W3C Chief: To Prevent Parts Of The Web From Being Walled Off, We Need To Wall It Off Ourselves
from the wtf? dept
We've been concerned about the ridiculous attempt to add DRM to HTML 5 for some time, and doubly concerned about the W3C's support for the idea. That's been taken up a notch as the CEO of W3C, Jeff Jaffe, has been further defending the program with a very bizarre claim:"The concern that we have is the premium content that owners are protecting using DRM will end up being forever severed from the web," Jaffe told ZDNet at the Cloud World Forum in London.But here's the problem: DRM itself is what allows "walled gardens" and "closed apps." So, if they truly believe that's not good, they should be against adding DRM to HTML 5. The argument made here is truly bizarre. It also presupposes that the web needs content companies more than the content companies need the web. That's almost certainly incorrect. Whenever the content companies have chosen to go in the other direction and to wall off things and lock them up, that's when you see the content flow through to the open web in an unauthorized manner. The way to stop that is for content companies to learn to embrace the web and to recognize, as many in the music world finally did, that DRM is a waste of time. It doesn't stop or even slow down copyright infringement. It just acts as a huge pain in the ass for those who acquired the works in a legitimate and authorized manner.
"We would like the web platform to be a universal platform. We don't think it's good when content finds its way into walled gardens or into closed apps.
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Filed Under: content, copyright, drm, html 5, jeff jaffe, walled gardens
Reader Comments
The First Word
“We are not obligated to support structures that cannot stand on their own.
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You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
NOT that I'm for any DRM in HTML5, but obviously Mike doesn't grasp that DRM plus new ways to annoy with inescapable advertising is MOST of the purpose for the version 5. The happy days of a free and open web are over now that it's being "monetized". It's silly "libertarian" idealism to suppose that giant corporations left unregulated will be reasonable and act in general interests instead of "innovate" to squeeze out every cent from the captive public.
So, two wrong premises mingled here: that people will pay for content if not forced to, and that "new" version 5 has any other purpose than grabbing money.
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Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
Piracy is more about companies not reaching customers more than it is people wanting free shit.
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Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
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Just the latest
I can't decide which is more plainly bullshit: this one, or the nonsense that this is about eliminating the need for proprietary plugins to accomplish DRM.
HTML 5 has so much bad stuff in it outside of this issue that I'm hoping that most sites won't code to the standard at all.
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Can't we just ditch W3C?
If that could happen I would happily support a DRM free browser.
If they are scared of Hollywood walling things off with their own DRM, they would shit themselves if enough people support fragmenting the "open" standard.
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Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
Well you're wrong about the first one. Nobody assumes people pay for content anymore, because like it or not, content is free. People never really did pay for content. You just thought they did.
They paid for services, for the delivery of the content and the mode of delivery. Even now that content has become more obviously free, yes people still pay for the services.
You should learn about the "internet."
(nice use of quotes, btw)
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Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
If your goal is to stop the sharing culture from spreading, DRM will not achieve that end. It actually accelerates it. In the end, fighting sharing is a hopeless battle that doesn't even have to be fought. If you actually shift your revenue streams away from content as a product to content as a service, you won't have to worry about "pirates" that "steal" your "IP".
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Hurray for fear!
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Re: Just the latest
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It's The Connectivity, Stupid!
The Internet doesn't need content providers. It is content providers that need the Internet.
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Browser developers have already indicated they're going separate ways, so for us web developers, it's going to be a nightmare and we'll have to start using conditional statements in our code again, or worse, have three sections dedicated for the browser using the page.
I always said it wouldn't take long before business screws it up for everyone, and it only took about 20 years to see it happen.
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Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
This certainly gives all new meaning to the cake is a lie.
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Re: Re: Just the latest
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Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
Back to that one.
I'm going to kick back and drink my bottled water while I watch CBS through my cable provider and wait for someone to come up with an example of paid products competing with free ones by being better or more convenient.
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Re: Can't we just ditch W3C?
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Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
You don't want to prove them wrong, now do you?
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Who wants DRM?
See? DRM is a lovely tool for vendor lock-in, and not much else.
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LOL. I bet you also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny too.
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Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
Yes you can. This has been proven over and over. iTunes. Netflix. Hulu. Movies themselves.
YOU are the one who can't. Thats because you are a failed creator who has decided to give up because you couldn't hack it, and instead you go on these spiteful attack-rants on those who are actually doing something with their lives.
I'm sorry you are a loser, but the rest of us shouldn't have to pay for your lack of talent and success.
