EFF Resigns From W3C After DRM In HTML Is Approved In Secret Vote

from the disappointing dept

This is not a huge surprise, but it's still disappointing to find out that the W3C has officially approved putting DRM into HTML 5 in the form of Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). Some will insist that EME is not technically DRM, but it is the standardizing of how DRM will work in HTML going forward. As we've covered for years, there was significant concern over this plan, but when it was made clear that the MPAA (a relatively new W3C member) required DRM in HTML, and Netflix backed it up strongly, the W3C made it fairly clear that there was no real debate to be had on the issue. Recognizing that DRM was unavoidable, EFF proposed a fairly straightforward covenant, that those participating agree not to use the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA (DMCA 1201) to go after security researchers, who cracked DRM in EME. The W3C already has similar covenants regarding patents, so this didn't seem like a heavy lift. Unfortunately, this proposal was more or less dismissed by the pro-DRM crowd as being an attempt to relitigate the question of DRM itself (which was not true).

Earlier this year, Tim Berners-Lee, who had the final say on things, officially put his stamp of approval on EME without a covenant, leading the EFF to appeal the decision. That appeal has now failed. Unfortunately, the votes on this were kept entirely secret:

So much for transparency.

In Bryan Lunduke's article about this at Network World, he notes that despite the W3C saying that it had asked members if they wanted their votes to be public, with all declining, Cory Doctorow (representing EFF) says that actually EFF was slapped on the wrist for asking W3C members if they would record their votes publicly:

“The W3C did not, to my knowledge as [Advisory Committee] rep, ask members whether they would be OK with having their votes disclosed in this latest poll, and if they had, EFF would certainly have been happy to have its vote in the public record. We feel that this is a minimal step towards transparency in the standards-setting that affects billions of users and will redound for decades to come.”

“By default, all W3C Advisory Committee votes are ‘member-confidential.’ Previously, EFF has secured permission from members to disclose their votes. We have also been censured by the W3C leadership for disclosing even vague sense of a vote (for example, approximate proportions).”

It was eventually revealed that out of 185 members participating in the vote, 108 voted for DRM, 57 voted against, and 20 abstained.

And while the W3C insisted it couldn't reveal who voted for or against the proposal... it had no problem posting "testimonials" from the MPAA, the RIAA, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Microsoft and a few others talking about just how awesome DRM in HTML will be. Incredibly, Netflix even forgot the bullshit talking point that "EME is not DRM" and directly emphasized how "integration of DRM into web browsers delivers improved performance, battery life, reliability, security and privacy." Right, but during this debate we kept getting yelled at by people who said EME is not DRM. So nice of you to admit that was all a lie.

In response to all of this, Cory Doctorow has authored a scathing letter, having the EFF resign from the W3C. It's worth reading.

The W3C is a body that ostensibly operates on consensus. Nevertheless, as the coalition in support of a DRM compromise grew and grew — and the large corporate members continued to reject any meaningful compromise — the W3C leadership persisted in treating EME as topic that could be decided by one side of the debate. In essence, a core of EME proponents was able to impose its will on the Consortium, over the wishes of a sizeable group of objectors — and every person who uses the web. The Director decided to personally override every single objection raised by the members, articulating several benefits that EME offered over the DRM that HTML5 had made impossible.

But those very benefits (such as improvements to accessibility and privacy) depend on the public being able to exercise rights they lose under DRM law — which meant that without the compromise the Director was overriding, none of those benefits could be realized, either. That rejection prompted the first appeal against the Director in W3C history.

In our campaigning on this issue, we have spoken to many, many members' representatives who privately confided their belief that the EME was a terrible idea (generally they used stronger language) and their sincere desire that their employer wasn't on the wrong side of this issue. This is unsurprising. You have to search long and hard to find an independent technologist who believes that DRM is possible, let alone a good idea. Yet, somewhere along the way, the business values of those outside the web got important enough, and the values of technologists who built it got disposable enough, that even the wise elders who make our standards voted for something they know to be a fool's errand.

