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.

"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.

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.

Filed Under: content, copyright, drm, html 5, jeff jaffe, walled gardens