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Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
Yes, that's why people steal music when they could just as easily buy it.
Uh huh.
Nobody believes your dumb fucking bullshit. When will you finally wake up and see that?
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Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
Do you simply read Tom Hayden over and over again and then spit it back out here? Your constant rants against corporations and anything that is commercial and of scale reads like an inarticulate version of The American Future, except even more daft....
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Re: Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
To purchase a track/movie. A subscription. An account. Cough up your credit card info. Expendable cash. Availability on the service you use (if I want everything I'll be signed up to a lot of services). Get some half crippled file that may or may not port to another device (you have to pay again for that). Spam from services. Ads from services.
Alternative
Search for torrent. Download. Scan. It's yours.
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Re: Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
And that's why iTunes makes over 1 billion every year, because people "steal" digital files.
Nobody believes your dumb fucking bullshit. When will you finally wake up and see that?
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Re: Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
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Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
Walking Dead, episode 1 was online for free. I kept watching the rest of the season without cable. Without any coercion, I've bought the first 10 comics and all of the available DVDs.
Its so easy to make a liar out of you!
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Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
So, wrong premise here: that people will pay for content if not forced to
*Ahem*
Bull, ootb. You can't compete with free? Obviously you don't pay attention to your history, at all.
Free networks complained they couldn't compete with cable, which was a PAID subscription back in the day.
Certainly flies in the face of every "can't compete with free" argument ever. Not to mention the whole fact that Coke makes most of their money by selling bottled water.
And it's obvious from your comments that you don't look at much porn. Everyone knows that you have to pay for the good stuff.
and people *DO* pay for content even if they're not forced to. Just the other day I bought a PS Plus membership. Didn't have to, but I got it because it has such good deals, like free games for my PS3 and Vita.
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Re:
So, yes, content companies absolutely need the internet. However, if they weren't on it, the internet would not be harmed at all.
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We are not obligated to support structures that cannot stand on their own.
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Re: It's The Connectivity, Stupid!
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Let them pull their content...
They'll call it pirating, we'll call it privateering. Since they pulled their product from the distribution channels, we replaced the source streams.
Now, take it a step further, crowd fund the purchases, then make the content available for say a buck.
Take that buck and use it to pay the background people, not the studios, not the mpaa/riaa or their counterparts elsewhere. Send it to the mixers, the non-big-name actors, the backup band members, etc...
Then when the big companies complain "Think of the little guys" - they'll stand up for us showing that we've given them more than the big studios ever did.
This is just one possible idea. It rips the profits from the war-mongering assholes, and pays the little people...
Sorta like the common man's Robin Hood.
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Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
I see only one which (of course) is yours: You can't compete with free.
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Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
We've told Blue this over and over again but the crazy copyright lady won't accept even the slightest possibility that we're right because it contradicts her cherished opinion. As I've already pointed out, being overly opinionated stops you from learning. You can't take in information, even to evaluate it, if you're dismissing it out of hand because it contradicts what you believe.
I've seen this over and over again with FAILED content creators, rarely with successful ones.
The successful ones who rail about piracy are going along with the publishers and distributors � the middlemen who lose out when we make our own copies. IPR has NEVER been about the creators, it's always been about the middlemen.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
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Re: Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
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Re: Re: It's The Connectivity, Stupid!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
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Re: Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
There was a time before middlemen. In those days, in the age of monarchies, IPR benefited the monarchies, by giving the monarchy or aristocracy authority over who was permitted to be published, by their whims.
So really, it'a always been about the control over culture.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
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I don't really see what the problem is here
One of the big things for HTML5 is that it's the new, post flash, web. Flash had DRM, and media companies are asking for HTML5 to therefore have DRM. AS such, we don't lose anything.
Also, in that it's recognised that there's pretty much always a way to bypass DRM, then we should be saying is "Fine, have DRM if you want it, because it doesn't do anything". What we actually seem to be saying is "look, DRM can be a headache so we don't want you to use it".
If we vote with our wallets, than DRM will fade out over time as companies focus on added services. As it is, I don't have an issue with them adding DRM if they want to, I just won't use it.
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Re: Re: You're presupposing, as usual, that piracy is small.
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The Last Word
“It's The Connectivity, Stupid!
What drives the Internet is not content, but connectivity. There were other online networks before the Internet--anybody remember Compuserve, Prodigy, the original AOL? Their selling point was their exclusive content, which you couldn't get on the Internet. Yet they were all swept aside, simply because the Internet offered better connectivity between people.The Internet doesn't need content providers. It is content providers that need the Internet.