We believe they will regret that choice. Today, the W3C bequeaths an legally unauditable attack-surface to browsers used by billions of people. They give media companies the power to sue or intimidate away those who might re-purpose video for people with disabilities. They side against the archivists who are scrambling to preserve the public record of our era. The W3C process has been abused by companies that made their fortunes by upsetting the established order, and now, thanks to EME, they’ll be able to ensure no one ever subjects them to the same innovative pressures.

This is a disappointing day for the web, and a black mark on Tim Berners-Lee's reputation and legacy of stewardship over it.

Filed Under: copyright, cory doctorow, drm, eme, security, tim berners-lee, transparency
Companies: drm, eff, mpaa, nbc universal, netflix, riaa

EFF Officially Appeals Tim Berners-Lee Decision On DRM In HTML

from the last-ditch-effort dept

Last week, we wrote about the unfortunate and short-sighted decision by Tim Berners-Lee to move forward with DRM in HTML. To be more exact, the move forward is on Encrypted Media Extensions in HTML, which will allow third party DRM to integrate simply into the web. It's been a foregone conclusion that EME was going to get approved, but there was a smaller fight about whether or not W3C would back a covenant not to sue security and privacy researchers who would be investigating (and sometimes breaking) that encryption. Due to massive pushback from the likes of the MPAA and (unfortunately) Netflix, Tim Berners-Lee rejected this covenant proposal.

In response, W3C member EFF has now filed a notice of appeal on the decision. The crux of the appeal is the claimed benefits of EME that Berners-Lee put forth won't actually be benefits without the freedom of security researchers to audit the technology -- and that the wider W3C membership should have been able to vote on the issue. This appeals process has never been used before at the W3C, even though it's officially part of its charter -- so no one's entirely sure what happens next.

The appeal is worth reading so we're reposting a big chunk of it here:

1. The enhanced privacy protection of a sandbox is only as good as the sandbox, so we need to be able to audit the sandbox.

The privacy-protecting constraints the sandbox imposes on code only work if the constraints can't be bypassed by malicious or defective software. Because security is a process, not a product and because there is no security through obscurity, the claimed benefits of EME's sandbox require continuous, independent verification in the form of adversarial peer review by outside parties who do not face liability when they reveal defects in members' products.

This is the norm with every W3C recommendation: that security researchers are empowered to tell the truth about defects in implementations of our standards. EME is unique among all W3C standards past and present in that DRM laws confer upon W3C members the power to silence security researchers.

EME is said to be respecting of user privacy on the basis of the integrity of its sandboxes. A covenant is absolutely essential to ensuring that integrity.

2. The accessibility considerations of EME omits any consideration of the automated generation of accessibility metadata, and without this, EME's accessibility benefits are constrained to the detriment of people with disabilities.

It's true that EME goes further than other DRM systems in making space available for the addition of metadata that helps people with disabilities use video. However, as EME is intended to restrict the usage and playback of video at web-scale, we must also ask ourselves how metadata that fills that available space will be generated.

For example, EME's metadata channels could be used to embed warnings about upcoming strobe effects in video, which may trigger photosensitive epileptic seizures. Applying such a filter to (say) the entire corpus of videos available to Netflix subscribers who rely on EME to watch their movies would safeguard people with epilepsy from risks ranging from discomfort to severe physical harm.

There is no practical way in which a group of people concerned for those with photosensitive epilepsy could screen all those Netflix videos and annotate them with strobe warnings, or generate them on the fly as video is streamed. By contrast, such a feat could be accomplished with a trivial amount of code. For this code to act on EME-locked videos, EME's restrictions would have to be bypassed.

It is legal to perform this kind of automated accessibility analysis on all the other media and transports that the W3C has ever standardized. Thus the traditional scope of accessibility compliance in a W3C standard -- "is there somewhere to put the accessibility data when you have it?" -- is insufficient here. We must also ask, "Has W3C taken steps to ensure that the generation of accessibility data is not imperiled by its standard?"

