back to article It's happening! It's happening! W3C erects DRM as web standard

The World Wide Web Consortium has formally put forward highly controversial digital rights management as a new web standard. Dubbed Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), this anti-piracy mechanism was crafted by engineers from Google, Microsoft, and Netflix, and has been in development for some time. The DRM is supposed to thwart …

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    1. Nick Gibbins

      Re: Oh, please.

      "the W3C is also irrelevant. It hasn't been a forum for engineers and leading industry professionals for a long time,"

      W3C is a standards body, not a "forum for engineers and leading industry professionals"

      "that's why its initiatives have become bloated, unimplimented, and standards have become ad hoc or de facto instead of guided by a deliberate design process"

      Nice generalisation - care to name specific initiatives or standards? In my experience, W3C standards have been remarkably coherent, largely thanks to the work of the Technical Architecture Group.

      If you're talking about standards bloat, look no further than the HTML5 spec - that's effectively been under the control of WHATWG rather than W3C for over a decade.

      In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I've participated in a number of W3C working groups over the last decade and a half, and I'm currently my organisation's representative on W3C's Advisory Committee. In that role, I have already raised formal objections to W3C's involvement with DRM (in the form of EME).

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "like the internet... we thought it would spread democracy and knowledge throughout the world, uniting humanity in a way never before seen. What we got was porn"

    but the internet is for porn?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Remember everybody!

    A free user can not be monetized properly.

    This EME stuff will make ad-blockers useless. You want to take a look at that malicious Java Script snippet ? Well, tough luck! Web pages will be encrypted by DRM and protected by DMCA so the end user will no longer have a say in what he decides to watch. There's a lot of money to be made, folks!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Remember everybody!

      Its very unlikely that EME stuff will make ad-blockers useless. and it also unlikely that web pages will be encrypted by DRM anytime soon.

      Most people use ad-blockers and making them useless will lead to backlash but its very unlikely that EME will stop ad-blockers at all. it seems you have no understanding of what you are saying.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Remember everybody!

        "Its very unlikely that EME stuff will make ad-blockers useless. and it also unlikely that web pages will be encrypted by DRM anytime soon."

        You are way behind the times. That started years ago IME, this W3C theatre piece is just documenting a way to make the parts work together so the corporate overlords dont have trouble taking to each other after the Internet becomes fully encrypted and opaque to the slaves.

        This is the natural next step from the LetsEncrypt, HTTPS-everywhere, TLS-everything campaign coming from these same few players over and over again. "encrypt everything" is their message - no quarter given. everything. But what does encrypted content actually look like at the technical level ... DRM.

    2. Jusme
      Flame

      Re: Remember everybody!

      Despite the downvotes, this is exactly the endgame publishers want: end-to-end control over the delivery and presentation of their (precious) content. They may or may not fully achieve it, but we're certainly well on the road towards it: First HTTPS to protect it in transit, now lockdown of the presentation. The final stage will be browsers refusing to display content that's not "approved" (they're already getting antsy about http sites), then we'll be back to the TV delivery model, with a huge cost of entry and only a few big players to control.

      "I'll just use a free browser then"... But you'll only be able to view hobby sites with it, as all the mainstream sites will be locked out, so most people won't bother.

      "If they block adblockers there will be an outcry"... but the vast majority of people don't care. They happily pay subscription TV services to watch ads, why should the web be any different.

      As soon as there's an option to protect sites it will be used, whatever the content. The age of web-TV is coming - sit and consume what's served up by your masters, no looking behind the curtains, no "fake news" from unapproved sources.

      Don't agree? Time to accept that the internet is now a utility. Mainstream, regulated, sanitized and in the hands of the big boys. The open internet we grew up with will be like amateur radio - still available to those who care, but very much a fringe interest.

      Is it time to leave Earth yet, Pop?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Remember everybody!

        You have no idea how the internet works do you.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Remember everybody!

        The age of TV web is not coming and the internet will never be a utility. Mainstream, regulated, sanitized and in the hands of the big boys.

        NO its not time to accept any of that and never will be.

        you should not accept even if all you have said is unlikely to happen.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @AC - Re: Remember everybody!

          Look at who's a member of W3C, do you think they will give a damn on your acceptance ? As I was saying , there's big money to be made here and they will not be deterred by your acceptance.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @AC - Remember everybody!

            please stop acting like you know what you are talking about

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Remember everybody!

        You and the people who have up voted you are foolish to think that age of web-TV is coming.

