Encrypted Media Extensions will save the web

[drm]

arstechnica.com/business/2017/03/drm-in-html5-is-a-victory-for-the-open-web-not-a-defeat/

DRM in HTML5 is a victory for the open Web, not a defeat

W3C's decision to publish a DRM framework will keep the Web relevant and
useful.

Peter Bright - Mar 6, 2017 9:29 pm UTC

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the group that orchestrates the
development of Web standards, has today published a Working Draft for
Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), a framework that will allow the
delivery of DRM-protected media through the browser without the use of
plugins such as Flash or Silverlight.

EME does not specify any DRM scheme per se. Rather, it defines a set of
APIs that allow JavaScript and HTML to interact with
decryption/protection modules. These modules will tend to be
platform-specific in one way or another and will contain the core DRM
technology.

W3C Chief Executive Jeff Jaffe announced W3C's intention yesterday. This
was met with a swift response from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF), which tweeted, "Shame on the W3C: today's standards decision
paves the way for DRM in the fabric of the open web."

The EFF, along with the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and various other
groups, has campaigned against the development of the EME specification.
They signed an open letter voicing their opposition and encouraged
others to sign a petition against the spec.

The EFF argues that EME runs counter to the philosophy that "the Web
needs to be a universal ecosystem that is based on open standards and
fully implementable on equal terms by anyone, anywhere, without
permission or negotiation." EME undermines the Web's compatibility by
allowing sites to demand "specific proprietary third-party software or
even special hardware and particular operating systems."

Further, the groups argue that the Web is moving away from proprietary,
DRM-capable plugins. The EFF writes that "HTML5 was supposed to be
better than Flash, and excluding DRM is exactly what would make it
better," and the petition claims that "Flash and Silverlight are finally
dying off."

As a practical matter, it's unlikely that the petition could ever be
meaningful. Even if W3C decided to drop EME, there are enough important
companies working on the spec—including Netflix, Google, and
Microsoft—that a common platform will be built. The only difference is
whether it happens under the W3C umbrella or merely as a de facto
standard assembled by all the interested parties. Keeping it out of W3C
might have been a moral victory, but its practical implications would
sit between slim and none. It doesn't matter if browsers implement "W3C
EME" or "non-W3C EME" if the technology and its capabilities are identical.

These groups are opposed to DRM on principle. The FSF brands systems
that support DRM as "defective by design," and insofar as DRM can impede
legally protected fair use of media, it has a point. There's a tension
between DRM (itself legally protected courtesy of the DMCA) and
permissions granted by copyright law.

However, it's not clear that EME does anything to exacerbate that
situation. The users of EME—companies like Netflix—are today, right now,
already streaming DRM-protected media. It's difficult to imagine that
any content distributors that are currently distributing unprotected
media are going to start using DRM merely because there's a W3C-approved
framework for doing so.

The EME opponents' claim that Flash and Silverlight are dying off has an
element of technical truth, but it's also disingenuous.

The technical truth? Silverlight has apparently ceased all development.
Flash is still actively developed, with Adobe outlining a ten-year plan
for its future development, but the company is also investing heavily in
HTML5 tooling and is actively working to ensure that developers have the
software to use HTML5 in situations that previously would have used Flash.

It's also true that Adobe has discontinued Flash on smartphones. As a
result, there's a thriving market of Internet devices that can't use
Flash or Silverlight at all. These currently represent only a minority
of Internet-connected devices—about 89 percent of browsing is still done
on PCs, and an overwhelming majority of them do have Flash installed—but
it's a minority that's growing.

But the claim is disingenuous when used as an argument against DRM.
Deprived of the ability to use browser plugins, protected content
distributors are not, in general, switching to unprotected media.
Instead, they're switching away from the Web entirely. Want to send
DRM-protected video to an iPhone? "There's an app for that." Native
applications on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 can all
implement DRM, with some platforms, such as Android and Windows 8, even
offering various APIs and features to assist this.

In other words, the alternative to using DRM in browser plugins on the
Web is not "abandoning DRM;" it's "abandoning the Web."

It's hard to see how this is in the Web's best interest. Mozilla, in
particular, is fighting this very outcome. The underlying justification
for its development of the Firefox OS smartphone platform is that it
wants to ensure that the Web itself is the application platform and that
software and services aren't locked away in a series of proprietary,
platform-specific apps.

And yet it's precisely this outcome that opposition to EME will produce.

Moreover, a case could be made that EME will make it easier for content
distributors to experiment with—and perhaps eventually switch
to—DRM-free distribution.

Under the current model, whether it be DRM-capable browser plugins or
DRM-capable apps, a content distributor such as Netflix has no reason to
experiment with unprotected content. Users of the site's services are
already using a DRM-capable platform, and they're unlikely to even
notice if one or two videos (for example, one of the Netflix-produced
broadcasts like House of Cards or the forthcoming Arrested Development
episodes) are unprotected. It wouldn't make a difference to them.

That wouldn't be the case if Netflix used an HTML5 distribution platform
built on top of EME. Some users won't have access to EME, either because
their browsers don't support the specification at all, or because their
platform doesn't have a suitable DRM module available, or because the
DRM modules were explicitly disabled. However, every other aspect of the
Netflix Web application could work in these browsers.

This kind of Netflix Web app would give Netflix a suitable testing
ground for experimenting with unprotected content. This unprotected
content would have greater reach and would be accessible to a set of
users not normally able to use the protected content. It would provide a
testing ground for a company like Netflix to prove that DRM is
unnecessary and that by removing DRM, content owners would have greater
market access and hence greater potential income. Granted, it might also
come with the risk of prolific piracy and unauthorized redistribution,
so it might serve only to justify the continued use of DRM.

With plugins and apps, there's no meaningful transition to a DRM-free
world. There's no good way for distributors to test the waters and see
if unprotected distribution is viable. With EME, there is. EME will keep
content out of apps and on the Web, and it creates a stepping stone to a
DRM-free world. That's not hurting the open Web—it's working to ensure
its continued usefulness and relevance.