There are many kinds of accessibility metadata that could be applied to EME-restricted videos: subtitles, descriptive tracks, translations. The demand for, and utility of, such data far outstrips our whole species' ability to generate it by hand. Even if we all labored for all our days to annotate the videos EME restricts, we would but scratch the surface.

However, in the presence of a covenant, software can do this repetitive work for us, without much expense or effort.

3. The benefits of interoperability can only be realized if implementers are shielded from liability for legitimate activities.

EME only works to render video with the addition of a nonstandard, proprietary component called a Content Decryption Module (CDM). CDM licenses are only available to those who promise not to engage in lawful conduct that incumbents in the market dislike.

For a new market entrant to be competitive, it generally has to offer a new kind of product or service, a novel offering that overcomes the natural disadvantages that come from being an unknown upstart. For example, Apple was able to enter the music industry by engaging in lawful activity that other members of the industry had foresworn. Likewise Netflix still routinely engages in conduct (mailing out DVDs) that DRM advocates deplore, but are powerless to stop, because it is lawful. The entire cable industry -- including Comcast -- owes its existence to the willingness of new market entrants to break with the existing boundaries of "polite behavior."

EME's existence turns on the assertion that premium video playback is essential to the success of any web player. It follows that new players will need premium video playback to succeed -- but new players have never successfully entered a market by advertising a product that is "just like the ones everyone else has, but from someone you've never heard of."

The W3C should not make standards that empower participants to break interoperability. By doing so, EME violates the norm set by every other W3C standard, past and present.

It's unclear to me why Tim Berners-Lee has been so difficult on this issue -- as he's been so good for so long on so many other issues. I understand that not everyone you agree with should ever agree with you on all things, but this seems like a very weird hill to die on.

Filed Under: appeal, drm, eme, html, tim berners-lee
Companies: eff, w3c

Tim Berners-Lee Sells Out His Creation: Officially Supports DRM In HTML

from the this-is-bad dept

For years now, we've discussed the various problems with the push (led by the MPAA, but with some help from Netflix) to officially add DRM to the HTML 5 standard. Now, some will quibble with even that description, as supporters of this proposal insist that it's not actually adding DRM, but rather this "Encrypted Media Extensions" (EME) is merely just a system by which DRM might be implemented, but that's a bunch of semantic hogwash. EME is bringing DRM directly into HTML and killing the dream of a truly open internet. Instead, we get a functionally broken internet. Despite widespread protests and concerns about this, W3C boss (and inventor of the Web), Tim Berners-Lee, has signed off on the proposal. Of course, given the years of criticism over this, that signoff has come with a long and detailed defense of the decision... along with a tiny opening to stop it.

There are many issues underlying this decision, but there are two key ones that we want to discuss here: whether EME is necessary at all and whether or not the W3C should have included a special protection for security researchers.

First, the question of whether or not EME even needs to be in HTML at all. Many -- even those who dislike DRM -- have argued that it was kind of necessary. The underlying argument here is that certain content producers would effectively abandon the web without EME being in HTML5. However, this argument rests on the assumption that the web needs those content producers more than those content producers need the web -- and I'm not convinced that's an accurate portrayal of reality. It is fair to note that, especially with the rise of smart devices from phones to tablets to TVs, you could envision a world in which the big content producers "abandoned" the web and only put their content in proprietary DRM'd apps. And maybe that does happen. But my response to that is... so what? Let them make that decision and perhaps the web itself is a better place. And plenty of other, smarter, more innovative content producers can jump in and fill the gaps, providing all sorts of cool content that doesn't require DRM, until those with outdated views realize they're missing out. Separately, I tend to agree with Cory Doctorow's long-held view that DRM is an attack on basic computing principles -- one that sets up the user as a threat, rather than the person who owns the computer in question. That twisted setup leads to bad outcomes that create harm. That view, however, is clearly not in the majority, and many people admitted it was a foregone conclusion that some form of EME would move forward.