        Its really sad you believe that will happen when it wont no offence.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Remember everybody!

          Wanna bet HTML6 will move the markup behind the EME to prevent online (malware) editing? Remember, Google's on the W3C, AND they produce the most popular browser in Chrome, and Mozilla is more or less forced to follow or become insignificant. Does the term "captive market" ring any bells?

  3. MartinB105

    Another reason for me to continue with piracy

    The movie/TV industry isn't interested in providing me with a legal option to purchase and keep video content in my OpenELEC (Linux + Kodi) library, so they won't be losing anything when I (continue to) just pirate whatever movies and TV shows I want.

    The music industry went DRM-free years ago. They get my support.

    1. Lamont Cranston

      Re: Another reason for me to continue with piracy

      I was going to downvote this, as my Kodi library is entirely full of rips of DVDs/Blu-Rays that I own, but then I remembered what a ballache it is ripping a Blu-Ray (and the occasional Disney DVD, that confuses Handbrake), so I'll be upvoting instead.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Another reason for me to continue with piracy

        "and the occasional Disney DVD"

        I stopped buying Disney content when they launched DVDs that forced you to watch unskipable adverts before the film! I find that the 1080p ripped copies on TPB etc don't have this problem...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Sellout

    So 2017 will be remembered as the year Berners-Lee sold out.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Sellout

      More like waved the white flag. He realized he didn't matter anymore. The Wild West is being tamed (as ever) by the robber barons. Money talks, all else walks.

  5. Paul Stimpson

    The thing that concerns me about EME is that it might be possible to use it to "protect" random assets on websites rather than just "streams." I can foresee companies like my bank holding a meeting where someone says "If we use EME on all the assets on our internet banking website, we can stop people cloning them to use on phishing sites." I don't find it hard to imagine legal and branding departments in large companies wanting to use EME for all elements of their corporate branding online to stop their logo being used in any way they don't like and insisting any site that uses their branding in any form of news also protect it.

    Next thing I know, another site stops working on my open source machines. It doesn't matter that the copy of Firefox or Chrome/Chromium I have supports EME on Linux, if the particular plugin a site uses isn't available on my OS then the browser doesn't support it here.

    Microsoft have a history of briefing large organisations (movie and TV content producers) that allowing the playback of their content on open source software is unsafe and will lead to their content being stolen because the OS and software are open source and any part of them could be compromised. At the time, this was clearly beneficial to Silverlight and their server products.

    I'm not a tunnel-vision penguin-fanboy. I use both Windows and Linux in my business and at home; Each has its strengths and list of available software. I have helped a number of people embrace Linux when it fitted their needs. I've seen a lot of people invest serious numbers of hours in improving open source software and I think the competition if gives to proprietary vendors has improved the quality of both camps' offerings. I don't want to see EME used as a back-door way to hold the adoption of OSS back by denying access to things or functionality from users.

  6. Salamamba

    Cory

    Funny that Cory and DRM turns up on El Reg just as I finish reading "Pirate Cinema".

  7. steve 124

    Dreadfully Reaming My Internets

    Anyone remember StarForce? I've got several games that I BOUGHT that I can't use because of that wonderful DRM schema that didn't bother to update itself for Windows 7, since they already had my money.

    I guess this is kind of good news for video ripping. The scene has gotten very lazy lately and most of what you find is WebDLs anyways. This will just force people to go back to Bluray HD rips like God intended. I'm going to look at this as a positive thing. Zero Fks given.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Dreadfully Reaming My Internets

      4K BDRIPs haven't shown up yet. They're learning from the console and smartphone people, where hardware-based chains of trust have kept jailbreaking and pirating to a minimum.

  8. Jim 68
    Pirate

    Fair Use, We Don't Need No Steenkin' Fair Use!

    Why can't people ever get over this "copy protection" nonsense? All DRM does is to hobble reasonable use by legal licensees.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Fair Use, We Don't Need No Steenkin' Fair Use!

      Well, as they say, their content, their rules, unless you want to go back to the commission model.

  9. Spaethon

    All Shall Vote

    My opinion: NO for-profit entity should be allowed to influence any Internet rules/regulations. The decision should either be left in the hands of the global technical community, whether they are W3C members or not (remember that W3C members aren't the only ones using the web. Rather, they are a drop in the bucket)...OR the decision should be left to the whole world to decide. Anyone and everyone in the world who pays for Internet connectivity in any way, and anyone who cares to read this new policy in layman's terms, should be allowed a vote.

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