[autonomo.us] Keep crippleware (DRM) out of HTML5 standards

[Danyl Strype]

Kia ora koutou

A group of companies, including Microsoft, Google, NetFlix and the
BCC, are attempting to build what I call crippleware ("DRM" or
"Digital Rights Management") into HTML5 - the open standards which
define the Web - with a proposal called EME (Encrypted Media
Extensions). It's very important that the W3C (the World Wide Web
Consortium, who govern the HTML standards) hear strong opposition from
everyone who cares about an "open and upcapturable internet" (to quote
InternetNZ).

Having standards defined by a non-commercial public body like the W3C
is what we mean by the phrase "open standards". In contrast,
"proprietary standards" exist when commercial products like Adobe
Flash become de facto standards by doing something first, giving one
company power to change the standard on a whim, in ways that privilege
them and their commercial partners. One of the main goals of defining
HTML5 was to replace de facto standards (like Flash and MS
Silverlight) with open standards for multimedia on the web.

Peter Eckersley and Seth Schoen of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
"W3C is there to create comprehensible, publicly-implementable
standards that will guarantee interoperability, not to facilitate an
explosion of new mutually-incompatible software and of sites and
services that can only be accessed by particular devices or
applications. But EME is a proposal to bring exactly that
dysfunctional dynamic into HTML5, even risking a return to the "bad
old days, before the Web" of deliberately limited interoperability."

The HTML standards (currently at version 5, thus HTML5) are what allow
developers to be sure that web browsers and websites speak the same
language. This is important for web developers, because they can make
a website which supports the standards, confident that people will be
able to to use it no matter which web browser they like to use. Also,
programmers who work on web browsers can improve their software with
confidence, knowing that as long as their browser supports the
standards, it will work properly with any website. While it's true
that not all browsers or websites have full support for HTML5 yet,
it's in the best interests of everyone that the majority of developers
continue to work towards that goal.

Broad support for HTML5 will make it hard for any one browser to
monopolize the web, simply by being the only one whose proprietary
standards all websites work with (yes, I'm looking at you MS Internet
Explorer). It will make it hard for a handful of websites to dominate
the web, simply by being the only ones that works well with all
browsers (yes, I'm looking at you Google, and FaceBook too). Letting
DRM crippleware requirements in through the back door, under the cover
of EME, risks allowing a handful of giant companies to achieve
monopoly power and dominance over the web anyway.

Let's be clear, the EME proposal is not about privacy or security for
users. There are plenty of open standards for making sure your email
is private (eg OpenPGP), and your online banking is secure (eg SSL).
This is about "encrypted media", online music and video that audiences
can't enjoy unless they allow their computer to be compromised by
EME-enabled crippleware. As Cory Doctorow points out, people have
rejected such DRM crippleware at every opportunity, and its proponents
must not be allowed to hijack public standards to force it on them.

Doctorow says:
"The W3C has a duty to send the DRM-peddlers packing, just as the US
courts did in the case of digital TV. There is no market for DRM, no
public purpose served by granting a veto to unaccountable,
shortsighted media giants who dream of a world where your mouse rings
a cash-register with every click and disruption is something that
happens to other people, not them."

Please the support Defective By Design, and help build a broad public
campaign for a web infrastructure that serves the public good, and
creates a level playing field amongst companies who work on the web.
You can sign their petition here:
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5

More info:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/defend-open-web-keep-drm-out-w3c-standards

Feel free to forward this email to anyone you think might be
supportive. Please help us spread the word.

He mihi nui

--
Danyl Strype
Community Developer
Disintermedia.net.nz/strype

"Geeks are those who partake in our culture."
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"Uncomfortable alliances are not just necessary; they reflect and
speak to the tremendous possibility of our political moment."
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http://www.nationofchange.org/new-radical-alliances-new-era-1337004193

"Both Marxists and Chicago-school libertarian economists can agree
that free software is the best model."
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