The second issue is much more problematic. A bunch of W3C members had made a clear proposal that if EME is included, there should be a covenant that W3C members will not sue security researchers under Section 1201 of the DMCA should they crack any DRM. There is no reason not to support this. Security researchers should be encouraged to be searching for vulnerabilities in DRM and encryption in order to better protect us all. And, yet, for reasons that no one can quite understand, the W3C has rejected multiple versions of this proposal, often with little discussion or explanation. The final decision from Tim Berners-Lee on this is basically "sure a covenant not to sue would have been nice, and we think companies shouldn't sue, but... since this wasn't raised at the very beginning, we're not supporting it":

We recommend organizations involved in DRM and EME implementations ensure proper security and privacy protection of their users. We also recommend that such organizations not use the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and similar laws around the world to prevent security and privacy research on the specification or on implementations. We invite them to adopt the proposed best practices for security guidelines [7] (or some variation), intended to protect security and privacy researchers. Others might advocate for protection in public policy fora – an area that is outside the scope of W3C which is a technical standards organization. In addition, the prohibition on "circumvention" of technical measures to protect copyright is broader than copyright law's protections against infringement, and it is not our intent to provide a technical hook for those paracopyright provisions.

Given that there was strong support to initially charter this work (without any mention of a covenant) and continued support to successfully provide a specification that meets the technical requirements that were presented, the Director did not feel it appropriate that the request for a covenant from a minority of Members should block the work the Working Group did to develop the specification that they were chartered to develop. Accordingly the Director overruled these objections.

This is unfortunate. What's bizarre is that the supporters of DRM basically refuse to discuss any of this. Even just a few days ago, the Center for Democracy and Technology proposed a last-ditch "very narrow" compromise to protect a limited set of security and privacy researchers (just those examining implementations of w3C specifications for privacy and security flaws.) Netflix flat out rejected this compromise saying that it's "similar to the proposal" that was made a year ago. Even though it's not. It was more narrowly focused and designed to respond to whatever concerns Netflix and others had.

The problem here seemed to be that Netflix and the MPAA realized that they had enough power to push this through without needing to protect security researchers, and just decided "we can do it, so fuck it, let's do it." And Tim Berners-Lee -- who had the ability to block it -- caved in and let it happen. The whole thing is a travesty.

Corry Doctorow has a thorough and detailed response to the W3C's decision that pushes back on many of the claims that the W3C and Berners-Lee have made in support of this decision. Here's just part of it:

We're dismayed to see the W3C literally overrule the concerns of its public interest members, security experts, accessibility members and innovative startup members, putting the institution's thumb on the scales for the large incumbents that dominate the web, ensuring that dominance lasts forever.

This will break people, companies, and projects, and it will be technologists and their lawyers, including the EFF, who will be the ones who'll have to pick up the pieces. We've seen what happens when people and small startups face the wrath of giant corporations whose ire they've aroused. We've seen those people bankrupted, jailed, and personally destroyed.

This was a bad decision done badly, and Tim Berners-Lee, the MPAA and Netflix should be ashamed. The MPAA breaking the open internet I can understand. It's what that organization has wanted to do for over a decade. But Netflix should be a supporter of the open internet, rather than an out and out detractor.

As Cory notes in his post, there is an appeals process, but it's never been used before. The EFF and others are exploring it now, but it's a hail mary process at this point. What a shame.

Filed Under: circumvention, copyright, dmca, drm, eme, html, html 5, research, security, tim berners-lee
Companies: mpaa, netflix, w3c

Unesco Says Adding DRM To HTML Is A Very Bad Idea

from the when-unesco-is-against-you... dept

For years now, we've written about the years-long effort, led by the MPAA and others, to put DRM directly into the standard for HTML5 (via "Encrypted Media Extensions" or EME) which continues to move forward with Tim Berners-Lee acting as if there's nothing that can be done about it. It appears that not everyone agrees. Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has come out strongly against adding DRM to HTML5 in a letter sent to Tim Berners-Lee (found via Boing Boing).

