRM in HTML5 is a victory for the open Web, not a defeat
W3C's decision to publish a DRM framework will keep the Web relevant 
and useful.
by Peter Bright - May 11 2013, 5:30am EST
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/05/drm-in-html5-is-a-victory-for-the-open-web-not-a-defeat/
THE WEB
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the group that orchestrates the 
development of Web standards, has today published a Working Draft for 
Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), a framework that will allow the 
delivery of DRM-protected media through the browser without the use 
of plugins such as Flash or Silverlight.

EME does not specify any DRM scheme per se. Rather, it defines a set 
of APIs that allow JavaScript and HTML to interact with 
decryption/protection modules. These modules will tend to be 
platform-specific in one way or another and will contain the core DRM 
technology.

W3C Chief Executive Jeff Jaffe announced W3C's intention yesterday. 
This was met with a swift response from the Electronic Frontier 
Foundation (EFF), which tweeted, "Shame on the W3C: today's standards 
decision paves the way for DRM in the fabric of the open web."

The EFF, along with the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and various 
other groups, has campaigned against the development of the EME 
specification. They signed an open letter voicing their opposition 
and encouraged others to sign a petition against the spec.

The EFF argues that EME runs counter to the philosophy that "the Web 
needs to be a universal ecosystem that is based on open standards and 
fully implementable on equal terms by anyone, anywhere, without 
permission or negotiation." EME undermines the Web's compatibility by 
allowing sites to demand "specific proprietary third-party software 
or even special hardware and particular operating systems."

Further, the groups argue that the Web is moving away from 
proprietary, DRM-capable plugins. The EFF writes that "HTML5 was 
supposed to be better than Flash, and excluding DRM is exactly what 
would make it better," and the petition claims that "Flash and 
Silverlight are finally dying off."

As a practical matter, it's unlikely that the petition could ever be 
meaningful. Even if W3C decided to drop EME, there are enough 
important companies working on the spec-including Netflix, Google, 
and Microsoft-that a common platform will be built. The only 
difference is whether it happens under the W3C umbrella or merely as 
a de facto standard assembled by all the interested parties. Keeping 
it out of W3C might have been a moral victory, but its practical 
implications would sit between slim and none. It doesn't matter if 
browsers implement "W3C EME" or "non-W3C EME" if the technology and 
its capabilities are identical.

These groups are opposed to DRM on principle. The FSF brands systems 
that support DRM as "defective by design," and insofar as DRM can 
impede legally protected fair use of media, it has a point. There's a 
tension between DRM (itself legally protected courtesy of the DMCA) 
and permissions granted by copyright law.

However, it's not clear that EME does anything to exacerbate that 
situation. The users of EME-companies like Netflix-are today, right 
now, already streaming DRM-protected media. It's difficult to imagine 
that any content distributors that are currently distributing 
unprotected media are going to start using DRM merely because there's 
a W3C-approved framework for doing so.

The EME opponents' claim that Flash and Silverlight are dying off has 
an element of technical truth, but it's also disingenuous.

The technical truth? Silverlight has apparently ceased all 
development. Flash is still actively developed, with Adobe outlining 
a ten-year plan for its future development, but the company is also 
investing heavily in HTML5 tooling and is actively working to ensure 
that developers have the software to use HTML5 in situations that 
previously would have used Flash.

It's also true that Adobe has discontinued Flash on smartphones. As a 
result, there's a thriving market of Internet devices that can't use 
Flash or Silverlight at all. These currently represent only a 
minority of Internet-connected devices-about 89 percent of browsing 
is still done on PCs, and an overwhelming majority of them do have 
Flash installed-but it's a minority that's growing.

But the claim is disingenuous when used as an argument against DRM. 
Deprived of the ability to use browser plugins, protected content 
distributors are not, in general, switching to unprotected media. 
Instead, they're switching away from the Web entirely. Want to send 
DRM-protected video to an iPhone? "There's an app for that." Native 
applications on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 can all 
implement DRM, with some platforms, such as Android and Windows 8, 
even offering various APIs and features to assist this.

In other words, the alternative to using DRM in browser plugins on 
the Web is not "abandoning DRM"; it's "abandoning the Web."

It's hard to see how this is in the Web's best interest. Mozilla, in 
particular, is fighting this very outcome. The underlying 
justification for its development of the Firefox OS smartphone 
platform is that it wants to ensure that the Web itself is the 
application platform and that software and services aren't locked 
away in a series of proprietary, platform-specific apps.

And yet it's precisely this outcome that opposition to EME will produce.
Moreover, a case could be made that EME will make it easier for 
content distributors to experiment with-and perhaps eventually switch 
to-DRM-free distribution.

Under the current model, whether it be DRM-capable browser plugins or 
DRM-capable apps, a content distributor such as Netflix has no reason 
to experiment with unprotected content. Users of the site's services 
are already using a DRM-capable platform, and they're unlikely to 
even notice if one or two videos (for example, one of the 
Netflix-produced broadcasts like House of Cards or the forthcoming 
Arrested Development episodes) are unprotected. It wouldn't make a 
difference to them.

That wouldn't be the case if Netflix used an HTML5 distribution 
platform built on top of EME. Some users won't have access to EME, 
either because their browsers don't support the specification at all, 
or because their platform doesn't have a suitable DRM module 
available, or because the DRM modules were explicitly disabled. 
However, every other aspect of the Netflix Web application could work 
in these browsers.

This kind of Netflix Web app would give Netflix a suitable testing 
ground for experimenting with unprotected content. This unprotected 
content would have greater reach and would be accessible to a set of 
users not normally able to use the protected content. It would 
provide a testing ground for a company like Netflix to prove that DRM 
is unnecessary and that by removing DRM, content owners would have 
greater market access and hence greater potential income. Granted, it 
might also come with the risk of prolific piracy and unauthorized 
redistribution, so it might serve only to justify the continued use 
of DRM.

With plugins and apps, there's no meaningful transition to a DRM-free 
world. There's no good way for distributors to test the waters and 
see if unprotected distribution is viable. With EME, there is. EME 
will keep content out of apps and on the Web, and it creates a 
stepping stone to a DRM-free world. That's not hurting the open 
Web-it's working to ensure its continued usefulness and relevance.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University