... should Internet browsers become configured to work with EME to act as a framed gateway rather than serving as intrinsically open portals, there could be risks to Rights, to Openness and Accessibility.

Primarily, there is the issue of the Right to seek and receive information. To date, most filtering and blocking of content has been done at the level of the network, whereas the risk now is that this capacity could also become technically effective at the level of the browser. With standardized EME incorporated in the browser, a level of control would cascade to the user interface level. This could possibly undercut the use of circumvention tools to access content that is illegitimately restricted.

While a case can be made for exceptional limitations on accessing certain content, as per international human rights standards such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the same human rights standards are clear that this is should never be a default setting. Unfortunately, many instances of limitation of access are not legitimate in international standards as they do not meet the criteria of legality, necessity and proportionality, and legitimate purpose, and it would be regrettable if standardized EME could end up reinforcing this unfortunate situation.

One would hope that when even organizations like Unesco are speaking up, that the W3C would take a step back from the ledge and reconsider its position.

Filed Under: drm, eme, free speech, human rights
Companies: unesco, w3c

Tim Berners-Lee Endorses DRM In HTML5, Offers Depressingly Weak Defense Of His Decision

from the welcome-to-the-locked-down-web dept

For the last four years, the Web has had to live with a festering wound: the threat of DRM being added to the HTML 5 standard in the form of Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). Here on Techdirt, we've written numerous posts explaining why this is a really stupid idea, as have many, many other people. Despite the clear evidence that EME will be harmful to just about everyone -- except the copyright companies, of course -- the inventor of the Web, and director of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has just given his blessing to the idea:

The question which has been debated around the net is whether W3C should endorse the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) standard which allows a web page to include encrypted content, by connecting an existing underlying Digital Rights Management (DRM) system in the underlying platform. Some people have protested "no", but in fact I decided the actual logical answer is "yes". As many people have been so fervent in their demonstrations, I feel I owe it to them to explain the logic.

He does so in a long, rather rambling post that signally fails to convince. Its main argument is defeatism: DRM exists, the DMCA exists, copyright exists, so we'll just have to go along with them:

could W3C make a stand and just because DRM is a bad thing for users, could just refuse to work on DRM and push back wherever they could on it? Well, that would again not have any effect, because the W3C is not a court or an enforcement agency. W3C is a place for people to talk, and forge consensus over great new technology for the web. Yes, there is an argument made that in any case, W3C should just stand up against DRM, but we, like Canute, understand our power is limited.

But there's a world of difference between recognizing that DRM exists, and giving it W3C's endorsement. Refusing to incorporate DRM in HTML5 would send a strong signal that it has no place in an open Internet, which would help other efforts to get rid of it completely. That's a realistic aim, for reasons that Berners-Lee himself mentions:

we have seen [the music] industry move consciously from a DRM-based model to an unencrypted model, where often the buyer's email address may be put in a watermark, but there is no DRM.

In other words, an industry that hitherto claimed that DRM was indispensable, has now moved to another approach that does not require it. The video industry could do exactly the same, and refusing to include EME in HTML5 would be a great way of encouraging them to do so. Instead, by making DRM an official part of the Web, Berners-Lee has almost guaranteed that companies will stick with it.

Aside from a fatalistic acceptance of DRM's inevitability, Berners-Lee's main argument seems to be that EME allows the user's privacy to be protected better than other approaches. That's a noble aim, but his reasoning doesn't stand up to scrutiny. He says:

If [video companies] put it on the web using EME, they will get to record that the user unlocked the movie. The browser though, in the EME system, can limit the amount of access the DRM code has, and can prevent it "phoning home" with more details. (The web page may also monitor and report on the user, but that can be detected and monitored as that code is not part of the "DRM blob")

In fact there are various ways that a Web page can identify and track a user. And if the content is being streamed, the company will inevitably know exactly what is being watched when, so Berners-Lee's argument that EME is better than a closed-source app, which could be used to profile a user, is not true. Moreover, harping on about the disadvantages of closed-source systems is disingenuous, since the DRM modules used with EME are all closed source.

Also deeply disappointing is Berners-Lee's failure to recognize the seriousness of the threat that EME represents to security researchers. The problem is that once DRM enters the equation, the DMCA comes into play, with heavy penalties for those who dare to reveal flaws, as the EFF explained two years ago. The EFF came up with a simple solution that would at least have limited the damage the DMCA inflicts here:

a binding promise that W3C members would have to sign as a condition of continuing the DRM work at the W3C, and once they do, they not be able to use the DMCA or laws like it to threaten security researchers.

Berners-Lee's support for this idea is feeble:

There is currently (2017-02) a related effort at W3C to encourage companies to set up "bug bounty" programs to the extent that at least they guarantee immunity from prosecution to security researchers who find and report bugs in their systems. While W3C can encourage this, it can only provide guidelines, and cannot change the law. I encourage those who think this is important to help find a common set of best practice guidelines which companies will agree to.

One of the biggest problems with the defense of his position is that Berners-Lee acknowledges only in passing one of the most serious threats that DRM in HTML5 represents to the open Web. Talking about concerns that DRM for videos could spread to text, he writes:

For books, yes this could be a problem, because there have been a large number of closed non-web devices which people are used to, and for which the publishers are used to using DRM. For many the physical devices have been replaced by apps, including DRM, on general purpose devices like closed phones or open computers. We can hope that the industry, in moving to a web model, will also give up DRM, but it isn't clear.

So he admits that EME may well be used for locking down e-book texts online. But there is no difference between an e-book text and a Web page, so Berners-Lee is tacitly admitting that DRM could be applied to basic Web pages. An EFF post spelt out what that would mean in practice:

A Web where you cannot cut and paste text; where your browser can't "Save As..." an image; where the "allowed" uses of saved files are monitored beyond the browser; where JavaScript is sealed away in opaque tombs; and maybe even where we can no longer effectively "View Source" on some sites, is a very different Web from the one we have today.

It's also totally different from the Web that Berners-Lee invented in 1989, and then generously gave away for the world to enjoy and develop. It's truly sad to see him acquiescing in a move that could destroy the very thing that made the Web such a wonderfully rich and universal medium -- its openness.

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Filed Under: drm, eme, html, html5, tim berners-lee
Companies: w3c

The Codification Of Web DRM As A Censorship Tool

from the exceptions-that-create-a-rule dept

The ongoing fight at the W3C over Encrypted Media Extensions -- the HTML5 DRM scheme that several companies want ensconced in web standards -- took two worrying turns recently. Firstly, Google slipped an important change into the latest Chrome update that removed the ability to disable its implementation of EME, further neutering the weak argument of supporters that the DRM is optional. But the other development is even more interesting -- and concerning:

Dozens of W3C members -- and hundreds of security professionals -- have asked the W3C to amend its policies so that its members can't use EME to silence security researchers and whistleblowers who want to warn web users that they are in danger from security vulnerabilities in browsers.

So far, the W3C has stonewalled on this. This weekend, the W3C executive announced that it would not make such an agreement part of the EME work, and endorsed the idea that the W3C should participate in creating new legal rights for companies to decide which true facts about browser defects can be disclosed and under what circumstances.

One of the major objections to EME has been the fact that, due to the anti-circumvention copyright laws of several countries, it would quickly become a tool for companies to censor or punish security researchers who find vulnerabilities in their software. The director of the standards body called for a new consensus solution to this problem but, unsurprisingly, "the team was unable to find such a resolution." So the new approach will be a forced compromise of sorts in which, instead of attempting to carve out clear and broad protections for security research, they will work to establish narrower protections only for those who follow a set of best practices for reporting vulnerabilities. In the words of one supporter of the plan, it "won't make the world perfect, but we believe it is an achievable and worthwhile goal."

But this is not a real compromise. Rather, it's a tacit endorsement of the use of DRM for censoring security researchers. Because the argument is not about to what degree such use is acceptable, but whether such use is appropriate at all. It's not, but this legitimizes the idea that it is.

Remember: it's only illegal to circumvent DRM due to copyright law, which is not supposed to have anything to do with the act of exploring and researching software and publishing findings about how it functions. On paper, that's a side effect (though obviously a happy and intentional side effect for many DRM proponents). The argument at the W3C did not start because of an official plan to give software vendors a way to censor security research, but because that would be the ultimate effect of EME in many places thanks to copyright law. Codifying a set of practices for permissible security disclosures might be "better" than having no exception at all in that narrow practical sense, but it's also worse for effectively declaring that to be an acceptable application of DRM technology in the first place. It could even make things worse overall, arming companies with a classic "they should have used the proper channels" argument.

In other words, this is a pure example of the often-misunderstood idea of an exception that proves a rule -- in this case, the rule that DRM is a way to control security researchers.

Of course, security research isn't the only thing at stake. Cory Doctorow was active on the mailing list in response to the announcement, pointing out the significant concerns raised by people who need special accessibility tools for various impairments, and the lack of substantial response:

The document with accessibility use-cases is quite specific, while all the dismissals of it have been very vague, and made appeals to authority ("technical experts who are passionate advocates for accessibility who have carefully assessed the technology over years have declared that there isn't a problem") rather than addressing those issues.

How, for example, would the 1 in 4000 people with photosensitive epilepsy be able to do lookaheads in videos to ensure that upcoming sequences passed the Harding Test without being able to decrypt the stream and post-process it through their own safety software? How would someone who was colorblind use Dankam to make realtime adjustments to the gamut of videos to accommodate them to the idiosyncrasies of their vision and neurology?

I would welcome substantive discussion on these issues -- rather than perfunctory dismissals. The fact that W3C members who specialize in providing adaptive technology to people with visual impairments on three continents have asked the Director to ensure that EME doesn't interfere with their work warrants a substantive reply.

For the moment, it doesn't look like any clear resolution to this debate is on the horizon inside the W3C. But these latest moves raise the concern that the pro-DRM faction will quietly move forward with making EME the norm (Doctorow also questioned the schedule for this stuff, and whether these "best practices" for security research will lag behind the publication of the standard). Of course, the best solution would be to reform copyright and get rid of the anti-circumvention laws that make this an issue in the first place.

Filed Under: browsers, drm, eme, exceptions, html 5, research, security
Companies: google, w3c

And Here We Go: Mozilla Felt Pressured Into Adopting DRM In HTML5

from the a-broken-system dept

We've written a few times about the unfortunate decision by the W3C to adopt DRM in HTML5 in an effort to keep Hollywood happy. While Tim Berners-Lee and others at W3C have tried to defend their reasons for doing so, they're all based on the faulty premise that somehow the internet needs Hollywood more than Hollywood needs the internet. The reverse is true, but Hollywood has convinced too many people of its own importance to the internet. Because of that -- along with the agreed-upon fact that today's plugin/extension system is a complete disaster from technological and security standpoints -- the W3C, pressured by a bunch of big companies, agreed to put DRM into the next generation of HTML (and don't buy their argument that it's not actually DRM -- the only purpose that Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) serves is to enable DRM).

Today there's a lot of discussion because Mozilla, makers of the popular (and open source) Firefox browser, have posted two separate blog posts about how they feel forced to adopt this DRM even though they hate basically everything about it. Mozilla's argument is not crazy. They're worried that by not adopting these standards, while all other browsers do, people will just shift to those other browsers. And beyond just losing market share, Mozilla has a point in noting that the way other browsers implement EME will be less secure than the way that Mozilla is doing it.

We have designed an implementation of the W3C EME specification that satisfies the requirements of the content industry while attempting to give users as much control and transparency as possible. Due to the architecture of the W3C EME specification we are forced to utilize a proprietary closed-source CDM as well. Mozilla selected Adobe to supply this CDM for Firefox because Adobe has contracts with major content providers that will allow Firefox to play restricted content via the Adobe CDM.

Firefox does not load this module directly. Instead, we wrap it into an open-source sandbox. In our implementation, the CDM will have no access to the user's hard drive or the network. Instead, the sandbox will provide the CDM only with communication mechanism with Firefox for receiving encrypted data and for displaying the results.

Traditionally, to implement node-locking DRM systems collect identifiable information about the user's device and will refuse to play back the content if the content or the CDM are moved to a different device.

By contrast, in Firefox the sandbox prohibits the CDM from fingerprinting the user's device. Instead, the CDM asks the sandbox to supply a per-device unique identifier. This sandbox-generated unique identifier allows the CDM to bind content to a single device as the content industry insists on, but it does so without revealing additional information about the user or the user's device. In addition, we vary this unique identifier per site (each site is presented a different device identifier) to make it more difficult to track users across sites with this identifier.

Mozilla is also making it opt-in -- so that everyone will have the choice to choose whether or not to activate the DRM implementation. Also, kudos to Mozilla for not taking the W3C path of pretending that EME isn't DRM. Mozilla is quite upfront that this is DRM and that they're uncomfortable with this. As Andreas Gal says:

we would much prefer a world and a Web without DRM...

But, Mozilla feels that users "need it to access content they want." Mitchell Baker similarly notes:

The new version of DRM uses the acronyms “EME” and “CDM.” At Mozilla we think this new implementation contains the same deep flaws as the old system. It doesn’t strike the correct balance between protecting individual people and protecting digital content. The content providers require that a key part of the system be closed source, something that goes against Mozilla’s fundamental approach.

Unfortunately, it appears that even though this is the case, Mozilla still believes that the internet needs Hollywood's locked up content more than Hollywood needs to adapt to the internet. That's too bad. Cory Doctorow has a very detailed discussion of why he thinks Mozilla made a mistake, while acknowledging all of the reasons why they did what they did. More importantly, he lists a number of additional things that Mozilla should do to improve the situation. I'll summarize those four things, because I agree wholeheartedly:

1. Protect security researchers: Thanks to the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA, any security research into Adobe's DRM may be a form of infringement. As Cory notes, Mozilla should demand that Adobe issue a covenant not to sue security researchers or developers who find vulnerabilities.
2. Educate users: Teach everyone (including Hollywood, but mainly the public) why DRM is dangerous and harms security and privacy online. Personally, I'd add that Mozilla could also teach people why DRM is simply not necessary.
3. Research and publish the case for DRM: This goes back to the question of who really needs it. Hollywood thinks they do, but I don't think that's really true. As Cory says, Mozilla should look at the actual data to see if there truly is a use case for DRM.
4. Formulate and articulate a DRM policy: Basically don't make these kinds of decisions ad hoc -- but have a clear policy on how and when decisions like this get made.

For years, the music industry insisted it needed DRM, and folks like Apple catered to them -- and that actually just helped Apple have more power over the music industry. Finally, the music industry shed DRM and it had almost no impact. Today, the book industry has the same issue, demanding DRM... and basically handing market power to Amazon in providing that DRM. It's amazing that Hollywood still insists it needs DRM. It does not. Unfortunately, it by agreeing to implement DRM here, it means it will take much longer for Hollywood to learn this lesson.

Filed Under: drm, eme, firefox, hollywood, html5
Companies: mozilla